THE bells are ringing out over Chideock once more after a mammoth fundraising drive by villagers.
Bell captain Dave Symonds and church wardens Sue Pettifer and Val Cowell took receipt of a new bell at St Giles’ Church.
Villagers helped raise £70,000 to replace the bell frame, retune the bells and buy a new bell.
Val said: “Chideock finally have their bells back. Last year the villagers were very generous in their donations so we were able to get a new bell frame and have the bells re-tuned.
“Unfortunately, at the last minute we found that one of the bells had a crack in it and could not be tuned. We had to have a new bell cast.”
Val and Sue also wanted to thank bell captain Dave for all the time he spent on the project and Nick Mudford for doing a lot of the building work necessary to support the frame.
They added that they wanted to thank the bell ringers who gave their time to help with hauling the bells back into the bell tower.
The bells fell silent for the first time in 400 years when they were taken down for the revamp.
The oldest bell was cast in 1602 and could not be worked on.
The bell frame was last repaired in 1887.
Villagers held all kinds of fundraisers. They included dinners, a flower festival, plant sales and a skittle week.