I am learning from the amazing amount of traffic on my twitter account how much the Whitechapel Bell Foundry means to people: not just as a set of historic buildings, but because it represents such a strong sense of historic continuity, which has now been ruptured. Much the most popular tweet came from someone who goes under the soubriquet of Boiled beans (@Fulmedames) and I reproduce it here as a record of some of the feelings which the closure of the Foundry has generated:-

Those bells spoke to the people in a time when there was no other way to reach so many at once. They tolled the time, peeled the weddings, told who had died, sent out warnings, opened & closed markets.

Now we silence the makers for profit.