AS this is Eastertide and a most important religious festival, it’s probably appropriate to cast an eye over that great edifice at the southern end of High Street which is Worcester Cathedral. 

For it was there in 1863 that a very irreligious act indeed occurred. Because somebody thieved one of its huge bells.

Worcester’s Cathedral bells have long been a source of considerable pride and joy. Indeed the current ring is considered one of the finest in the world and at one time the city had a tradition of bell casting.

Maybe that’s why in early 1863 a person, or more likely persons, unknown carried out a most sacrilegious and mystifying heist. After all, what do you do with just one bell, apart from melt it down. Answers on a postcard.

Amazingly the theft went un-noticed for several months. Because it was considered highly unlikely, presumably no-one actually counted the number of bells on a regular basis. Although you might have though the ringers would have noticed the treble bell was missing when they rang a peel. “Albert, you’ve gone silent. Pull harder!”
For it was the treble, all five hundredweight of it, that went AWOL. Not only that, but it took an American to spot the difference.

The Worcester Chronicle was first to break the news, reporting that “one of the great bells of the Cathedral has been stolen”. It was “not known how or when, but it must have been within the last three months”. Although the rope and tackle remained, the treble bell had disappeared.

Which begged two questions: how did the felons squirrel away the weighty piece – for no-one ever came forward having seen any suspicious activity – and why? Being as the bells were designed to heard heard across the city, banging one to call the household to dinner would probably have caused burst eardrums all round.

The unsolved theft remains one of the Cathedral’s most intriguing mysteries, but it did have a happy ending. An appeal was made to replace the bell and so much money rolled in it was possible to place an order for a new peel of 16 bells.

The tower now contains a ring of 12 bells and their total weight is more than 16 tonnes. Fifteen of the ringing bells were cast in 1928 by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough, with a new bell cast by the Westley Group being added in 2018. The bourdon bell was cast in 1869 and retuned in 1928. This is the one used by the clock to strike the hours. The ring is also the fifth heaviest in the world. 

The bells are hung in the 1869 oak frame which housed the previous ring and this sits on top of a pitch pine structure which directs the forces down onto the supporting corner pillars of the tower. 
Shifting one would have required the skills of a Fred Dibnah, but he wasn’t around in 1863, was he?