Love's Guide to the Church Bells of the City of London

St Peter-upon-Cornhill, Cornhill

Photo: Dickon Love, 9 Jul 2002

Details of the Bells

Inscriptions

How the bells are tuned

Bell supplied after the Great Fire

Bell	Weight (most recent)	Diameter	Note	Date	Founder	Retuned	Fate
Single bell	1½ cwt approx.				Unknown	Never	Presumed replaced in 1772

The bells in the tower destroyed in the Great Fire

Earlier known tenor

Bell	Weight (most recent)	Diameter	Note	Date	Founder	Retuned	Fate
Tenor (of 5)	20-1-17				Unknown		Recast 1587

History

	1552		Record of 5 bells. [1]
	1587		The broken tenor bell was recast by Robert Mott. However it appears that the new bell was not liked and the Vestry resolved that it be taken away. This does not seem to have happened as arguments continued over the following years. [2]
	1604		The vestry urged Mott's bell be accepted. The old bell was given as 20-14-17 and the new 17-2-22. [3]
	1620		A new clock was ordered for the tower to strike on one of the bells. [4]
	1623		Vestry records say that "the steeple ordered to be covered and the bells hung up". [5]
	1629		The 2nd (of 5) was recast. [6]
	1662		The Vestry ordered that a sanctus bell be hung in the tower above the other bells. [7]
	1666		The church and bells were destroyed in the Great Fire.
	1673		The vestry held at the Tabernacle (this being the temporary church) ordered a bell for it weighing about 1½ cwt and workmen to make a wheel and frame. This remained the only bell for about 100 years. [8]
	1677		The church was rebuilt with a brick tower of unusual and almost Italian style, of four stages with a timber dome, lantern and spire, crowned with a vane in the form of a key. It was completed in 1687.
	1708		Record of 1 bell.
	1772		The present 2 bells were cast. The smaller was hung immediately underneath the wooden spirelet at the top of the small dome above the tower.
	1824		Record of 2 bells.
	1889		The church was reopened on 3 Nov.

[1]	In the steple five belles and the sainctes bell. (Edwardian Inventory, 1552)
[2]	30 Apr: The vestry resolved that Robert Mott was to be given the great bell (it being broken) to exchange for "a perfett good bell, and of good sounde, to agree with the reste", to hang it up and to guarantee it for a year and a day." 25 Jun: The vestry resolved to ask Robert Mott to take away the great bell that he hung "for that it was disliked of all the parish generally" and they decreed with him that "yf he had a good and prefect treble, they would have one of him reasonable." 4 Jul: Mott was paid for casting the great bell and for overplus of metal. (Vestry minutes 1587)
[3]	The vestry urged Mott's bell be accepted "because thought tuneable enough" and because "the steeple being old and crazie would surely without damage admit the great bell". (Vestry minutes, 8 Apr 1604)
[4]	The old clock ordered to the top of the steeple because the one on which the clock now striketh is found fault with, being so low that few of the parish can hear it. (Vestry minutes, 21 Mar 1620)
[5]	The steeple ordered to be covered and the bells hung up. (Vestry minutes, 27 Jul 1623)
[6]	The second bell to be new cast and made tuneable like the rest. (Vestry minutes, 26 Jul 1629)
[7]	A saints bell "to be hanged in the steeple over the other bells". (Vestry minutes, 12 Nov 1662)
[8]	(Vestry minutes, 2 Apr 1673)

Pictures of the church

Photo:

Pictures from the belfry

The service bell hung for ringing, but derelict. It is unused. Photo: Dickon R Love, 16 Dec, 2009	Photo: Dickon R Love, 16 Dec, 2009	Photo: Dickon R Love, 16 Dec, 2009
The Sanctus bell sitting on the floor. Photo: Dickon R Love, 16 Dec, 2009

Love's Guide to the Church Bells of the City of London

Page updated: 13 October 2019