Bell by an early fourteenth-century London founder.
With inscription in Gothic capitals. (See page [24].)
From “Great Peters” we pass to “Great Toms.” Of these there are two famous examples, one at Lincoln Cathedral, the other at Christ Church, Oxford. The Lincoln Tom, which hangs in the central tower of the cathedral, does not appear in records before 1610, in which year it was re-cast by Henry Oldfield of Nottingham, and Robert Newcombe of Leicester. It was cast in the minster yard, and weighed 4 tons 8 cwt. In course of time it was found to be too heavy for the tower, and was “clocked,” or tied down, as a contemporary journalist describes it, in 1802: “He has been chained and riveted down, so that instead of the full mouthful he hath been used to send forth, he is enjoined in the future merely to wag his tongue.” The result was inevitable, and in 1827 “he” was reported cracked, which led to his being re-cast by Mears of Whitechapel in 1835.
Great Tom of Christ Church, which now hangs in the tower over the gateway, originally came to the newly-founded “House of Christ” from the despoiled Abbey of Oseney. Six other bells were brought with it, of which two still hang in the “meat-safe” belfry. Antony à Wood, the Oxford chronicler, tells us that it bore the inscription:
IN THOMAE LAVDE RESONO BIMBOM SINE FRAVDE
“In the praise of Thomas I sound ‘Bimbom’ without guile.”