The bells at a Shropshire church will ring out again for the first time in 50 years after an appeal launched to restore them to their former glory received a massive cash boost.
The Morville Bell Project has hit its £80,000 target to restore the bells in the tower of St Gregory the Great church after it received a £21,000 grant from the Sita Trust.
The money will be spent on restoring the six original bells and adding two smaller bells to complete a full octave.
The bells last rang out in September 1954 for the wedding of a village bell ringer, but fell silent due to serious concerns over the decaying wooden bellframe.
Major structural work carried out on the tower of the grade 1 listed building made the restoration of the bells a possibility and the project was set up in 2006 by a group of villagers who were keen on learning bell ringing.
In its first year, the project raised £25,000 from various fundraising events which sufficiently impressed many grant-making bodies to offer their support.
The Sita Trust provides funding to environmental and community improvement projects that lie within a 10-mile radius of their active landfill sites.
The project’s secretary, Ian Rowe, said it was a magnificent achievement for a parish of only 300 people to raise the funds.
“”Subject to approval by the Hereford Diocesan Office, we hope to have the refurbishment work start in January with completion by May 2009,” he added.
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