History of the Bells

Shakespeare would have heard bells ringing at Holy Trinity church when he was alive.  There's a record of a donation being given for the restoration of the bells in 1502 and for the purchase of five bells from Hailes Abbey in 1550.  The current ones were installed in 1948, some being recast from earlier bells, so they are not the same bells now as they were in his day, but it is clear that there were bells at Holy Trinity from before Shakespeare's birth.  His two Stratford homes, one where he was born and raised, and the other to where he returned after living in London, as well as the school where he was educated, were all in the town centre and in earshot of the bells.