The attached article published online by Apollo spells out the current hope for the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. It will require the various heritage agencies, including Tower Hamlets and Historic England, to come together in support of a plan to reinstate Bell making in the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. It would enable not just the historic fabric […]

The Gentle Author is quite rightly keeping the fate of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in the public eye (see below). I had myself noticed last time I passed that it looks increasingly dilapidated. There is a risk that the current owner, Raycliff Estates, is allowing it to deteriorate in order to make Tower Hamlets more […]

Every time someone puts something online about the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, I can’t help but notice that there is a massive amount of public interest in its fate. You only have to look at its current state to see that we are shamefully neglecting a historic building:- The question is, what is to be done […]

I have been sent an absolutely brilliant photograph which demonstrates very clearly what has happened to the Bell Foundry over the last six years. Buildings deteriorate very fast if not looked after. It will no doubt soon be on the Buildings At Risk Register and deserves to be:- Interacty – engaging content | Interacty project

I see that the Art Newspaper is reporting the availability of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry for rent (https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/11/01/everything-has-a-price-estate-agent-lists-historic-foundry-that-once-cast-big-bens-bells). It’s a wonderful site and I can see that it could potentially be turned into an art gallery. But I am still hoping that the relevant heritage agencies – most notably, Historic England, Tower Hamlets and the […]

The Art Newspaper have just published the latest news about the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. For those, who do not have a subscription, the answer is NOTHING. After being sold in 2017 (I thought it was November 2016), and Historic England allowing, and even encouraging, it to be dismantled – one of the greatest sites of […]

I woke up this morning to the news that the Whitechapel Bell Foundry was for sale. I suppose this was inevitable. COVID has changed the economics of development. I can’t help noticing that there are now a vast number of new hotels round Aldgate, including a new Hilton in the Minories, a big new hotel […]

There is a certain irony in the fact that, after more than a year since the developers were given permission by the Department for Levelling Up to turn the Whitechapel Bell Foundry into a boutique hotel, absolutely nothing has happened and the site has been left to decay. Yet, at the same time, the company […]

I caught a glimpse of Grayson’s bell at the RA last night, with Grayson himself beside it. Let’s hope it will draw further attention to the plight of the Bell Foundry and the tragedy of its loss:-

I did a talk last night at the London Salon alongside Dickon Love, the King of the London Bell Ringers. He talked movingly about bell ringing. I had not fully realised the extent to which quite a number of the most important bells in the City Churches are actually quite recent, all of them made […]