A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



pound of Brass Gunn which was had of 

 Mr. Thomas Lovell ' ; he was next year at 

 Alfriston, where he cast one of the bells of the 

 parish church and one for that of Berwick, giving 

 in the latter case a bond that the bell should be 

 ' found tuTieable.' 



Arguing from the known to the unknown, we 

 may safely assume that at an earlier period, when 

 transport was even more difficult than in the 

 seventeenth century, bells would be more often 

 made in temporary furnaces erected by itinerant 

 founders, than sent from, say, Reading or Lon- 

 don, to their destinations in Sussex. The princi- 

 pal foundries from which this county was supplied 

 seem to have been at London and Reading ; to 

 the latter may be assigned a group of nine West- 

 Sussex bells at Eastbourne (2), Elsted, Cocking 

 (2), Fittleworth, Findon, Felpham, and West 

 Itchenor. A group of twelve mid-Sussex bells 

 at Preston, Pyecombe, Wivelsfield, Clayton, Ed- 

 burton, Little Horsted, Woodmancote, Litling- 

 ton, Tarring Neville, and Iford (3) bear a 

 shield 3 with what is apparently the monogram of 

 Thomas Lawrence, who succeeded to the busi- 

 ness of William Culverden of Houndsditch about 

 1523, and it is most probable that all this group 

 were cast at or near Lewes, possibly at two 

 separate visits, as the bells at Clayton, Iford, and 

 Litlington differ slightly from the remainder of 

 the series. Lewes may also have been the birth- 

 place of ten handsome bells cast in the reign of 

 Henry VIII by John Tonne, for Lewes (the 

 market tower), Beddingham, Keymer, Twine- 

 ham, Sullington, Botolphs (3), Findon, and 

 Rotherfield. 



Edmund Giles of Lewes appears to have been 

 the first known bell-founder resident within the 

 county, and he was probably also an ironfounder, 

 as the implements of that trade are figured on 

 two of his bells at Portslade and South Ber- 

 sted ; indeed, from the small number of his 

 bells that are known, only nineteen, and those 

 covering a period of nineteen years, from 1595 

 to 1614, this portion of his trade could hardly 

 have supplied a living. He died in February, 

 1614-15, his Lewes foundry passing to his 

 relative, Thomas Giles, bell-founder of Chiches- 

 ter, of whose earlier work only three specimens 

 remain, at Mayfield 1602, Oving 1613, and 

 South Bersted 1614. After his settlement in 

 Lewes Thomas Giles cast bells between 1615 

 and 1621 for Cliffe, Glynde, Beeding, Findon, 

 Chiddingly, and Ashburnham. It is probable 

 that he sold his Chichester business to Thomas 

 Wakefield, whose foundry in that town turned 

 out about a dozen bells of poor execution for 

 West Sussex parishes between 1615 and 1618. 



* Fig. 22 in Mr. Daniel-Tyssen's account ; the 

 reference to Thomas Lawrence is in a note facing this 

 illustration, but the writer did not connect the two, 

 though I think there can be little doubt about the 

 reading of the monogram. 



Wakefield had previously been in partnership 

 with Roger Tapsell of West Tarring, whose 

 father Henry had been a bell-founder before 

 him, Henry Tapsell's initials occurring alone on 

 a bell at Bury in 1599, an( ^ ' n conjunction with 

 his son's on one at Felpham in 1600. Tapsell 

 and Wakefield together cast bells at Hastings, 

 Washington, and Stopham in 1614, after which 

 year, as we have seen, the latter set up for 

 himself at Chichester, but he does not seem to 

 have long prospered there, as in 1621 he and 

 Roger Tapsell are again found together casting 

 a bell for Graffham. This partnership did not 

 last apparently, as Tapsell is found working by 

 himself down to 1633, in which year he made 

 bells for Pcvensey and Chiddingly. Wakefield's 

 name occurs again in 1628 at Up Marden, this 

 time in connexion with Bryan Eldridge, the 

 founder of the famous Chertsey foundry and 

 previously connected with Wokingham and 

 Horsham. 



As early as 1593 we find bells sent from 

 Slinfold 4 and Lindfield ' to Horsham to be 

 re-cast, so that there was evidently at least a 

 temporary foundry there at this time, and Mr. 

 Stahlschmidt 6 suggests that this may have been 

 the establishment of a founder whose initials 

 A.W. appear on eight Sussex bells, ranging from 

 1594 to 1605, as well as on several in Kent and 

 Surrey. It is, however, evident that the foundry 

 had ceased to work before 1606, as in that year 

 the parishioners of Slinfold, wishing to have one 

 of their bells re-cast, had to send it to White- 

 chapel, incurring expenses 7 naturally very much 

 in excess of those of 1593 when they could get 

 their work done at Horsham. From 1610 to 

 1622 there was a permanent foundry known as 

 the ' Bell House ' leased by the churchwardens 

 to Richard Eldridge, formerly of Wokingham, 

 and the Slinfold people availed themselves of its 

 existence to have two more bells recast in 1611 

 and i6i8, 8 while in the parish accounts of 

 Horsham s there are many entries of work done 

 by Eldridge in connexion with the bells. Bryan 

 Eldridge was tenant of the ' Bell House ' in 

 1618, when he cast a bell for Ifield, but he 

 removed soon after this date to Chertsey, where 

 he rapidly established a large connexion in 

 Surrey and Sussex, the latter county being 

 apparently without any local foundry after 

 1623, when Richard Eldridge disappears from 

 Horsham, from which place bells were sent 

 to Chertsey in 1633, 1645, and 1652. At 

 this latter date there was a small foundry at 

 Chiddingly in the hands of John Lulham, who 



4 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxi, 88. 

 6 Ibid. 82 n. 



6 The Church Bells of Surrey, 109. 



7 The details of these expenses are given frc m the 

 churchwardens' accounts by Mr. Rice ; Suss. Arch. 

 Coll. xxxi, 89. 



8 Ibid. "Ibid. 81-94. 



250 



