Just off the Whitechapel Road in the East End lies a small, fairly insignificant looking doorway. It may not look as imposing as other London tourist attractions, but when you were able to venture beyond, you would have stumbled onto Britain’s oldest manufacturing company.
Whitechapel Bell Foundry was established during the reign of the Virgin Queen – Queen Elizabeth I in 1570, and had been in continuous business since.
A long procession of Royal visitors have entered the Whitechapel Bell Foundry – unsurprising really, given its 400 years of manufacture and casting – in fact the foundry’s history spans that of twenty seven crowned heads of England, and when the casting took place for two bells for Westminster Abbey, both King George V and Queen Mary visited the buildings.
The foundry buildings themselves date from four years after the Great Fire of London and it is thought that the original property was burned to the ground in the ensuing firestorm. Some of the current workshops were part of a building that was originally a coaching inn known as ‘The Artichoke’.
One of the most famous bells in the world, Big Ben, which hangs in what is now known as the Elizabeth Tower at the Houses of Parliament, was the biggest bell ever to be cast at Whitechapel. The gauge that was used to make the mould for the bell hung on the wall of the foundry moulding shop.
Sadly, the foundry closed its doors in June 2017 after almost 250 years at the Whitechapel site. The final bell to be cast there was given to the Museum of London.
The foundry was sold to US investor Raycliff who submitted a proposal to convert the site into a 100+ room hotel with a bell themed cafe. However, this application for conversion proved highly controversial, and in January 2020 the government called in the application thereby preventing the London Borough of Tower Hamlets from proceeding with the planning application until a public inquiry has been held.
A consortium group including The East End Preservation Society, Save Britain’s Heritage, the Ancient Monuments Society, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and the Royal Academy of Arts have attempted to have the foundry relisted as a Grade 1 listed building to preserve its historical importance.