The Last Bell Makers of France

Ever wondered how they make those huge bells that hang in places like the great gothic cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris? The village of Villedieu-les-Poeles in Northwest France is home to the Cornille Havard Foundry, one of the last two remaining Bell foundries in France (the other is in Haute-Savoie). It continues a long tradition of Bell Casters who settled in Normandy in the Middle Ages. We meet some of the last bell makers of France.

The last bell makers of France

Cornille Havard foundry has been making bells at its magnificent 19^th century workshop since 1865. Prior to this, bell founders worked more freely and would travel to churches and cathedrals to make their bells.

The company is named after Paul Havard who, succeeding his brother-in-law César Béatrix in 1836, and Adolphe Havard, a polytechnical engineer who took over in 1865 and had the workshop built, developed production and began exporting bells all over the world.

The company passed through the Cornille family before Marguerite Cornille sold the foundry to Françoise and Luigi Bergamo on June 1, 1981. Paul Bergamo is the second generation of the family to preserve the traditions and expertise of this unique company whose bells are world renowned for their aesthetic and musical qualities.

Specialising in big bells, the master bell casters combine the craft of metal work with the art of music using traditional techniques as well as the best technology.

Walking into the studio, which is open to the public, feels like you have stepped back in time and gives a rare glimpse into this centuries-old tradition.

How bells are made

The casting of a new bell is a fascinating process that draws on ancient skills. The bells are cast with two moulds consisting of the inner mould (core) developed around an interior template, and a false bell mould placed over it. This outer mould is covered with wax letters and decorations. The lost-wax process (also known as precision casting or cire perdue) is applied. The wax melts leaving the bell with indentations.

The furnace is fired to the right temperature to melt the bronze, an alloy of 78% copper and 22% tin and it is melted at 1,200°C in a double-vault reverberatory furnace which has a capacity of a whopping 13 tons. To withstand the temperature of the metal, the moulds are made of clay with horse manure and goats’ hair. The moulds, which are placed upside down in a pit, can weigh more than 500kg. The molten metal is poured into the gap between the two moulds.

A brick channel built on top of the pit allows the metal to flow by gravity from the kiln into the moulds.

After casting, the mould is left to cool for around a week depending on the size, then broken open to release the raw foundry bell. The final stages involve sanding, polishing, chiselling and fine tuning.

Where old meets new in bell making

These ancient techniques are combined with modern equipment which help to analyse the resonance enabling the foundry to achieve musical perfection.

In renovating this fantastic heritage using modern technology, Cornille Havard is the first bell making company in the world to model the layout of bells on a computer. Doing this allows them to constantly refine the bell profiles using CAD (computer-aided design). The templates are laser cut, and the sound control is carried out using an electronic spectrum analyser.

An incredible 100 monumental bells are made each year, making their way to peel out from clock towers, schools and churches around the world – including nine new bells created for the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris in 2013.

More information may be found at: cornille-havard.com

Jeremy Flint is an award-winning professional photographer and writer specialising in travel, landscape and location photography. His work is published extensively in National Geographic Traveller Lonely Planet and Country Life amongst others. He is a five-time finalist in Travel Photographer of the Year, Association of Photographers Discovery Award Winner and National Geographic Traveller Grand Prize Winner.