Telling the bell
A place name and one true thing, so a new bell knows its way home.
The Hobdays have a custom for new bells. Whoever travels with one stands in front of it at each place along the way, with a hand on the bronze, and tells it the name of the place and one true thing about it. When the bell is hung, it knows where it came from and which way is home.
Obadiah Hobday did it for every bell that left the foundry when he was young. Then the railway came, and bells went in vans. As Pip puts it, there weren't any places to tell them then, only stations. The bell for St Hilda's goes the old way: by goods train to Brindlecombe, then by canal.
Pip's list has nine names: Brindlecombe Basin, Coldharbour Lock, the Long Pound, Pennywhistle Mill, Fallow Hill Tunnel, the Wend Aqueduct, Hob's Bridge, the Orchard Reach and Little Tallowmere Wharf. The true things are her own. At Coldharbour, the bell learns that Mr Thrupp wears his nightcap under his hat.
Places to visit
People to meet
Look closer at the illustration ↗Stories
The Narrow Boat to Little Tallowmere
Travel with Ada Brimble, Pip and a new church bell aboard Patience, along the canal to Little Tallowmere.
With Ada Brimble, Pip Hobday, Dorothea, Ruth Coker, Josiah Coker, Mr Gedge