Everything about Bow Bells totally explained
St Mary-le-Bow is an historic church in the
City of London, off
Cheapside.
The current building was built to the designs of
Christopher Wren,
1671-
1673, steeple completed
1680, after the
Great Fire of London burnt the previous church on the site down. The mason-contractor was Thomas Cartwright, one of the leading London mason-contractors and carvers of his generation. The last church had been there since before the
Normans arrived, and under that name. Its steeple had been a landmark before the Fire, and Wren fittingly provided it with a unique replacement. The Bow bells were once used to signal a curfew in the City of London. Before modern traffic noise, they could be heard as far away as
Hackney Marshes.
History
According to tradition, a true
Cockney must be born within earshot of the sound of the church's bells. The bells are also credited with having persuaded
Dick Whittington to turn back from
Highgate and remain in London to become
Lord Mayor (three times in the story but four times in
reality). The church is also immortalised in the nursery rhyme
Oranges and Lemons. Traditionally distances by road from London have been measured from the
London Stone, or the "Standard" in
Cornhill, but on the road from London to
Lewes the mileage is taken from the church door of St Mary-le-Bow. To emphasise the difference, mileposts along the way are marked with a cast-iron depiction of a bow and four bells.
A medieval version of the church had been destroyed in 1091 by one of the earliest recorded (and one of the most violent)
tornadoes in Britain, the
London Tornado of 1091.
A Recording of the Bow Bells made in
1926 has been used by the
BBC World Service as an interval signal for the English Language broadcasts since the early 1940s. It is still used today preceding some English broadcasts. Much of the current building was destroyed by a German bomb on
10 May 1941 and the bells crashed to the ground. Restoration under the direction of L. King was begun in 1956, and the bells only rang again in 1961 to produce a new generation of Cockneys.
St Mary-le-Bow has no parishioners and no Sunday services: its role today is to minister to the
financial industry and
livery companies of the
City of London.
Image gallery
Image:Bow Churchyard London.jpg|West door
Image:StMaryLeBowChurch.jpg|Tower
Image:StMaryLeBowChurch-Interior.jpg|Interior
Image:St Mary-le-Bow Crypt.jpg|The crypt chapel
Image:Milepost Nutley.jpg|A "Bow Bells" milepost on the London to Lewes road
Further Information
Get more info on 'Bow Bells'.
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