"GREAT TOM"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 16

"GREAT TOM"

OXFORD'S DOMINATING CURFEW . BELL. .

Nine o'clock was tolled from all the "dreaming spires" five minutes ago, and the evening wanderer in Oxford's streets wonderingly consults his watch as a deep-voiced bell, whose tones in striking the hour just past drowned the softer voices of all his melodious brothers, once more, booms over the quiet city. There is no mistake, writes an Oxonian in the "Daily Mail." It is five minutes past nine, surely enough. This is the moment that Great Tom chooses to begin a stentorian intermezzo of his own, and no less' dignified tongue of metal is allowed to. interrupt his sonorous solo. If the listener cares to count he can- number a hundred and one strokes before the last reverberation of tiie great bell dies away, leaving his ears ringing with an echo in Which all the sounds of earth-borne traffic, hooting of motors, rumbling of carts, hurrying feet, and ringing voices seem for some o minutes to be engulfed ' and drowned.

Great Tom is the huge bell that through the Middle Ages swung in the tower of the magnificent Abbey of Osney, which at the Dissolution was so completely levelled with the earth that not a trace of its walls remains above ground, and tourists arriving at the Great Western station tramp unknowing over its buried foundations. The tower that, now houses the great bell was built by' Sir Christopher Wren, i'rom its dignified occupant it derives its customary name of Tom ToWer, and it covers the entrance to Tom Quad in Oardmal Wolsey's. stately foundation of Christ Church College. -As the hun-dred-and-first stroke rings out 'of an evening all Oxford's colleges close their gates. A gentle hint has been conveyed to undergraduates that they should bo in their rooms and at their books. A junior member of the university arriving at his college gate after Tom has finished his solo must "knock in." That is to say, he must kick at the wicketopening in his college gate to gain ad-' mittance. The college porter will open ;° r hl, m> noting the hour of his entry the while, and a small sum, proportionate to the lateness of bis arrival, will appear m his weekly "gate-bill."' Continued extravagance in this unprofitable direction may enlnil ad its consoquenco jm .uuplcxsaut iu.t.crviyw witii tUe Dean.