Summary

The bells and belfries in Skaudvilė Valsčius

Povilas Šverebas

There are five Catholic churches in the former Skaudvilė Valsčius: Adakavas, Girdiškė, Skaudvilė, Stulgiai and Upyna. There is no separate belfry in the parish of Girdiškė, where two bells are suspended in the church tower. One was founded in 1791, while another had been made in 1930 by Fr. Schilling's sons in Apolda. The documents show that one bell had been taken by Germans during the World War I. In Upyna affiliated to Girdiškės, three bells got molten during the 1834 fire and one bell had been unhung during the WWI by Germans. Now there are two bells suspended in a two-storey belfry of a solid volume and average size. One of them, made in 1796, had been brought from the closed Carmelite monastery. Another was made in 1930 by Fr. Schilling's sons in Apolda. In Skaudvilė there is a compound volume double-aisled belfry with two bells founded in 1889 by A. Zwalinski in Warsaw. Its signature is made in 1889. It is likely that the present-day appearance of the belfry had been formed during the reconstruction in 1839. Earlier on, there was a tower clock with its mechanism survived by now. Two bells were brought away during the WWI by Germans. Three bells for the church in Adakavas were sponsored by Jonas Adakauskas in 1793. They were founded by J. A. Bellmann in Kőnigsberg. Only one of them remained suspended in a double-aisled compound volume belfry built in 1873–1897. The Germans took two bells during the WWI. The signature was founded in 1790. In Stulgiai there is a solid volume belfry with two bells, one of them was made in 1875 at the Finlyandsky factory in Moscow, and the other one was founded in 1901 by S. Englisch in Warsaw. Germans took away two bells during the WWI; they were made in 1799 and 1873.