Gloucester Civic Trust has launched their latest project “City Celebrations”.
The project involves re-instating a bell in St Michael’s Bell Tower; the repair and re-instatement of the City Flagpole on top of St Michael’s Tower and a new information board outside the building to depict the history of the St Michael’s Church and bell tower.
The bell tower is all that remains of the Church of St Michael the Archangel which was demolished in 1956. The Bell Tower itself dates back to around 1465 and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. After laying uncared for for many years, the Bell Tower was restored by Gloucester Civic Trust in 2009.
Today it’s now the HQ of Gloucester Civic Trust and is 100% successfully run and managed by volunteers.
The Tower is a community heritage hub delivering heritage events, exhibitions, organising educational visits and promotes all things Gloucester.
Marilyn Champion, Project Leader, says “we’ve always wanted to have a bell back in the Tower and to get the flag pole repaired. We have pictures of the church in the early 1900’s with the flag of St George flying high over the City. It looked pretty impressive. Next year Gloucester Civic Trust is 40 years old; it’s also the Queen’s jubilee and the Olympics so we thought the project name of “city celebrations was a good one.
We’d like to thank all the Gloucester people who’ve been calling in to St Michael’s Tower this past year with their family memories of St Michael’s Church. Many of these will be included in the new information board outside the Tower. The bell will be rung out for city celebrations such as St George’s Day, the Carnival and other city events. The bell installation is quite complex and will involve heaving the bell up into the belfry in the traditional way through the collapsible ceiling in the Tower.
The repair and reinstatement of the Flagpole also involves engineering skill as health and safety rules have certainly moved on since the early 1900’s and we have to ensure the flagpole is safe in every way.
The cost of the project will be in the region of £18,000. The costs will be met through local sponsorship, grant aid and volunteer fund raising.
If you’d like to find out more about the “city celebrations” project or have more stories we haven’t heard yet about St Michael’s Church please call in to the Tower and share your memories with the Civic Trust volunteers”.
End of press release
