All Saints Church in Maidstone is a medieval building lying next to the Medway river. The church has its origins in 1395, when it was founded as a Collegiate Church for the adjacent College of All Saints. It is a Perpendicular Gothic building, built of Kentish Ragstone. It has a nave and two aisles and ranks as one of the largest parish churches in the UK.
The tall tower contains a 32-0-20cwt ring of ten bells in C#, all cast in 1957 by the John Taylor and Co. foundry. Until 1956, the tower held an anti clockwise 28cwt ring of ten, but these were unsatisfactory and were recast. There was a long standing rivalry between Maidstone and Canterbury Cathedral as to who had the heaviest tenor - Maidstone pipped the original Canterbury tenor by a few lbs and then the original Canterbury tenor was recast by Mears and Stainbank, and then again in 1981 to become 34cwt, therefore crowning Canterbury as Kent's heaviest ring of bells. The recording here is of myself and another ringer raising the tenor bell before a practice night, attempting and failing to get it up right. Enjoy the glorious sound of that bell.