John Taylor’s bell foundry is somewhere I’d been aware of for some time, and when I found out that they did tours and allowed visitors to watch the casting, I started to keep an eye out for when I could go along for a look. Two years passed, before I actually booked on as 2024 saw a great deal of work carried out to the roof and other areas of the works including the museum etc.

At fairly short notice, a post was put on twitter stating that they would be doing some iron casting the following week, which I decided was the opportunity I’d been waiting for especially as I had a few days holiday leave to use before the year end. In addition, I knew that the casting of iron is a bit more fun visually than that of brass (which they use for bells), so would make for some interesting photographs.

You don’t watch the casting from the shop floor any more, a viewing gallery has been installed at the end of the foundry bay to keep visitors out of the way, and when you step through the door out of the adjacent museum, you instantly smell the hot metal and hear the roar of the furnace.

The gallery is located between the main foundry and the large doors wooden onto the street, making for a surprisingly cold experience, although it’s a big space and the doors were open on a day when the outside temperature didn’t get much above 5.

You do get a great view down the foundry and the church-like interior of the building wasn’t lost on me, what with it’s pitched ceiling, large arched windows and, well, church bells.

I was intrigued by this chimney – notice how the brickwork tapers towards the top. It’s probably something that all chimneys do but this was maybe more pronounced as it’s flat sided rather than round.