The practice sometimes adopted nowadays of playing hymn tunes on bells by means of ropes tied to the clappers is a miserable substitute for the mechanical contrivance. It not only causes agonies to the musical ear by the unavoidable occurrence of false notes, but is only too likely to lead to the destruction of the bells altogether, as the result of the “clocking,” of which I shall have more to say later. CAMPANILES We have seen that it is the normal rule in England for bells to be placed in towers forming part of the structure of churches; or rather it should be said that towers for containing the bells were regarded as an essential feature in the construction of a church from the Saxon period onwards. Over the greater part of the Continent the same also holds good; but in Italy we find detached bell-towers, or campaniles, to be of frequent occurrence. The most familiar examples in that country are the campanile of S. Mark’s at Venice, and that built by Giotto at Florence. There are many others in Northern Italy, especially at Bologna, and at Ravenna, where the churches are of great antiquity.[3] [Illustration: _Plate 16._ A RING OF EIGHT BELLS. Recently cast at the Whitechapel Foundry for Uckfield, Sussex. (See page 41).] Nor are such campaniles altogether unknown in England. In mediaeval times they were attached to several of our cathedral churches, as, for instance, Old S. Paul’s, Chichester, Salisbury, and Worcester. The bells of Old S. Paul’s were traditionally gambled away by Henry VIII in 1534, and the campanile at Worcester did not survive the Reformation; but that at Salisbury, a most picturesque structure, with a wooden upper storey and spire, was wantonly destroyed in 1777 because the bells were misused! That at Chichester alone remains, a fine Perpendicular erection, at the north-west angle of the cathedral (Plate 24). At King’s College, Cambridge, a noble peal of five bells hung in a low wooden belfry on the north side of the chapel, which was destroyed when the bells were sold and melted down in 1754 (Plate 25). Detached towers are not uncommon features of our parish churches in some parts of England, particularly in Herefordshire and Norfolk. The best examples are at Berkeley, Gloucestershire; Ledbury, Herefordshire; West Walton, Norfolk; and Beccles, Suffolk. Some churches, again, can only boast wooden detached belfries of moderate height to hold their bells, as at Pembridge in Herefordshire, Brooklands in Kent, and East Bergholt in Suffolk (Plate 26). The belfry at the last-named place is no more than a mere shed, and more than one story is told in explanation of the absence of a tower to the otherwise imposing church. [Illustration: _Plate 17._ THE 9TH BELL OF LOUGHBOROUGH PARISH CHURCH. Cast by the Taylors of that town. (See page 41.)] CHAPTER IV _Change-Ringing_