Dropping In on a Clanger - a visit to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, 12th February 2011

As part of EFOG’s recent ‘themed walks’ around London’ series, on Saturday 12 February the group visited the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, or the Church Bell Foundry as it says above the door, the oldest manufacturing company in Britain.  Founded in 1570 during the reign of Elizabeth 1, the company has been in continuous business ever since then and is in the Guiness Book if Records for doing so.  Throughout World War II the Foundry was at work, not making bells though – it went into production for the war ministry and survived the bomb that destroyed the nearby St Mary’s church, the white chapel that gave the area its name.  The Foundry buildings that we visited were originally a coaching inn called the Artichoke, hence the slightly odd arrangement of the rooms.  The Foundry moved in from the north side of the Whitechapel Road after the acquisition of the buildings by Thomas Lester in the early 1700s.  As our guide for the day, Works Manager Rob pointed out that it is quite likely that the business is even older as a link was established to Master Founder Robert Chamberlain who operated in Aldgate, just down the road, in 1420.  Beat that!

The entrance to the foundryThe tour started, without any of us noticing until it was pointed out, that surrounding the entrance we had all just passed through was a cross section pattern of Big Ben, the largest and probably the most famous Bell cast by the Foundry.  The museum had numerous photos of other famous bells that the company has both produced and hung – they do all of the process from start to finish, wherever the bell is to finish up.  Our resident American and current Chair, Jim Carroll was particularly interested in the change ringing peal of bells provided to the National Cathedral in Washington DC, and of course, the Liberty Bell, that famous symbol of American Independence.  The Liberty Bell, like Big Ben, is famous for being cracked. It was, however, delivered in good order and the crack was acquired when it was first struck.  After some amateur messing about, the Americans recast the bell and it subsequently acquired another crack.   In 1976, the Bicentennial of the USA, a group called the Procrastinators Society of America mounted a mock protest outside the Foundry, complaining their country had been sold a lemon (how daft were they – it was obviously a bell, not a piece of fruit) and requesting a replacement.  The Foundry said they would be happy to replace the bell – if it came in its original packaging!

Enough of the history though.  So  - how do they do it?  Moving through the courtyard, we were able to view a number of bells, some newly cast and others now unusable due to various forms of damage.  All the bells, no matter what their size, are made of bronze, a combination of copper and tin, which is very brittle and cracks can be made which seriously affect the tone of the bell.  Instead of the nice, sharp, ding, the sound becomes more of a dull thud.

Core and Cope - bell mouldsAs we moved through into the casting room, the whole process becomes clearer.   First you make a mould.  Bell moulds are made with loam, a combination of sand, clay, goat hair and horse manure – inspiring to come up with the joke ‘What noise does a bell make?  Dung!’  The Foundry has a large supply of the goat hair – ten years worth that they are still working their way through.  Whether the bald goats have recovered in the meantime is another story.  This mixture is used to make bricks, which are piled to make the approximate size of the bell then the fun begins.  Dobs of loam are thrown at the bell shape, then the excess scraped off and thrown again.  The reason for this, we were told, is to get the air out – air bubbles being a no-no.  So there are days when the workers can be found happily flinging the loam, scrapping and flinging….  Until they have an outline.  All bells have a ‘pattern’, a half bell shape with a spike in the middle around which the core of the bell is formed.  The spike can be spun around to scrape off any excess loam and a perfect outline of the inside of the bell is thus moulded.  The pattern is then inverted into what is essentially a giant upside-down bucket and the inside of the bucket is loamed, using the pattern to scrape off the excess again, to form the Cope.  Both the cope and the core are fired in a huge, low oven, and the results are then checked.  Tina, spotting a cope decided to try this out for herself – it is not a clean business!  Any imperfections are covered in graphite to ensure a pristine pour, then the core is inverted into the cope, to form an invisible bell – it is the gap between the two into which the molten bronze is poured.  Moulds for the small hand bells are done in the same way, except the core is of sand, much like a sand castle.  Our guide told us that sometimes it goes perfectly and other times not – with the smaller bells especially a whole mornings work could turn out to be deemed unsuitable by the ‘magic ears’ of the tuners, so it’s a case of melt it all down and start again.  None of the materials used are wasted – all the loam can be recycled, as can the bronze.

A cracked bell, but too nice to melt downPam at the woodworking roomTuning really is done by ear.  Although there are instruments to measure the resonance, the sound of the bell  - the fore note and the actual note - are achieved by polishing away the inside of the bell bit by bit, stopping to check the sound, polishing, checking and so on until the right note can be struck.  Finished bells can then be taken to the shed where they are fitted with the braces that fix them to the pulley system.  Back in the day, bells were made with loops on the top for this purpose as the machinery to drill through bronze and put bolts in did not exist.  Bells are fitted with wooden ‘wheels’, the mechanism that allows them to swing in the tower and prevents the ropes from tangling.  The wheels are made on the top floor in the woodworking room, a space for short people as the door-frame is only 5ft 8 inches high.  This room also has small commemorative plaques to the workers from the Bell Foundry who have died in the last two hundred years or so – remarkably few people as the same people seem to work at the Foundry their entire careers.

Below the woodworking room is the polishing and fitting room for all of the hand bells produced.  Rows of lathes and other exotic tools for polishing the bells line the benches along the walls.  Hand bells are polished to mirror finish and fitted with premium leather handles and muffled clappers – the very tiny ones have clappers made of rubber as anything else would be too large.  We were told that if you had a mind to put the bells one at a time as your purse allowed to make up a full set, they would still be a perfect set even if it took you years to get them all – they are made to a standard that doesn’t change.

Feeling quite inspired we all trotted into the gift shop for a souvenir.  It’s not often that you put yourself in the position of someone from four hundred years ago, see what they were doing and know that it is still being done the exact same way.  Bells are made here for the whole world.  So, next time we here Big Ben on the 10 o’clock news or the church bells on Sundays, well all be quite a bit wiser!

Sue Ullersperger, February 2011

For more photographs, click here