image of St Jude's, Randwick

Randwick bellringers

The St Jude's Society of Bellringers was founded on 4 October 1864, and has been active ever since.

Thanks to a grant from the Centenary of Federation Community Projects fund and from generous donations from the parish, the community and local businesses, the rusty flat steel bells were replaced with a new ring of 8 Taylor's bells in 2001. The tenor and seventh of the old set of eight steel bells have remained on the St Jude's site. The six smaller old steel bells have been relocated to the Monastery of Holy Transfiguration, Richardson Road, Bombala NSW. They are hung dead and rung in the manner of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The weights (without headstock) of the new bells are as follows:

Number Weight
Treble 4cwt 0qtrs 18lbs
2 4cwt 0qtrs 24lbs
3 4cwt 3qtrs 0lbs
4 4cwt 3qtrs 26lbs
5 6cwt 0qtrs 19lbs
6 7cwt 2qtrs 10lbs
7 10cwt 2qtrs 13lbs
Tenor 14cwt 1qtrs 25lbs

Randwick is in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney, and can be easily reached by the L2 Randwick tram or the 374 Coogee bus from Central.

Tenor bell at St Jude's Randwick

The Randwick tenor at Taylor's Bellfoundry

Tidying our tower

Ute laden with wheels

Ron Shepherd and Ross Langford-Brown (photo courtesy Jim Doyle)

After 20 years of dormancy, the old bell wheels, from St Jude's original bells, have found a new home. The above photo shows Ross Langford-Brown saying goodbye to the wheels as Ron Shepherd prepares to take them away in his trusty ute. Who knows where they will go to next?

Ross Langford-Brown
29 June 2020

Tolling the Tenor on ANZAC Day 2020

In the belfry

Ross Langford-Brown fitting the muffle

In the ringing room

Angus Gilchrist during the tolling.

Andrew Schmidt, our Rector, asked whether the tenor could be tolled on ANZAC Day. The original idea was for a 6 am ring but this was felt a little early so, after discussion with the local RSL and our bishop, a 9 am ring was settled on. A muffle was placed on the tenor on Friday 24th and the tenor rung up ready for ANZAC Day. At 9 am on a calm and quiet ANZAC Day, Angus Gilchrist tolled the tenor 105 times (yes, he stood the bell at backstroke!) and it sounded wonderful. Flyers outlining the tolling had been placed in near-by letter boxes but whether any neighbours stood to listen is not known.

We believe that this was a fitting contribution to a COVID-19 affected ANZAC Day.

Ross Langford-Brown

This page supplements the ANZAB Tower Directory, and records further information about the tower, its bells and ringers.

Some of this has been provided by local ringers, but most is historical and has been gathered by the ANZAB Webmaster since 2002.

Tower officers are encouraged to submit material for inclusion on this page, or suggest changes to its content.

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