A history of the bells of St Martin’s Worcester

by Chris Pickford

St Martin’s is one of Worcester’s ancient parish churches. Of the ten churches extant in the eighteenth century, four (including St Martin’s) were largely rebuilt between 1730 and 1780 and several others were extensively improved and beautified. St Martin’s was enlarged and rebuilt between 1767 and 1780. The body of the church and the lower parts of the tower, incorporating some mediaeval masonry, were completed by October 1772 when the opening took place. The top two stages of the tower were added in 1780. This was a reflection of the prosperity of the city at the time and the desire for churches in the prevailing classical style of architecture of the day. Then, as now, Worcester’s towers and steeples were an important feature of the landscape of the city.

We know that there were three bells in 1552 from the so-called Edwardian Inventory of that year lists “iij litle belles a saunce bell”. One of the mediaeval bells survives as the third bell in the present ring, inscribed with a dedication to St Martin. This bell has distinctive gothic lettering with a cross and fleur-de-lis mark found on several bells mainly in churches in or near Staffordshire. On the basis of their geographical distribution H.B. Walters conjectured that they were cast at Lichfield, suggesting a date “not later than 1350” and linking them with a founder named John Mitchell mentioned in 1313. This is very tenuous, and the shape of this bell and its mouldings suggest a much later date towards the end of the fourteenth century or later.

Walters also suggests that this ancient bell may have been the tenor of the pre-Reformation ring. He cites no evidence, and whether or not this is so is unclear. We do know, however, that the bells were augmented to five and probably increased in weight in 1638-40 through the generosity of Robert Durant and Sir Robert Berkeley.

Durant paid for the casting (or recasting) of two bells, now the fourth and fifth dated 1638. Sir Robert is said to have laid out over £100 in mending and increasing the ring of bells in 1640, at which time he caused a new treble and a new tenor to be made. This evidently refers to the predecessor of the present second (recast in 1833) and the tenor, which was known as Berkeley’s bell. Sir Robert also left funds for the tenor bell to be rung nightly as the “plum-pudding bell” a few weeks before Christmas.

The city of Worcester had a long tradition of bellfounding from mediaeval times through to the mid-1690s when the foundries of John Martin the younger (d. 1696) and the less well-known William Huntbach (fl. 1685-93) ceased to operate. John Martin’s foundry was in the parish of St Martin’s and not far from the church. It is therefore rather strange to find that the new bells for St Martin’s were cast by Hugh Watts II of Leicester, whose work, apart from one bell of 1641 at Hartlebury, now recast, is otherwise unknown in the county.

The reason may have been that Worcester was temporarily without a resident bellfounder at the time. We know of bells cast in the city up to 1636 but then there is a gap of a few years until the arrival of John Martin the elder in about 1644. During that time, another founder, unidentified to date but apparently associated with Thomas Hancox of Walsall, cast a few bells in 1640 and 1641 for the Cathedral and for other churches nearby.

Watts provided St Martin’s with three or four bells of the very highest quality of casting and ornamentation. The three survivors have beautifully formed inscriptions in three styles of lettering and are decorated with the usual Watts borders and marks. The fifth, in particular, is an especially attractive bell. Their tone, however, is less satisfactory and rather surprisingly so, since Watts cast some very fine-toned bells.

Thus, by the eve of the Civil War, St Martin’s had a ring of five bells. It also had a small sanctus bell, which is still in use, cast locally in 1621 to replace the ancient one noted in the 1552 inventory. The inscription records that the cost of the new bell was borne by Richard Durant, doubtless a kinsman of the donor of the 1638 bells, Robert Durant. The identity of the founder is not known.
In May 1674 the churchwardens of St Martin’s reported the “Bells, Bellropes etc … in good and decent repare”. Presumably they were still five in number, but in around 1700 a further bell was added to make a ring of six. The precise date is uncertain, and there is also some confusion as to what happened as the inscription of the present treble (dated 1780) implies that it was an addition too, but we can be sure that a bell was added by Abraham Rudhall I before 1704/5.
The Rudhall catalogue of 1704/5 lists one bell supplied by Rudhall to “St Martin’s in the City of Worcester” and the corresponding entry in the catalogue of 1715 clearly states that the bell was supplied “to make Six”.

The present tower was completed in 1780, the bells, silent for some thirteen years, were reinstated. Inscribed “God prosper all our benefactors”, the present treble was cast by Thomas Rudhall in that year. Assuming, as the other evidence suggests, that it was not an addition, then it must have been a recasting of the bell added by Abraham Rudhall some eighty years earlier. The 1788 Rudhall catalogue, however, lists two bells cast by the Gloucester founders for St Martin’s and one wonders if the ring was remodelled by casting a new treble and retuning the other Rudhall bell as the second. Unfortunately the recasting of the second in 1833 has removed the evidence required for clarification here.

Nevertheless, the present bellframe almost certainly dates from 1780. It is of fairly standard construction but on a rather unusual plan with the tenor in the middle. The whole frame is positioned towards the south side of the tower with a wide space on the north.

The bells were rehung in 1812 by Thomas Paul, a bellhanger from Bristol who undertook work at several other churches in the area between 1811 and 1816. Exactly what he did at St Martin’s is unclear, but his advertisement in the Worcester Herald of 12 September 1812 states that he had “just completed the Hanging of All Saints’ and St Martin’s”. Most of the present fittings probably date from this time.

In 1833 the second bell was recast by Thomas Mears II of Whitechapel, whose bill for the work survives among the parish records. At some time in the nineteenth century the tenor was quarter turned, and in June 1891 John Taylor & Co of Loughborough installed an Ellacombe chiming apparatus.

When William Saunders, the author of the “Sherborne manuscript”, visited on 22 July 1891 he described them as “well hung”. Indeed, the closing decades of the nineteenth century saw a fair amount of ringing at the tower, and the Bell News contains several reports of ringing between 1883 and 1899.

The Old Bells

The bells have the following inscriptions:

1. GOD PROSPER ALL OVR BENEFACTORS (vine border) 1780 (vine border) Below (cutting into the beadings): (arabesque border) JOHN BAND CHVRCHWARDEN (vine border)
2. Thomas Mears of London Founder 1833 Waist: Christopher Barden } / John Goodman } Church Wardens
3. + (fleur-de-lis) SANCTE (fleur-de-lis) MARTINE (fleur-de-lis) HORA (fleur-de-lis) PRO (fleur-de-lis) NOBIS (fleur-de-lis)
4. (Arabesque border all round) / (Brasyer shield) DVRANTIA (border) DONIA (border) IN (border) HONOREM (border) DEI (border) 1638 (border) / (arabesque border all round)
5. 1638 (acorn border all round) / (Brasyer shield) THE (mark) GIFTE (mark) OF ROBERT (mark) DURANT (mark) FOR (mark) THE (mark) HONOUR (mark) OF GOD (mark) / (arabesque border all round) On rim: (three coins)
6. (Arabesque border all round) / + DEO (border) GLORIAM (border) ET (border) GRATIAS (border) SONO (border) BERKELEY (border) 1640 (border) / (arabesque border all round)
7. Sanctus. + THE GIFT OF RICHARD DVRANT 1621

(reversed letters are indicated by underlining)