In 2005, the Sooke Holy Trinity Anglican Church was lost in one of the town’s worst fires, leaving nothing more but broken glass and broken hearts.
Except for one thing: the original church bell. Like salvaging a rusted-out ship wreck at the bottom of the ocean, recovery efforts managed to pull out the cast-iron bell from the debris, along with its wheel, which had cracked when it fell from the top its original tower location.
Years after the fire, the bell was kept in storage, passing through numerous stages of restoration, still out of the public eye.
At least, that was until Monday, when the bell was re-installed on a new tower built just behind the current Trinity Anglican Church. A separate tower structure was necessary, as the current church building as not designed to accomodate a bell, said Liz Johnson, the church people’s warden.
Johnson said everyone wanted it in front as well, but that couldn’t happen either as hydro and septic installations were already in the way.
“We are pleased to see it back … it sounds wonderful,” said Johnson, just as the bell clung for the first time in years.
The tower, no taller than church itself, was constructed by Jeffrey Robinson, a local builder, who started from the ground up. Though simple-looking in nature, the structure was far from simple, considering it would have to accomodate a 600-pound bell for many, many years without error.
“What you cant see is most of the work, because it’s underground,” Robinson said of the foundation, which has a 10-tonne footing, four yards of concrete, 5-8’s rebar, all of which is dug two and a half feet deep.
He added the whole project took about two months, but there was a delay for the brackets, which got misordered. Adding to the build time were the footings had to remain exposed for 28 days after being poured for the concrete to cure properly.
Still, the Trinity Anglican Church bell is back in Sooke, and while it may not be in the same place, it was when it was first installed on the first Trinity Anglican Church in 1919, one thing’s for sure: it’s louder than ever.