Six new bells, cast at the "world's best" French foundry, have found their way to the Żabbar Sanctuary, replacing their old and rusted steel counterparts with a state-of-the-art set.

According to campanologist Kenneth Cauchi, the old bells, dating back to 1931, have been "beyond repair and could not play a decent tune" for at least 40 years.

The new bells were commissioned by the church and cast at the renowned Paccard bell foundry in Annecy, which is responsible for France's largest bell in the Sacre Coeur Basilica in Montmartre, Paris. Among the records it has broken is the casting of the world's largest swinging bell, weighing 33 tonnes.

It was thanks to the donations of parishioners and collections by the town's two band clubs, Maria Mater Gratiae and St Michael's, that the "extremely limited musical quality of the old, bad bells was replaced by the harmonically tuned set of instruments".

Mr Cauchi said attempts were made to get one of the old bells to work and the tone was restored once the rust was removed. However, they could not be reinstalled in the tower without protection and once this was applied, they lost their tone again.

Their rust has now been removed and they are being conserved in the sanctuary's museum. The plan is that they would be played again but funding was required for some sort of solution since they have been detached from the clock mechanism.

The pristine bells were yesterday transported from storage in Qormi to Żabbar and paraded in a carcade of around 75 motorbikes. Next, the locality's two bands joined forces and marched them to the sanctuary parvis, where they were placed on brick columns, decorated in red damask and palm fronts.

Later in the evening, the bells were blessed, and the plan is to hoist them up the tower as soon as possible, Mr Cauchi said.

During the ceremony, the singing was conducted by Mme Anne Paccard, curator of the Musée de la Cloche in Annecy and wife of M. Philippe Paccard, the seventh generation of the Paccard dynasty of bell founders, under whose patronage the ceremony was held.

The new set has raised the number of Paccard bells in Malta to 39, with the oldest dating back to 1910, and the largest in Balzan having recently celebrated its 60th anniversary.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.