Bow Bells
| St Mary-le-Bow | |
|---|---|
Exterior of St Mary-le-Bow
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Denomination | Church of England |
| Website | www |
| Architecture | |
| Heritage designation | Grade I |
| Designated | 4 January 1950 |
| Architect(s) | Sir Christopher Wren |
| Style | Baroque |
| Administration | |
| Parish | St Mary Le Bow Cheapside |
| Diocese | Diocese of London |
| Clergy | |
| Vicar(s) | Rev. George Raymond Bush |
St Mary-le-Bow /sənt ˈmɛəri lə ˈboʊ/ is an historic church rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666 by Sir Christopher Wren in the City of London on the main east–west thoroughfare, Cheapside. According to tradition a true Cockney must be born within earshot of the sound of Bow Bells (which refers to this church's bells rather than St Mary and Holy Trinity, Bow Road, in Bow, an outlying village until the 19th century).
The sound of the bells of St Mary's is credited with having persuaded Dick Whittington to turn back from Highgate and remain in London to become Lord Mayor.
Details of the bells:
Weights in hundredweights, quarters and pounds.
The previous "great bell at Bow", the tenor bell of the peal installed in 1762 and destroyed in an air raid of 1941, weighed 58 hundredweight, with six tons of ironwork braces cut into the inside walls of the tower as reinforcement. Earlier still, the first great bell was a byword for having a sonorous tone as, in 1588, pamphleteer Robert Greene sarcastically likens the verse of Christopher Marlowe to the bell's "mouth-filling" resonance.
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Wikipedia