The day the Town Hall bells came down in Sunderland and caused a stir which lasted for years
One of the most iconic and sad Sunderland scenes emerged 55 years ago this week.
The Town Hall clock was in the picture as it was being removed from a demolition scene.
Still chiming about the Town Hall bells
Sunderland Town Hall was demolished in 1971 and its remains in Fawcett Street were captured on camera by Sunderland Echo photographers.
The centre piece of the building, the clock tower, took our attention and so did the last of the four bells which for the past 81 years had measured time for the people of Sunderland.
The bells together with the clock mechanism were being stored until their future was decided but it was not long before they were causing controversy.
Locked away in storage
Early in 1973, the topic caused a new debate and this Echo excerpt from the time explains more.
“Sunderland’s old Town Hall has gone forever, but the bells that used to chime in the clock tower still remain in the town - locked away in storage,” said a story from February 1973.
It added: “Now people are asking: “What is going to happen to the bells?”
“Since the demolition of the old Town Hall, many letters have been written to the Echo on the subject and the matter has been discussed by local councillors. The Town’s General Purposes Committee showed its sentimental attitude towards the bells that once chimed out every quarter and on the hour, when it refused an application from York Colleges’ Guild of Change to buy the bells for £2,000.
‘A silent bell is as much use as a squashed trumpet’
“The chairman, Cllr Alan Waistell, felt the bells still had a sentimental value and suggested that they should be out on display in a park.”
But one Fulwell resident told the Echo in 1973: “If £2,000 has been offered for their purchase then they are valuable items and hardly to be considered for some useless object d’art. A silent bell is as much use as a squashed trumpet.
“It is not for the want of a glimpse of these bells that people grow sentimental, but rather the sound.”
Tell us what you remember of the Town Hall and its bells by emailing chris.cordner@ iconicmediagroup.co.uk
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