|
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
Bow Bells
|
|
The bells of St Mary-le-Bow in London's Cheapside. The idea that a true *cockney must be born within the sound of them may derive from their having been used sometimes to ring a curfew in the Middle Ages. They have twice been replaced (burnt in the *Great Fire, bombed in 1941). 'Bow' was an old word for an arch and survives in the church's name because it was the first in London to be built above a crypt of stone arches.
|
|
|
|