104 THE CHURCH BELLS OF DORSET. 



unfurnished and empty, excepting that in the middle of it stood 

 a curious wooden machine resembling a windlass. A rope was 

 wound round the middle of the roller, and at each end were four 

 iron arms, each with a poise or ball of lead at each end. The 

 rope formerly passed through a hole (which still exists) in the 

 floor into the Leicester Gallery below. A person by pulling the 

 rope in this gallery would cause the roller with the iron arms 

 poised with lead to revolve at the first pull, and the impetus given 

 would rewind the rope again, and so continue to wind and 

 unwind at each pull, thus giving the same exercise as that of 

 ringing a bell in a church tower, except that it was noiseless." 



" The attic, or Dumb Bell Gallery, forms part of the additions 

 made at Knole by Thomas Sackville, first Earl of Dorset/ 1603-8, 

 in Jacobean style of architecture, re-built upon the stone base- 

 ment, which is fifteenth century work. This might suggest the 

 approximate date of the machine," which is very old and 

 decayed. 



" The late Chancellor Ferguson, F.S.A., with whom I had 

 much correspondence at this time, and to whom I sent a photo- 

 graph and description of the machine, fully concurred with me 

 as to the derivation of the name given to the smaller dumb bells, 

 and Sir Henry Dryden, to whom he showed the photograph, 

 attributed it to the seventeenth century, * when bell-ringing was 

 part of a gentleman's education and practice.' It was probably 

 to train and keep in practice the arms for bell-ringing," as well 

 as for exercise. 



"John Northbrooke, in a treatise against ' Diceing and 

 Dancing,' 1577, says: 'In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the 

 progress of building in London was like an inundation ; it 

 overflowed the ancient fields and vacant spaces within and 

 around the city, so that tilt yards, shooting grounds, and race- 

 courses were covered with streets and alleys, and thus the active 

 civic sports were of a necessity in a great degree laid aside. As 

 a substitute for these healthful exercises, young gentlemen were 

 exhorted to labour in their chambers with poises of lead' that 

 is, to exercise with dumb bells." 



