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Graphic by Rob Ryan

A new chapter opens in the ongoing saga of the historic Whitechapel Bell Foundry as the American developers put the building up for sale. When their option lapsed to buy the land at the rear of the foundry, where they had planned to build their tower of hotel rooms with a swimming pool on the top, we knew that the ill-conceived bell-themed boutique hotel scheme was dead and it was only a matter of time before this outcome arrived.

Shame on all those who killed the world’s most famous Bell Foundry that operated in Whitechapel for five hundred years from the reign of Elizabeth I to the reign of Elizabeth II, where the Liberty Bell and Big Ben were cast.

Shame on Alan & Kathryn Hughes, the last bell founders, who indulged in asset-stripping, selling off the building to a property developer despite the foundry’s staff’s offer to buy out the business as a going concern. Shame on Historic England for abnegating their responsibility by advocating the bell-themed boutique hotel over the scheme to re-open the building as a fully-working foundry. Shame on John Biggs, then Mayor of Tower Hamlets, and the former Labour Councillors who acted like neo-liberals, voting for the destruction of the historic foundry for the sake of a chain hotel and betraying their responsibility to the people of Tower Hamlets for whom the world-famous Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a key element of our collective heritage.

Shame on the Planning Inspector at the Public Inquiry who decided that the bell-themed boutique hotel was the Optimum Viable Use for a centuries-old bell foundry. Shame on Martin Pincher, the subsequently disgraced MP, who conveniently stood up in parliament and ‘misspoke’ prior to the Public Inquiry. By announcing on record that Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, had called in the Whitechapel Bell Foundry for an Inquiry to save it, Pincher compromised the entire process so that if the Inspector had found the option of the full-working foundry as the Optimum Viable Use then he would be open to the charge of pre-determination.

Shame on all these people and organisations who delivered this outcome, destroying jobs and priceless cultural heritage while wasting so much public money in in the process, defending the developers rotten proposal, despite the overwhelming weight of public opinion against it.

Meanwhile, the building has been sitting quietly decaying while providing valuable housing to property guardians. And the London Bell Foundry has been established by those of us who fought since 2016 to stop the hotel, creating the viable alternative plan with the central involvement of Factum Foundation, world leaders in digital casting.

Even as the bell-themed boutique hotel scheme foundered, the London Bell Foundry successfully delivered the first bell commission at the Royal Academy this summer. In support of the campaign to reopen the foundry, Grayson Perry designed the End of Covid Bell which will be seen next at the Royal London Hospital prior to a tour of major hospitals nationwide, enabling those who have been bereaved by Covid to visit and toll the bell in remembrance of their loss.

The challenge now for the London Bell Foundry is to acquire the building in Whitechapel and reopen it as a fully-working foundry, employing a marriage of new and old technology, establishing the foundry as an international centre for the culture and science of bell-founding, and maximising the educational potential, through apprenticeships for local people and work with schools and colleges in East London.

Graphic by Rob Ryan

Grayson Perry’s End of Covid Bell being installed at the Royal Academy Summer Show

You may also like to take a look at

The Fate of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry

So Long, Whitechapel Bell Foundry

The Secretary of State steps in

A Letter to the Secretary of State

14 Whitechapel Bell Foundry Poems

Rory Stewart Supports Our Campaign 

Casting a Bell at Here East

Save Our Bell Foundry

A Bell-Themed Boutique Hotel?

Hope for The Whitechapel Bell Foundry

A Petition to Save the Bell Foundry

Save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry

Adam Dant’s Bells of Whitechapel

Dorothy Rendell at Whitechapel Bell Foundry

Pearl Binder at Whitechapel Bell Foundry

John Claridge at Whitechapel Bell Foundry