Sir – I always enjoy Chris Koenig’s authoritative articles as the History Man, and usually he is on the ball.

However, I must take issue with him concerning that most famous Oxford bell, Great Tom, in that he states that it came from Oseney Abbey, and now hangs in Tom Tower. This statement appears in nearly every article on the bells at Christ Church. Tom’s journey, though, was a sight more tortuous than that, and the real story of how Tom became Mary, and then became Tom again is a tale most worthy of Oxford. Tom did indeed hang in the Abbey, and weighed in at about four tons as the heaviest bell in the tower. He came, as Chris rightly says, to Henry VIII’s new College of Christ Church in 1546 and was hung part of the ring of seven bells for the new Oxford Cathedral.

Shortly after that, he was christened Mary in deference to Queen Mary Tudor by the then Canon of Christ Church, Dr Tresham. After Queen Mary’s death, the bell reverted to ‘Tom’. ‘Tom’ may then have been recast in 1612, and most certainly was in 1625, by James Keene of Woodstock, partly to lose the ‘papist’ inscription he bore.

Further recast in 1654, by Michael Darby, he went down to around two tons, and this was not particularly successful, so yet another bellfounder was employed in the 1680s. Space was needed in the cathedral tower for four new bells, and Tom was taken out. Richard Keene was the new founder, and he ran Tom through the furnace on no less than three separate occasions; for his second recasting, Christ Church had also obtained two bells totalling 25cwt to add and make up for the steady attrition of bell metal.

The third casting, however, resulted in disaster. The mould cracked and Keene lost all the molten metal! Christ Church paid him off, and recruited Christopher Hodson to start from scratch and cast a new ‘Tom’, to coincide with the erection of Tom Tower in 1680, and to be hung there when complete.

Hodson successfully cast the Tom we hear today, at about seven tons. Thus after six, and possibly seven recastings, the steady loss of metal during the first four, the addition of two bells to make up the weight, and then the complete loss of the bell, and finally a successful new casting, there is nothing left of Oseney’s Great Tom! At the very best, he is a slight descendant!

Brian Lowe, Horspath