Tom Quad, Christ Church, Oxford (cropped)

Tom Tower is a bell tower in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

, England, named after its bell, Great Tom. It is over Tom Gate, on St Aldates, the main entrance of Christ Church, Oxford, which leads into

Tom Quad The Great Quadrangle, more popularly known as Tom Quad, is one of the quadrangles of Christ Church, Oxford, England. It is the largest college quad in Oxford, measuring 264 by 261 feet. Although it was begun by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525–1529, ...

. This square tower with an octagonal lantern and facetted ogee dome was designed by

Christopher Wren Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churc ...

and built 1681–82. The strength of Oxford architectural tradition and Christ Church's connection to its founder,

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disagr ...

, motivated the decision to complete the gatehouse structure, left unfinished by

Cardinal Wolsey Thomas Wolsey ( – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figu ...

at the date of his fall from power in 1529, and which had remained roofless since. Wren made a case for working in a

Late Gothic International Gothic is a period of Gothic art which began in Burgundy, France, and northern Italy in the late 14th and early 15th century. It then spread very widely across Western Europe, hence the name for the period, which was introduced by t ...

style—that it "ought to be Gothick to agree with the Founders worke"—a style that had not been seen in a prominent building for a hundred and fifty years, making Tom Tower a lonely precursor of the Gothic Revival that got underway in the mid-18th century. Wren never came to supervise the structure as it was being erected by the

stonemason Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, ...

he had recommended, Christopher Kempster of

Burford Burford () is a town on the River Windrush, in the Cotswold hills, in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England. It is often referred to as the 'gateway' to the Cotswolds. Burford is located west of Oxford and southeast of Chelte ...

The Christ Church entrance beneath Tom Tower

In 1732–34, when

William Kent William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, bu ...

was called upon to make sympathetic reconstruction of the east range of Clock Court in Wolsey's Tudor

Hampton Court Palace Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief ...

, he naturally turned to the precedent of Tom Tower for his "central ogee dome with its coronet of pilaster-like gothick finials". The tower of

Dunster House Dunster House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University. Built in 1930, it is one of the first two dormitories at Harvard University constructed under President Abbott Lawrence Lowell's House Plan and one of the sev ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

is a direct imitation of Tom Tower, though its details have been Georgianised, and stones from Christ Church are installed in one of the house's main entryways. Tom Tower was the inspiration for the Clock Tower (formally the Old Arts Building) at the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn ...

Great Tom

Great Tom, housed in the tower, is the loudest bell in Oxford. It weighs six and a quarter tons and was moved from the 12th-century

Osney Abbey Osney Abbey or Oseney Abbey, later Osney Cathedral, was a house of Augustinian canons at Osney in Oxfordshire. The site is south of the modern Botley Road, down Mill Street by Osney Cemetery, next to the railway line just south of Oxford ...

after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Aside from a student prank in 2002 when the clapper was lagged (enclosed or covered with a material providing insulation), Tom has sounded every night since the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Originally called "Mary", Great Tom was moved from Osney Abbey to St Frideswide's Priory in 1545, after which at some point it was renamed "Tom". It had caused problems since its first casting, wearing out its clapper, and was recast in 1626 and 1654, but without solving the problem (there is no evidence of a recasting in 1612). In 1678–79, Richard Keene of

Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...

tried three times to recast the bell, in the process increasing its weight from two to over six tons, but it was not until a final recasting in 1680—by Christopher Hodson, a bell-founder from London—that success was achieved, and the resulting bell, Great Tom, was hung in the newly completed Tom Tower. It was rehung in May 1953. There is an inscription on the bell in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

, which translated reads:

"Great Thomas the door closer of Oxford renovated April 8, 1680 in the reign of Charles II. Deacon John, the Bishop of Oxford and sub-Deacon give thanks to the knowledge of Henry Smith and the care and workmanship of Christopher Hodson".

Great Tom is still sounded 101 times every night, which signifies the 100 original scholars of the college plus one (added in 1663). It is rung at 21:05 current UK time, which corresponds to 21:00 in what used to be "Oxford time" (local mean time for Oxford, noon in Oxford always occurring five minutes later than noon in Greenwich), and was at one time the signal for all the Oxford colleges to lock their gates. The bell is only rung by swinging on very special occasions. The bell is the subject of a number of Oxfordshire Morris tunes and

round Round or rounds may refer to: Mathematics and science * The contour of a closed curve or surface with no sharp corners, such as an ellipse, circle, rounded rectangle, cant, or sphere * Rounding, the shortening of a number to reduce the numbe ...

s, including "Old Tom of Oxford" (from Bampton), and the rounds "Great Tom Is Cast" and "Bonny Christ Church Bells", which were composed by the Dean of Christ Church, Henry Aldrich (1647–1710). However, "Great Tom Is Cast" is also credited to Matthew White written in 1667. The two versions are identical except for two notes. Considering the dates, it is likely that White is the real author of the piece.

Notes

References

* Jennifer Sherwood and

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, '' The Buildings of England'' ...

, ''The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire''. . * ''Wren Society'' vol 5: "Designs of Sir Christopher Wren for Oxford, Cambridge..." (1928).

External links

*
Images of Tom Tower

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Under Tom Tower
by Richard Ellmann

History of legal time in Britain
by Joseph Myers {{Bells Towers completed in 1682 Christ Church, Oxford Towers in Oxford Bell towers in the United Kingdom Christopher Wren buildings Tourist attractions in Oxford 1682 establishments in England

Great Tom

See also

Notes

References

External links