Bilbie family

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The Bilbie family were bell founders and clockmakers in Chew Stoke, Somerset, and later in Cullompton, Devon, from the late 1600s to the early 1800s. Their work is remembered in Bilbie Road in Chew Stoke and the village sign. They made more than 1,350 bells that hang in churches across the West Country. The oldest Bilbie bell, cast in 1698 for St Andrew’s Church in Chew Stoke, is still in use.

Bell metal came from tin and copper, probably bought from brass foundries in Kelston and Bristol. The metal was melted in a wood-fired furnace to a very high heat and poured into loam molds from the River Chew.

Edward Bilbie began casting bells in 1698 and likely made clocks too. Bristol was a major clockmaking center at the time, thanks to a strong brass industry and available raw materials. In the Chew Valley, Edward and his relatives combined bell founding with clockmaking, producing a distinctive lantern clock. Clocks from around 1724 are prized; they were mostly longcase clocks, some with eight-day movements and features like tide indicators, housed in fine cabinetmaker cases.

Edward’s son Thomas took over bell making in 1725. One of his big jobs was the Great Bell at Yeovil. In 1742 he began casting bells for Cullompton, Devon, and in 1746 he opened a Cullompton foundry called the West of England Church Bellfoundry to serve the south and west. Between 1725 and 1768, he cast hundreds of bells in Somerset, Devon, Bristol, Dorset, Gloucestershire, and even one in Wales.

Thomas II (Thomas Bilbie Junior) later cast 237 bells in Devon between 1754 and 1780. Abraham ran Chew Stoke for five years, making 35 bells; William ran it 1775–1790 and made 79 bells. John Bilbie worked in Axbridge making longcase clocks, and Edward made engraved longcase clocks. The Chew Stoke foundry declined as competition grew, casting 25 bells between 1791 and 1811. The fourth generation, Thomas Castleman Bilbie, kept going in Cullompton, casting 198 bells between 1781 and 1814.