A Brief History
The Jack and Jill House was built by “Bulldog” the shed builders circa 1991. It was purchased from the Fontley Garden Centre near Fareham in March 1992. The idea of converting it into a campanile was considered at the time of purchase, but not to be done before our young children had outgrown it.
By 1998 our children had outgrown the J&J house, it was by then occupied by bicycles and spiders! During that summer I had the good fortune to bump into Paul Schofield who owned the Alverstoke Campanile (a ring of 8 flowerpots). He offered them to me as he was moving house, I gladly took them off his hands and stored them in the J&J house.
They stayed there for about a year because we were in the middle of building an extension on our house. In the spring of 1999 I built a new frame and adapted the headstocks to fit. Unfortunately the 2nd & 4th were badly out of tune and the 5th cracked on installation. It became obvious that it was going to be almost impossible to find suitable replacements for these 3 bells, so I decided to look for another alternative.
In April 2000 all 8 bells were rung for the first time, there were only a few teething troubles, the main one being the reliability of the clappers. Once the modifications had been made we were ready for the first Quarter Peal.
I was very fortunate to be able to have the talents of Graham Wright, Matthew Higby, Roy LeMarechal, Tom & Margaret Chapman Charlotte Edmond, Martin Hough, and myself for the first Quarter. We scored 1250 Yorkshire S. Major in only 26 minutes. The bells had passed the test with flying colours.
In the spring of 2004 I had a Tower Extension Project where the Jack & Jill House was extended to measure 8’ X 7’ and joined to the shed to create a reception room. The bells were re-hung in a new frame, with a near perfect octagonal ringing circle. The whole installation was re-decorated throughout.
The following months stirred up a great deal of publicity, which included local & national newspaper reports, and a brief appearance on BBC “South Today” television.
I was then recommended to enter the Tango Great Briton Awards, which, to my delight, I was judged to be the winner for the month of November 2004.
The best thing about the Jack & Jill House Campanile is that they are unique (for the moment at least). They have been enjoyed by everyone who has visited us so far. Why not book your own visit, Quarter Peal or even a Peal? You will be pleasantly surprised!
One day in 1994, I was sorting through my collection of odd bells I had acquired over the years. I selected 6 bells that were roughly in tune, 3 of them required lowering by one semitone each. I later added a treble and tenor that both required tuning half an octave each, they both look like pre-reformation bells but were of good tone with lots of character. The 5th was then lowered by a semitone to complete the octave of 10oz in B flat.
I then decided that the bells would be too small to hang for ringing, as I didn’t think it was possible to make clappers small enough that would function properly. So the bells were put away for the next seven years.
In the January of 2000 I started experimenting with my tiny set of 8 bells. I started with the 3rd by fitting a 6” length of broom handle to the headstock with the bell at the end bringing the lip of the bell to the level of the bottom of the wheel. I also attached enough weights to the wheel to make the bell swing with enough momentum to make it easy to handle. The clapper wasn’t going to be so easy, my first idea was to have a double clapper mounted externally, striking the outside of the bell. The idea sounded good in theory but in practice my prototype was so totally useless that I scrapped the idea and went back to the drawing board.
Finally I made a tiny clapper with a small length of threaded rod with 3 nuts locking together at one end and a plastic ball at the other, a small length of steel pin (from a safety pin) for a pivot, and a folded piece of plastic for the crownstaple. To my amazement it worked with a little adjustment, and more importantly sounded great. So I went ahead with the other 7 bells and within a couple of months they were ready for a tryout.
Five quarter peals were rung on them over the next 12 months, by which time new improved fittings were ready to be installed. New box section headstocks and traditional pattern wooden wheels were fitted to the bells and re-hung in the old frame.