Bell Towers

Bell Towers

A bell tower (also belfry) is a tower which contains one or more bells, or which is designed to hold bells, even if it has none. In the European tradition, such a tower most commonly serves as part of a church and contains church bells. Modern bell towers often contain carillons.

The Italian term Campanile (/ˌkæmpəˈniːliː/; ), deriving from the word 'campana' meaning bell, is synonymous with 'bell tower'; in American English it tends to be used to refer to free standing bell towers.

When attached to a city hall or other civic building, especially in continental Europe, it is often named "belfry". Elsewhere, the term "belfry" refers strictly to the part of the tower which contains the bells. Thus some bell towers have no belfry.

Old bell towers may be kept for their historic or iconic value, though in countries with a strong campanological tradition they often continue to serve their original purposes as well.

Bell towers are common in China and countries of the related cultures, where they may appear both as part of a temple complex and as an independent civic building. The tallest free-standing bell tower in the world, approximately 110m, is the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower, located at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Read more about Bell Towers:  Purpose, History, Etymology: belfry, Distribution

Famous quotes containing the words bell and/or towers:

    I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing—for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it’s impossible not to see that your opponent is you.... Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.
    Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)

    From whatever you wish to know and measure you must take your leave, at least for a time. Only when you have left the town can you see how high its towers rise above the houses.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)