Villagers from Luss will ring two bells at Tom na Clog (Hill of the Bell) on Inchtavannach island in Loch Lomond at Midnight tonight (31st December 2009). The bells will be answered by the bell at the church at Luss on the western shores of the loch – a church which beams its services by television to 177 countries around the world and to members of the armed services overseas.

2010 is the 1,500th anniversary year of the Christian settlement in the area around Luss, so the ushering in of this particular New year is a significant moment for members of the faith.

Led by the Minister of Luss Parish Church, the Reverend Dane Sherrard, the party from Luss will cross by barge to the island of Inchtavannach, carrying two bells to the top of Tom ma Clog where, at Midnight, they will ring out, heard on the shores around the lochside.

Tom na Clog is so called because, as the highest point in the area, it used to carry widely the sound of the bell summoning the faithful to worship.

St Kessog was a Irish missionary who arrived to live on Inchtavannach around 510AD and established a monastery on the island. Until the early 20th century, when it vanished, there was a bronze bell on Tom na Clog known as St Kessog’s Bell.

The Anglican group from Luss had already got a bell to ring in this important anniversary year. The enterprising Reverend Sherrard, who knew that the Nuclear Submarine Base at Faslane had a bell large enough to ring a sound that would carry as far as he wanted to ring in 2010 – so he went and asked for it.

The answer was yes – but with a little challenge thrown in for the clergyman himself. He had to find a naval officer prepared to accompany the 64lb ships’s bell up the hill – in full uniform, including wearing his sword to offer it protection.

Up marched a retired Lieutenant Commander from the submarine service, Mike Palmer, an elder of the church  and delighted to be involved.

Problem solved. Due ritual assured.

Then Mrs Rachel Sherrard, wife of the Minister, remembered having seen an old bell somewhere around the manse grounds and started searching any likely place. Under a pile of logs was a bell now to be given the once over by archaeologists to establish whether or not it is the missing St Kessog’s Bell.

That verification won’t be done in time for tonight’s ceremony so the canny Reverend Sherrard is bringing both bells up the hill on Inchtavannach and both will be rung at Midnight. So if the discovered bell turns out to be St Kessog’s, it will have been rung to welcome in this important year of Christian celebration. If it isn’t, its sound will add to that of the Faslane bell in announcing the anniversary to even more of the lochside.

Update 31st December 9.30am: We understand from a site visitor that there are two letters in today’s edition of The Herald suggesting that the ‘bell’ found at the manse in Luss is in fact from a lavatory cistern. Puts an entirely different cast on the notion of a tinkling bell.

Update 31st December 11.20am: We;ve  now seen the letters in The Herald. Both correspondents concur that the ‘bell’ found in Luss is almost certainly from a Victorian high-level cast-iron lavatory cistern

One correspondent, Hugh Walker from Dunfermline seems particularly authoritative on the subject as an accredited collector and restorer of old lavatories.

Having looked at the photograph of the ‘Kessog bell’ in the hands of the Reverend Dane Sherrard on the slip at Luss,  published in yesterday’s Herald, Mr Walker notes some telling evidence as to its true provenance – which he attributes to ‘Shanks of Barrhead’.

He points to ‘the small hole visible towards the bottom of the bell’  and identifies its purpose: ‘to break the siphon towards the end of the flush’. And he speculates that the ‘bell’ ‘will also have four lumps cast into the edge of the rim to raise it off the bottom of the cistern’.

All in all, this story is looking more and more like a fast movement from the sacred to the profane.

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