THE P RTAL
October 2013
Page 7
The bells of St Agatha,
Portsmouth
by Alan Pink
In 1882
a small mission church,
funded by Winchester College, was
established in Landport, then a slum area
of central Portsmouth, described by its
first missioner as “the very centre of the
influences of Satan”. This was the first St
Agatha’s. The present church dates from
1895 and was made famous by its first
Vicar, Fr Dolling, one of the great AngloCatholic social reformers of the late 19th/early 20th case with most of the bells.
centuries.
a single bell
The Church was never
completed due to a shortage
of funds: the north aisle was
not built and the tower was
intended to be twice its height,
as the architect’s drawing shows.
Although it was always intended
to house a ring of bells only a
single bell hung in the tower –
a small Warner bell cast in the
1880s.
sold for 30 pieces of
silver
On the night of 23 December
1941, the parish was virtually
destroyed by enemy bombing. The vicarage and church
hall were lost but the church miraculously survived,
although it lost its glass and was closed for 3 months
while it was patched up. When the Vicar, Fr Coles,
suffered a severe stroke in 1954 and had to give up, the
Church of England promptly closed the church. Later
that year it was sold for 30 pieces of silver (actually
£30,000!) and became a naval store. The vultures of
the Portsmouth Diocese stripped the church of all its
treasures and the bell is now in St Francis, Leigh Park.
reopened 40 years later
Since the church was reopened 40 years later in
1994, the St Agatha’s Trust has been restoring the
interior of the church. Some of the original features
have returned, though others have been destroyed,
and many are still with the vultures. Many fittings have
been acquired from redundant churches and this is the
The first bell to arrive
The first bell to arrive was the
bell from St. John’s, Rudmore, at
the entrance to Portsmouth at
the end of the M275. That church
is now an apartment block and
its bell was rescued by the priest
of St Agatha’s from a builder’s
skip. It was cast around 1925 by
Taylors and weighs a little over
1 cwt. It was hung at the top of
the tower in 2005 and fitted with
an electric hammer for use as
the Sanctus bell and to ring the
Angelus every day.
financial crisis
For a brief period there
were hopes that the area round the church would
be redeveloped. Talks with the developers who
wished St Agatha’s to be a significant feature of the
new development were very positive and ideas were
produced to build the north aisle, finish the tower and
to reinstate the Lady Chapel which had been destroyed
to make way for a road that now goes only to a car
park. However, the financial crisis soon stopped that
idea.
Three new bells were cast
A more modest plan to hang a light ring of eight in
the tower gathered momentum when the Keltek Trust
found four bells that were suitable for the “back four”
and Matthew Higby had a 5th that would fit in too.
Three new bells were cast by Higby Bowditch in 2012
and the installation completed at the end of January
2013.