It seems very likely that the tower was primarily intended to be a defensive work. Whatever its original purpose, however, it is certain that it was used for bells at a very early date. In or before 1154, for he died in that year, Prior Reginald "made two bells and placed them in the greater tower. One which was broken was applied to the making of another bell." In support of the view that the tower was a defensive work the suggestion has been made that the metal thus re-used may have belonged to the original alarm bell. Two other bells came to the cathedral in the twelfth century, and were probably placed here at once as they are mentioned in the "Custumale Roffense," written about 1300, as then hanging in the "greater tower," a name by which this is distinguished from the long destroyed south one. Gundulf's Tower is certainly, therefore, an early example of a detached campanile, and, if built as such, was probably the first in this country. As has been before mentioned, its reduction to a mere ruin is of quite recent date. The author of the 1772 edition of the "History and Antiquities of Rochester," thinking it a bell tower, wrote in that work: "May the present reverend and learned gentlemen (the Dean and Chapter), and their successors, experience the necessity of finishing this venerable tower and applying it to the uses for which, it has been conjectured, it was originally intended." In the second edition, of 1817, stands: "So far, we regret to say, is this ardent wish from having been realized, that a part of this ancient tower has lately been taken down to supply materials for the repairs of the church." Denunciations follow of the action of the dean and chapter in thus demolishing one of the most curious and interesting pieces of architecture remaining in England. The space between the tower and the church seems to have been floored and occupied by the wax-chandler's chamber and the sacristan's rooms. The remains of an oven and chimney, conjectured to have been used for the baking of altar-breads, have also been described.