Nails with history

Now that the work on the bells has started, we are finding even more lines of enquiry opening up. For example, who would have thought that finding that rope pulleys had been attached to the bell frame using old nails would open such an avenue? But, in detaching the pulley boxes from their timber bases, we found that nails such as those shown in the photo had been used. It seemed obvious that these were not modern machine-produced and therefore probably did not date from 1905 when the current frame was presumably erected to house the two “new" bells. As they were iron, and the restoration of the iron frame is being funded by a generous grant from the Ironmongers Company, it seemed logical to ask if that body might be interested in the nails and whether they could provide any clarification about their history. The result has been fascinating.

Our enquiry was initially passed to Simon Stoddart, a professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, who in turn consulted colleagues Dr Jody Joy and Elizabeth La Duc. They have only seen the photograph of the nails at this stage, but their thoughts are very interesting. Their comments include “my thoughts are nails like this are hard to date and could conceivably be anywhere from the Roman period - early 20th C.” “On the balance of probabilities, given the context in which they are from ... probably older than 1904 and possibly as old as medieval.” “Well worth conserving with a note on their original context.”

Clearly there is almost certainly much more to be discovered and the heritage is valuable and worth recording.