Night Casting

[Brian Meldon]

Although not a ceremony related to the actually casting of a bell, as in this case that was done at Whitechapel, here in Canewdon we do have evidence of a celebratory event of the arrival of a new bell in the village in March of 1791. This is best explained in the following extracts from `The Bells of Canewdon' written in 2009:

Fourth Bell......

....There is a local tale about this bell being upturned outside the Anchor pub in the village and filled with beer when new and in the surviving church warden's accounts the next line after the £21 9s for Thomas Mears is indeed a payment to the publican of the Anchor pub for `beer to season the bell', it must have been quite a party! What the people from the Whitechapel foundry thought of this and if their boss Thomas Mears was aware of these goings on is not known......

....The parishioners and the PCC at Canewdon were obviously well pleased with the two churchwarden's efforts in 1791, perhaps they were influenced by the bell full of beer, but a note in the church accounts log book dated Monday February 13th 1792 states that each of the two Churchwardens were awarded a bonus of 6 pence in every pound that they had spent in the preceding year including a special mention of exchanging the broken 4th bell for a new one........


There were actually serious problems with the tuning of this bell in relation to the existing four and the locals may not have been aware of this problem at the time. But that's another story


Brian Meldon