One of these chapels happening to require repair about the middle of the last century, the vestry or the parish officers sold the bells to reimburse the expense, notwithstanding their being tenfold consecrated by the inscription:
ALFREDUS REX.
It is perhaps too much to assume that they were given by the Great Alfred, although his visits to St. Neot must have brought that most illustrious of our kings into this neighbourhood.
The baptising of bells, and their dedication, have so much prevailed, that these were in all probability cast long since the time of Alfred; but his name should have been their protection, if other protection were wanted than their consecrated use.
The following monkish lines not unfrequently appear on bells made prior to the reformation:
Laudo Deum verum—Populum voco—Congrego clerum
Defunctos ploro—Fugo fulmina:—Festa decoro.
Great Tom of Oxford, (called Thomas Clusius) while it remained at Oseney Abbey, and before it was re-cast for its present station in 1670, had this curious legend:
In Thomæ laude resono BIM BOM sine fraude.
It weighs 17,000 lbs.