The Tower The church Tower is constructed of three chambers; the ground floor (American 1st floor), above that the Ringing chamber – where the bell ringers stand and pull on the ropes, and the Bell chamber – containing the bells as they swing. English ringing involves rotating the bells 360 0 from t.d.c. forwards and backwards; this is unlike continental bells which merely ‘swing’ against a hanging ‘clapper’. The outside of the tower has an ‘embattled parapet’ (resembling a castle wall) and has angled buttresses at its corners. The four original bells pre-date 1681, and a further four were added between 1718 and 1902. The heaviest weighs 11 cwt 18 lbs (eleven hundredweights and eighteen pounds in traditional old English measures) – that’s 1,250 lbs, or 567 kgs (kilograms). The clock in the tower dates from around 1870 and chimes the quarter hours and strikes the hour with the appropriate number.