St.Mary's Church Tower, Church Road, Little Bentley, Essex. CO7 8SH. - Bell Towers on Waymarking.com

The west tower is an example of an attractive mixture of puddingstone, flint, and odd Roman bricks. It is early C15th with a west door (with shields in the spandrels) and a large three-light west window, and has been heightened with the same mix of stone and brick and embattled. Of three stages, with dividing string courses, it has diagonal buttresses at each corner, that on the south-east side not in line with the tower corner, and that on the north-west side combined with the turret stair. The second stage has a brick doorway leading onto the roof which can be seen to have been access to the inside of the former much steeper pitched nave roof. There are two-light louvred openings to the bell chamber on each face. There is a small opening on the west side, formerly the window to the ringing chamber.

There are 5 bells, 3 of them cast by Robert Mott in the 1590s, one, the tenor, by Miles I. Gray in 1626, and the lightest, the treble, by Lester & Pack in 1764. The bells are tuned to the key of F which is the note of the tenor, it weighs 15¼cwt, 774.75kg. The lightest bell sounds C. The bells are currently unringable and it is reported that one, or more, of them is cracked. Due to their age they cannot be recast but could have the cracks welded and made ringable again, unlikely due to the high cost involved so they will sit there in the tower with little or no maintenance.

Lester and Pack were the master bell founders at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London from 1752 to 1769. Robert Mot was the master founder also at the Whitechapel foundry from 1574 to 1606 and was probably the son of John Mot of Canterbury who bought up handbells, organ pipes and latten candlesticks from the dissolved churches in 1553. Miles Graye I was a bell founder who lived at various times in Colchester and Saffron Walden and had two subsequent relations, also called Miles Graye, who were also founders.

Address of Tower: S.Mary's Church Church Road Little Bentley, Essex UK CO7 8SH Still Operational: no Number of bells in tower?: 5 Rate tower: Tours or visits allowed in tower?: Unknown Relevant website?: Not listed

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