Recently cast at the Whitechapel Foundry for Uckfield, Sussex. (See page [41]).
Nor are such campaniles altogether unknown in England. In mediaeval times they were attached to several of our cathedral churches, as, for instance, Old S. Paul’s, Chichester, Salisbury, and Worcester. The bells of Old S. Paul’s were traditionally gambled away by Henry VIII in 1534, and the campanile at Worcester did not survive the Reformation; but that at Salisbury, a most picturesque structure, with a wooden upper storey and spire, was wantonly destroyed in 1777 because the bells were misused! That at Chichester alone remains, a fine Perpendicular erection, at the north-west angle of the cathedral (Plate [24]). At King’s College, Cambridge, a noble peal of five bells hung in a low wooden belfry on the north side of the chapel, which was destroyed when the bells were sold and melted down in 1754 (Plate [25]).
Detached towers are not uncommon features of our parish churches in some parts of England, particularly in Herefordshire and Norfolk. The best examples are at Berkeley, Gloucestershire; Ledbury, Herefordshire; West Walton, Norfolk; and Beccles, Suffolk. Some churches, again, can only boast wooden detached belfries of moderate height to hold their bells, as at Pembridge in Herefordshire, Brooklands in Kent, and East Bergholt in Suffolk (Plate [26]). The belfry at the last-named place is no more than a mere shed, and more than one story is told in explanation of the absence of a tower to the otherwise imposing church.
The 9th bell of Loughborough Parish Church.
Cast by the Taylors of that town. (See page [41].)