The bells have rung for the last time at a church which has closed its doors to parishioners.

People living in Cleator Moor recently bid farewell to St John's Church at its last service.

The eight bells which have been there since 1909 have now been removed from the tower and taken away to be spruced up before the search begins to find them a new home.

Young bellringers Harry Finlinson and Tom Leech paid a final visit to the bells before they were taken away to Taylors Bellfoundry in Loughborough where they were cast more than 100 years ago.

They will be cleaned up, put into storage and then the search for a new home will begin.

Chris de Cordova, one of the church's bellringers, said it won't be difficult to rehome them.

She has rang bells in 982 churches over 40 years and said the ones in St John's are the best she can remember.

"They are superb," she said. "Most bellringers in this country have heard of them, they are lovely.

"At the moment they are a bit of a mess, grey and dull. They will get sandblasted and the inscription can be changed."

The church served the community as a place of worship for 140 years before closing last month.

The Rev Allen Banks said the reason for the closure is "purely financial" as it needed a lot of money spent on repairs and replacing the roof.

The congregation will worship in the nearby church hall.

Work has been ongoing for the past couple of weeks to remove the bells, which total four tons, with the largest of the eight just fitting through the trap door.

The story of the bell's history says that other churches in the area – Egremont, Arlecdon and Aspatria – had got eight bells and when Lord Leconfield realised that St John's current peal of six bells needed radical work, he didn't want any less than eight and they had to be bigger and better than anyone else's.

They first rang out on Christmas Eve in 1909, much to the surprise of townsfolk.