The Carswell Memorial Chime

*Location:

   Memorial Tower
   St.George's Memorial Anglican Church
   Centre Street S (Regional Road 2A)
     at Bagot Street
   Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
   LL: N 43.89543, W 78.86453

Site locator map

*Player:

   Susan Wright, Chime Master
   - and -
   Rob Milliken, Chimer & Historian
   - and -
   Joan Fontaine
   E: gfontaine /@/ rogers DOTcom
   - and -
   others in St.George's Chimer's Guild

*Contact:

   St.George's Church
   39 Athol Street West
   Oshawa, ON  L1H 1J5
   T: 905-723-7875   F: 905-723-7038

*Schedule:

   Sunday mornings, and for some weddings;
   Mon-Fri for the noon hour;
   for town's annual Santa Claus Parade
   (before and after) and numerous other
   special occasions.

*Remarks:

   Enormous playing drum (disconnected),
   made by J.W.Benson, London, 1923, has
   8 fixed tunes (one is "grand changes").
   Added semitones are sharp 4th, flat
   7th, flat 9th, flat 10th.  Original
   keyboard (still displayed in tower)
   was large-scale baton type, locally
   modified to add 4 pedals; replacement
   (by Verdin) is standard baton type,
   with dropped keys for all 4 missing
   semitones plus treble G.

*Technical data:

   Traditional chime (baton keyboard) of 15 bells
   Pitch of heaviest bell is B  in the bass octave
   Keyboard range:     C F   /    NONE  
   Transposition is down 1 semitone(s), i.e., from C to B 
   There are four added semitones
   There is no practice console
   The present keyboard was installed in 1988
     by the maker cited in Remarks above
   Prior history:
     In 1924, the complete instrument was installed
       with bells made by Whitechapel 
       Keyboard range was:     C F   /    C F  4
   Auxiliary mechanisms: W1nM  
   Tower details not available
   Year of latest technical information source is 2003

The church Website has a picture of the tower; the History page mentions the "carillon" and its American donor.  There is also an extensive page about the chime (though some of the referenced pictures are omitted), as well as a chimers' newsletter.

Where this work lies in the sequence of output of the Whitechapel bellfoundry, in this region and in the world.

Ranking among all North American chimes by size (number of bells).
Ranking among all North American chimes by weight (pitch).
Ranking among all North American chimes by year of completion.

Index to all tower bell instruments in ON.

   This page was built from the database on 14-Oct-24
   based on textual data last updated on 2014/04/24
   and on technical data last updated on 2004/12/16