St. Mary le Bow

St Mary-le-Bow
Exterior of St Mary-le-Bow
Location	City of London
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Church of England
Website	www.stmarylebow.co.uk
Architecture
Heritage designation	Grade I
Designated	4 January 1950
Architect(s)	Sir Christopher Wren
Style	Baroque
Years built	1683
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 prominent in the story of Dick Whittington and His Cat where the bells are credited with having persuaded him 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 ring of bells 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. The present bells are also hung for full circle ringing.