The Sebastopol Bell

THE SEBASTOPOL BELL

A commemorative monument from the Crimean War, consisting of a large bronze Russian church bell weighing 17 hundredweight, 1 quarter and 2 pounds (877.25 kilograms). The bell is finely cast with surface decoration in relief, featuring a lower band of raised lozenges within entwined cord and lace-like continuous pattern, separated by double raised bands from an upper register of paired coronate and angel motifs. It is now housed in a modern, purpose-built, open-sided wooden structure resembling a belfry, standing on a concrete base. Set into the base is an original 19th-century brass plaque inscribed 'The Sevastopol Bell'.

The bell was one of two taken at the end of the Crimean War (1853-1856) from the clock tower of the Church of the Twelve Apostles in Sebastopol, the Russian Black Sea Fleet's main naval base. Both bells were cast by Nicholas Samtoun of Moscow, though their casting date is unknown. After being displayed at Woolwich Royal Arsenal in 1856, one bell was moved to Windsor Castle (where it remains), while this second bell was initially positioned next to the Time Gun at the top of Gun Hill at Aldershot Barracks, hung in an open wooden frame overlooking the south camp—a scene recorded in a contemporary watercolour by George Housman Thomas held in the Royal Collection.

In 1879, the bell was moved to the clock tower of the Army's newly opened Cambridge Hospital, where it remained until 1961. It was then relocated to the Garrison Officers' Mess on Hospital Road in 1978, and has since been moved to St Omer Barracks.

The bell is listed as a rare example of a monument commemorating the Crimean War and as an unusual commemorative war trophy—an exotic foreign artefact seized during the siege of Sebastopol (September 1854 to September 1855).