The Bells
The Bells of Thundridge Old Church
Six bells are associated with the Old Church, at least four of which still survive hanging in [New] St Mary’s Parish Church Thundridge. It is really exciting to know these artifacts still exist from some of the earliest history of the Old Church.
- The smallest and oldest is the treble bell, marked ‘John Is My Name’ with a maker’s stamp dating it to around 1460;
- The second bell ‘Jesus Be Our Speed’ dates from 1623;
- The third ‘Praise The Lord’ was cast in 1631;
- The tenor bell, the largest in diameter and weight, is marked ‘John Dier made me in 1580’. John Dier was a bellfounder in Hitchen who produced nearly 50 known bells, executed in 1603 for murder during an alehouse brawl.
All four bells were installed with wheels [to be swing chimed], but [the late Ranald W Clouston BscEng FSA, St Albans Diocese Inspection of Bells, 1993] thought that the delicate positioning of the bell-frame and the thinness of the tower walls meant that they were never intended to be rung full-circle. They were swung until about 1900, when the Ellacombe chiming hammers were installed.
In living memory, all four were rung in the sequence 1324 before the Sunday evening service, which was the signal for the community to stop what they were doing and head to the church.
Around the 1960s the treble bell was overhauled by the Whitechapel bell-foundry, who quarter-turned it, hung it ‘dead’ (the bell does not swing to chime) and fitted it with a new lever-clapper. The other three bells were left as they were, awaiting restoration, and have not been rung since.
The Church Goods record from 1552 records that ‘Thundruge Steeple’ [sic, AKA Little St Mary’s and All Hallows’, Thundridge Old Church] also had a Saunce Bell (aka ‘Saints Bell or Sanctus Bell’, rung ‘To signal that something supernatural was taking place’).
Records from 1886 also state that a 21” (53.3) bell hung at the Old Church inscribed ‘Osborne Founder Bishopsgate London 1853’. It had been commissioned as a toll bell for the continuence of funerals at the Old Churchyard in 1853. It is not known when or, for certain, to where this bell was removed.
