[Bell Historians] Robert of Durham

[khsbelring at a...]

Well done George your assumtion is correct. I'll give you a little more meat 
to put on the bone. 
When Christopher Hodson added treble and tenor bells in 1693 and recast the 
existing six that hung in the Langthorne or central tower, he reproduced the 
wording that was previously on the bells after the not so clever castings done 
by Thomas Bartlett. The bell that had R Tonnor on it was dedicated to St. 
Benedict and had always hung in the central tower as part of the"three" that were 
installed there. Bartlett used this bell or recast it as the 3rd. of his six. 
This bell became the 4th. of the Hodson ring of 8 and would, if it had not 
been recast in 1896 by M.& S., now be the 6th. of the ten.
You mention the current 9th which is still a Hodson bell from 1693. This bell 
was dedicated to St. Oswald. The Oswald bell was one of the "4" that hung in 
the North West Galilee Steeple ( both of the West end towers had steeples a 
long time ago ) and it is this bell that the Cathedral records show was fecited 
by Robert of Durham. Wether it was recast by Bartlett in 1631/2 is currently 
not clear but it was used as the tenor bell of Bartlett's 6. It had previously 
been moved to the central tower between 1561 -1579 along with two other bells 
leaving only the smallest in the Galilee Tower.


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