East Bergholt - St. Mary's Church and Its Famous Bell Cage

St. Mary's Church and Its Famous Bell Cage

The Church of St Mary the Virgin was built in the 15th and 16th centuries, but is well known for the absence of a tower or spire to house the bells. Work began on a tower in 1525, but Cardinal Wolsey's fall from grace in 1530 brought construction to a halt and the following year a wooden bell cage was erected in the churchyard. This temporary structure still exists although not in its original position. It was moved from the south to the north side of the church in the 17th century because the occupant of Old Hall objected to the noise of the bells. The bells are exceptional in that they are not rung from below by ropes attached to wheels, as is usual in change ringing, but the headstock is manipulated by hand by ringers standing beside the bells.

The bells are believed to be the heaviest five (A, G, F#, E, and D) that are rung in England today, with a weight of 4ΒΌ tons.

Read more about this topic:  East Bergholt

Famous quotes containing the words mary, church, famous, bell and/or cage:

    Mary had a little lamb,
    Its fleece was white as snow,
    And every where that Mary went
    The lamb was sure to go;
    He followed her to school one day—
    That was against the rule,
    It made the children laugh and play,
    To see a lamb at school.
    Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1788–1879)

    The hippopotamus’s day
    Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
    God works in a mysterious way—
    The Church can sleep and feed at once.
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    Those famous men of old, the Ogres—
    They had long beards and stinking arm-pits,
    They were wide-mouthed, long-yarded and great-bellied
    Yet not of taller stature, Sirs, than you.
    Robert Graves (1895–1985)

    I was thinking of a son.
    The womb is not a clock
    nor a bell tolling,
    but in the eleventh month of its life
    I feel the November
    of the body as well as of the calendar.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    “... Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild bird mate in the wild.”
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)