Posted by Tom Napier on June 10, 2014 at 04:56:13 user Didymus.
In Reply to: Re: Town Head House (was Ransome's Sketch - Re: Beckfoot Layout) posted by Peter Ceresole on June 10, 2014 at 03:35:30:
The house I grew up in had a set of differently tuned bells hanging on springs in the kitchen, just like in Downton Abbey. Each bell was linked to its distant handle by a series of brass rods and bell-cranks that must have been a nightmare to install. Only one or two still worked when we moved in shortly before the war ended.
The front-door bell was electric and driven by two huge dry-cells, presumably the same type as powered Dick's pigeon bell. Once the house power switched from DC to AC the bell could run from a step-down transformer. I commandeered the old cells and used their three-quarter-inch diameter carbon rods for experiments in electroplating. Dick would have been proud of me.