The Tolling of The Bell - St Barnabus Church Highfield November 1907

 

For those that are not familiar with the church, St Barnabus Church is in the Highfield district of Sheffield. My grandfather Sydney Hemsworth was a choir boy there at the time of this outrage and would later marry there on 23rd September 1923.

This article is in fact a letter from Curfew Bell and appears in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph dated 20th November 1907

Clearly Curfew Bell is vexed by the bell and he does have a point inasmuch as a single tolling of the bell serves no purpose at all. In fact when he likens it to the bell heralding an execution it sounds rather macabre 

The church was redundant in 1990 and after having been a sheltered  retirement home for the elderly is was converted into 28 self contained flats. It was sold for  £1,825,000 in 2023.