Brinkburn Bell

It wasn't just Quasimodo who had issues with bells. Here at Brinkburn Priory, there was a bit of a hell's bells going on in Medieval times.

Known as The Brinkburn Bell, this is a symbolic sculpture by artist Alison Dale, which sits in the towering shadows of Brinkburn Priory and the Manor House.

Unveiled in 1993, and especially commissioned and designed for English Heritage, the bell is made from copper alloy, and its green tinges can be seen in the summer sunlight.

Like the character in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dam, the monks at Brinkburn were super sensitive to the sound of the bells when legend has it, one excitable monk, let's call him Gary, rang the bells in celebration of escaping the marauding Scots who descended on Brinkburn but found no riches, so left.

Upon noting the fact that the Scots had departed, Gary was so excited to have escaped possible death and plunder that he rang the bells in a mega belltastic celebration, but instead, the Scots heard the peal of the bells and beetled back, bumping them off and stealing their treasures.

The sculpture is a beautiful and poignant reminder of medieval history and perhaps Victorian tales based on local folklore. Some stories state that the small band of canons were so afraid of raiders that they took down the bells and plunged them into the depths of the river Coquet, which curls around the perimeter of the Brinkburn Estate.

Look at the beautifully fashioned pieces of copper, neatly cut and layered together to create a tessellated tangle of overlapping leaf-like shapes.

The filigree shadows fell on the floor beneath the bell and looked like gathering leaves.

We'd been visiting Brinkburn on a guided tour expertly run by English Heritage and filled with fascinating facts.

We were taken on a journey from the arrival of the Augustinian Monks in the 12th century, skirted around the Dissolution and taken up until the last man standing at Brinkburn Manor in 1953, when Colonel Lancelot Fenwick had to leave the property as it dwindled due to damp and dry rot. So many stories measuring the life of this monastery.

Outside on the terraced lawn sits the bell.

It stands at about five feet and is open on one side, perhaps to symbolise the supposed damage and fire set by the Scots who were on their way back to the Scottish border, some twenty miles up the road, when they heard the toll of the bell ring in jubilant celebration by the monk. Rumour has it they about turned and came back to Brinkburn to raise the roof, and set fire to the tower, causing the bell to crash to the ground through the rafters and roll into the river.

An alternative slant is that the Cannons were so afraid of losing their lives and monastic loot, that they climbed up and forcibly removed the bells, hiding them in the fast flowing Coquet in a pool which has come to be known as The Bell Pool.

In the 19th century, local children were said to swim in the pool in an attempt to recover the bells.

Legend has it that local industrialist and philanthropist William Armstrong replaced the bells as a gift to the priory in the 1800s but this seems to have been a tangled truth, and in fact it was the organ he donated to the priory, which was made by William Hill and cost £385.00 and still plays to perfection.

So where the hell's the bells?

Another tale tells of how the Priors weren't great with their pennies and squandered their deniers and groats.

Left with little, the Priory was taken under the direction of the Bishop of Durham, who agreed to pay off the monks' debts, and repair the ruinous roof of the Priory.

However, the Bishop is said to have had a keen ear for the fancy pants bells, which were the envy of the North, and the Bishop wanted that bong!

In exchange for his assistance, the bells were the bargaining tool, and it's said that they were transported to Durham Cathedral.

The bells are such a prominent feature of the Priory, and they've been artistically captured here as a lasting legacy of local legend and folklore.

I'd really recommend a visit to Brinkburn Priory, and having a mooch around the manor house to find out about its colourful history and heritage. On a sunny summer afternoon, we learnt so much.