Their great rivals of modern times, the Taylors of Loughborough, cannot emulate them in antiquity, though they can still boast a respectable pedigree, dating from Thomas Eayre of Kettering, in 1731. After moving to S. Neots, Leicester, and Oxford, the firm finally settled, about 1840, under John Taylor, at Loughborough, where his grandsons now carry on the business. Illustrations of their bells are given in Plates [17]–[21].
The Mortar of Friar Towthorpe.
(See page [21].)
[CHAPTER III]
Big Bells; Carillons and Chimes; Campaniles
Bells of exceptional size, styled in Latin Signa, are no new invention of the founder’s art. It speaks much for the skill of the mediaeval craftsman that he should have been able to cast giant bells which not only rivalled the chefs-d’oeuvre of our own day, but, as objects of beauty, certainly surpassed them.