TRIBUTES have been paid to bellringing and steam engine enthusiast John Scott.

Bellringers gathered in St Mary’s Church, Great Budworth, on November 9 for the funeral of Mr Scott, to who they owe a great debt of gratitude.

It is largely thanks to him that the bells of Great Budworth can still be rung.

The bells are a heavy eight, with the largest weighing a ton. They were formerly hung too near the top of the tower, so that swaying and twisting of the tower made them hard to ring.

Cracks were forming in the stonework. This problem was compounded by looseness of the joints in the old wooden frame, and the bells were becoming unringable.

Mr Scott was tower captain for 20 years and combined his passions, bells and steam engines, by organising traction engine rallies at Great Budworth each year, the profits of which went into the bell restoration fund.

In 1996 the new tower captain, John Birks, discovered there was enough money in this fund to provide a basis for a restoration.

The bells are now hung in a steel frame halfway up the tower in the former ringing room, and are rung from a gallery at the west end of the church.

“John Scott was an excellent ringer: a member of the Ancient Society of College Youths, the foremost society of change ringers in the world,” said Ashley Pugh, who knew Mr Pugh for manty years.

“In his youth he rang peals with some of the country’s finest ringers at St Martins in Birmingham.

“When he had to give up ringing he used his professional skills as a fitter, turner and draughtsman to make two beautifully-crafted sixth-scale models of traction engines.

“He was born in Great Budworth and devoted to the village. We remember him fondly as a quiet and unassuming man who, during his 90 years, did much good in a quiet and unassuming way.

“The bells at Great Budworth were rung half-muffled before and after the funeral and a quarter peal of a new method, John Scott Bob Major, composed by Andrew Rawlinson, a brilliant young ringer from Weaverham, was rung in his memory at Frodsham on November 4.”