In the 6th year of the reign of King Edward VI, the son and
immediate successor to Henry VIII, an inventory of church goods and ornaments
was undertaken throughout the realm. A transcription of the inventory for Surrey
was published by J.R. Daniel-Tyssen in 1865 [1]. Typically entries take the form
of ‘ Item v belles in the steple.’ In some cases details of
the estimated weights of the bells are also given. Approximately ~14% of
churches had more than 5 bells, namely Bansted, Beddington, Charshalton,
Chertsey, Dorking, Godalming, Lambeth, Putney, Shalford, Shere, Southwark [St
Olive], Woking, Worplesdon ) and only one church had more bells: St
Saviours, Southwark being listed as having vj (6) bells. The distribution of
number of bells in Surrey churches is shown in Figure 1.
It is notable that several of the churches listed as having five or more
bells are nearby Abbeys which were dissolved in 1537-38, and it may be surmised
that in several cases the bells from the Abbeys were transferred to local parish
churches, and possibly re-hung for full circle ringing.
It should also be noted that only Dorking is listed as having a clock.
This data has been analysed as background information for writing up the
history of Chertsey tower and bells; the full spreadsheet with the details of
other churches in Surrey may be found
here.
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Figure 1. Distribution of bells in Surrey churches in 1553.
The
National Archive holds details of references of inventories for other counties
that have also been published including: Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Durham,
Huntingdonshire, Lancashire, Northumberland, Staffordshire, York, and various
parishes in London and Middlesex. Note this list is not exhaustive, since the
National Archive does not include the details of Surrey inventory, so it would
be interesting to know if details have been transcribed for other counties. In
addition it would be interesting to know whether the distribution of bells in
Surrey is similar to other counties, and how many other churches had 6 or more
bells in ~ 1553.
1. John Robert Daniel-Tyssen ( 1865) ‘Inventories of the goods and ornaments of the churches in the county of Surrey in the reign of King Edward the Sixth’ Proc. Surrey Archaeological Society IV, 1- 189. [ Note: J.C.L. Stahlschmidt in ‘Surrey Bells & London Bell-Founders’ published in 1884, also gives details of the numbers of bells in 1553 based on Daniel-Tyssens paper.]
Copyright ©
Malcolm S Loveday, Chertsey. January
2005.