History of the bells

According to its inscription, the tenor bell was given by Mr William Loringe, who was a canon of the Minster in 1385. This would make it the earliest bell rung at the Minster and it remained in use for 250 years before it was recast in 1629. The west tower was not built until 1456, so the early bells would have been hung in the central tower, and sound-exit windows can still be seen in the internal masonry of this tower.

Church Wardens’ accounts, which began in 1475, show in addition to the “Bell of St Cuthberga”, mentioned above, “Morrow Mass Bell”, “The Jesus Bell” and the “Ffyer Bell”. Until 1686 there were 5 bells, presumably hung in the West tower by then as the spire surmounting the central tower had collapsed in 1602. The five bells had all been recast by then and in date order this occured as follows:

Samuel Knight cast an additional bell in 1686 thus making the ring of 6. Some of the bells were re-hung by John Beminster in 1776 but remained as above until C&G Mears of London added two more trebles to complete the octave when the older bells were again re-hung. In addition to the ringing bells, two more clock bells were fixed to the north face of the West Tower; these are struck by the quarter jack.

By 1910 the clock bells were cracked and the ringing bells were becoming difficult to ring and their tonal quality had deteriorated, so it was decided that they should all be re-cast.

The old bells waiting to be recast in 1911

In 1911 the eight old bells were recast by Gillett and Johnston of Croydon. Two new trebles were added and the new ring of 10, tuned on the 5-tone Simpson principle, was hung in a new iron frame. At the same time, the two quarter jack bells were also recast & tuned to D & A one octave above the number 3 and 6 respectively. You can read more about the recasting here.