Hatch bell foundry

The Hatch bell foundry at Ulcombe, near Maidstone, in Kent, England, was operated by three generations of the Hatch family from 1581 or earlier until 1664. The bellfounders were based at nearby Broomfield from about 1587 until at least 1639. Joseph Hatch, bellfounder from 1602 to 1639, cast at least 155 bells, including "Bell Harry", after which the central tower of Canterbury Cathedral is named. Most Hatch bells were used in churches east of the River Medway in East Kent.

The first recorded member of the Hatch family of bellfounders, named Thomas, received payment for work in the church at Cranbrook, Kent, in 1581 and 1593. He also made bells for the church at Lyminge in 1585 and for St Margaret's Church, Canterbury, and the churches at Bearsted, Langley and Margate in 1599. In 1887, according to J. C. L. Stahlschmidt, the only remaining bells made by Thomas Hatch were the treble bells at Langley and in St Margaret's Church, Canterbury, the latter being "cracked and useless". Stahlschmidt also wrote that a Bible belonging to the Hatch family gave Thomas Hatch's year of death as 1599, but he noted that a Thomas Hatch was recorded as a churchwarden for Broomfield, near Maidstone, in 1603. A bell cast in 1602 for the church at Waltham, Kent, bears Thomas Hatch's foundry stamp of a bell on a shield with the letters "T" and "H" on either side, but the bell also bears the legend Iosephvs Hatch Me Fecit, or "Joseph Hatch made me", in reference to Thomas Hatch's son Joseph. Robert H. Goodsall, writing in 1970, noted that marriage bonds were provided by a "Thomas Hatch of Broomfield, bellfounder", in December 1607, for the marriage of one Joseph Hatch, also a bellfounder of Broomfield, and Jane Prowd of Canterbury: this Thomas Hatch could have been either Joseph Hatch's father or a brother of the same name.

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