Monument record MDO5426 - Bell-founding pit, Church of All Saints, Chalbury

The remains of a fourteenth/fifteenth century bell-founding pit and other evidence for the casting of a bell was found below the floor of the nave of All Saints, Chalbury.

Two pits associated with medieval bell-founding were found beneath the floor of the nave of All Saints Church, Chalbury during limited excavations by the East Dorset Antiquarian Society in 1989.
Pit 27 was circular with vertical sides 0.75m in diameter and 0.7m deep. It was filled with loose brown soil and charcoal fragments and included some bronze fragments and one sherd of fourteenth or fifteenth century pottery. The edge of this pit was cut by another circular pit with vertical sides (Pit 26) which was 0.7m deep. At the base of the pit was an in situ 0.5m diameter ring of unfired clay which may have been used to hold the bell mould during casting. The pit was backfilled with brown soil and layers of charcoal, yellow clay and dark soil, which contained bronze fragments, fourteenth/fifteenth century pottery and parts of the mould and model for a bell. Adjacent to the pits was an area of clay about 1.25 m by 0.75m which appeared to have been subjected to intense heat and was probably associated with the bell casting process.
Both pits cut through the floor of the twelfth century nave. It is likely the founding took place after the demolition of this nave and within the shell of the newly-constructed fourteenth/fifteenth century nave. (1)

<1> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1991, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1990, 43-50 (Serial). SDO90.

Record last edited

Sep 5 2013 5:21PM