Item of Thomas Higgyns for the close appointed for the finding of Bell Ropes of Hentland that the Bells should ringe at the death of everyone that should chance to depart in the House of Pengethly viz from tyme the corpse being carried from the sayde house to the sayde parish church of Sellack if that the inhabitants of Pengethly may at all tymes take the ropes of the sayde Bells to occupie the same about any business at the sayde manor for the which he should pay rent. In Rents resolutes out of the sayde manor Item to the Earl of Shrewsbury as to his liberty of Irchenfielde 11s Item to John Smyth 11s 1/2d '
The Owen Bell
Mystery of the Bells of Hentland Church
(Research March 2018)
In Hentland church tower there are four bells which have been recorded in 1675, 1912 and 1969. The treble dates from 1627, the second from 1628, the third from c1420 and the tenor from 1760, but there is a fifth, a disused bell standing on the floor of the bell tower. This bears the inscription SAMVELL OWNE MADE ME and was founded by Samuel Owen in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. In studying the dates of the four bells recorded by the churchwardens in 1675 they could not have included the tenor bell of 1760, so was the Owen bell originally hanging in the bell tower?
However there are other stories surrounding this bell - that it came from the Old Rectory or from Kings Caple church and when repaired was left at Hentland church.
The vicar measures her yew tree. 2005
Bell House and Bell Ropes
(Research March 2018)
The research group also discovered references to the Bell Rope Charity reported as being lost by the Charity Commissioners in 1866 and the Bell House recorded in 1675, a puzzling building where items were stored including a skittle and a shovel 'to make graves'. The Bell House was mentioned by the churchwardens in 1615 when a yew tree was planted 'between the Bell-house and the stile'. The yew tree has survived and was measured and recorded by the Landscape Origins of the Wye Valley project in 2005, but nothing further has been discovered about the Bell House.