ONE of only four bells known to have been cast in Tavistock has appropriately returned to the town for restoration.

The two-and-a-half-hundredweight tenor bronze bell was cast in 1807 by John Abraham and was made for St Mary?s Church in the centre of South Zeal.

Specialist restorer Peter Bazley, of Tavistock, was asked to restore the bell, together with the other bell in the church which was cast in London in 1877, the 40th year of Queen Victoria?s reign.

Mr Bazley has been working on the bells for the past fortnight and it is hoped they will be back in the church ready to ring for the carol service this Sunday.

?They both needed new headstocks and bell wheels and the clapper on the Tavistock bell has been replaced,? Mr Bazley said. ?The bell is in good condition; only the fittings wear out. Bells themselves can go on for 500 to 600 years.?

Mr Bazley, who is a bell-ringer at Tavistock and Whitchurch, became a bell-hanger around ten years ago, having previously been a toolmaker. ?You need to be a bell ringer to be a bell hanger,? he stressed.

The three other known bells are at Kelly College, St Michael?s Church in Princetown, and in Tavistock museum.