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Belfry   /bˈɛlfri/   Listen
Belfry

noun
1.
A bell tower; usually stands alone unattached to a building.  Synonym: campanile.
2.
A room (often at the top of a tower) where bells are hung.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Belfry" Quotes from Famous Books



... to win. They broke away, and ran wildly to the front of the stage with their arms outstretched, yelling to beat three of a kind. The band cut loose something fierce. The leader tore out about $9.00 worth of hair, and acted generally as though he had bats in his belfry. I thought sure the place would be pinched. It reminded me of Thirsty Thornton's dance-hall out in Merrill, Wisconsin, when the Silent Swede used to start a general survival of the fittest every time Mamie the Mink danced twice in succession with the young fellow from ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... explained the Kid. "Bats in the belfry. Dizzy. See what I mean? It's often like that when a feller puts one in with a bit of weight behind it just where that one landed. Gum! I remember when I fought Martin Kelly; I was only starting to learn the game then. ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... Cherubini, which has a final amble with the organ, sounding well enough on the piano; but on that particular organ it sounded like two hens cackling and chasing each other. I had to mount the spiral staircase behind the belfry and wobble over the rickety planks before reaching the organ-loft. Fortunately, Count Metternich went with me and promised to stay with me till the bitter end; at any rate, he piloted me to the loft. The organ was put up in the ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... lines of fresh seaweed torn up and washed ashore by the gale, were scattered a half dozen fishhouses, with dories and lobster pots before them, and at the rear of these began the gray and white huddle of houses and stores, with two white church spires and the belfry of the ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Moving of Large Masses.—With engravings of the removal of a belfry at Cresentino in 1776, and of the winged bulls from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various

... window-sill—now whipped into deep swirls and eddies over the sunken brick pavement, now rising in sighing swarms against the closed doors of the houses, now soaring aloft until they flew almost as high as the living swallows in the belfry of old Saint John's. Then as the dusk fell, and the street lamps glimmered like blurred stars through the rain, I drew back into our little sitting-room, which glowed bright as an ember against ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... two lanterns displayed on the belfry of the "Old North Church"; I told the tale to Mr. Longfellow, and he forthwith ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... heart beat fast. He had found something upon which he could exercise his mathematics. He and Novarra sat up all night in the belfry of the cathedral and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... soft, lake-like ocean as bathes the Neapolitan promontories, or sleeps beneath the marble rocks of Genoa, but a sea with the bleak power of northern waves, yet subdued into a strange spacious rest, and changed from its angry pallor into a field of burnished gold as the sun declined behind the belfry tower of the lonely island church, fitly named ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... distributed as described until the Sunday before Christmas 1834, when the bread and cheese (consisting of three or four dozen penny rolls, and the same quantity of pieces of cheese) were thrown for the last time from the belfry of St. Mary's Church by Mr. Wm. Hogg, the parish clerk. After that date the rents arising from these "bread and cheese lands," as they are called, were distributed in the shape of bread, coals, and blankets, to poor families inhabiting the parish, of whom a list was made out annually ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... in our national life. We have passed beyond them. And many readers may have outgrown their youthful pleasure in "Maidenhood," "The Rainy Day," "The Bridge," "The Day is Done," verses whose simplicity lent themselves temptingly to parody. Yet such poems as "The Belfry of Bruges," "Seaweed," "The Fire of Driftwood," "The Arsenal at Springfield," "My Lost Youth," "The Children's Hour," and many another lyric, lose nothing with the lapse of time. There is fortunately infinite room for personal preference ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... welcomed. His advent had been announced at daybreak, by discharges from an old-fashioned field piece which Bridoon (with the permission of his old commander) had mounted on a wooden carriage to commemorate his Peninsular victories, while the Bell Ringers rang out a merry peal from the belfry of the quaint old church in the little village hard by. Then came troops of merry, laughing children, singing and chanting old Christmas Carols, and were rewarded by the old housekeeper with a piping hot breakfast of mince pies, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... long. The thud of the axes and the crash of rending timbers could be heard from one end of Tavora to the other, yet from the convent it evoked no slightest response. But presently, as the door began to yield to the onslaught, there came another sound to arouse the town. From the belfry of the little church a bell suddenly gave tongue upon a frantic, hurried note that spoke unmistakably of alarm. Ding-ding-ding-ding it went, a tocsin summoning the assistance of all ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... be victorious and yet reduced to silence and dark looks at girding adversaries. The nearer they came to home, the more angry with 'Chapel' did they grow. Then the bell-ringer had his inspiration. Assembling his three assistants, he hurried to the belfry, and in two minutes the little old tower was belching forth the merriest and maddest peal those bells had ever furnished. Out it swung in the still air of the grey winter day, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... time for Withers and was told that he had left that morning. I engaged a room and strolled out into the Market-Place. I visited the Cathedral, the Belfry, and the Beguinage, in the hope of coming suddenly across ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... dead under the fire. Under cover of this, the Roundheads attacked the door with axes. Many were killed by the fire of the defenders, but as the door yielded, Harry called these from their post, and with them ascended the belfry tower. Here they prepared to fight ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... the square, and half hidden in ivy, was a Noah's Ark church, topped by a quaint belfry holding a bell that had not rung for years, and faced by a clock-dial all weather-stains and cracks, around which travelled a single rusty hand. In its shadow to the right lay the home of the archdeacon, a stately mansion with Corinthian columns reaching to ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... glancing to their left as they lay flat, they saw a curl of smoke wreathing out of the embrasure, and another succession of little puffs above it, which told them that the second gun had been hoisted to the first floor of the ruined belfry. ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... plentiful repast; the doors were finally closed. But all the night through they heard in the streets the unceasing clamor: "A Roman pope, a Roman pope!" Toward the morning the tumult became more fierce and dense. Strange men had burst into the belfry of St. Peter's; the clanging bells tolled as if ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... hold thine own." As she spoke thus to Sir Julian, the sands of the hour-glass ran out and nine tolled from the Chapel belfry. Before the bell had ceased, Constance had drawn Cedric and Julian into a game of cards, she placing herself opposite the window, and Katherine had stepped into an adjoining passage, and taking up her camelot cloak, with flying feet ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... circumstances of the case into consideration. Why have I mentioned him? I know not, save that even now, degraded as I am, memories of better things sometimes steal over me like the solemn sound of church-bells pealing in a cathedral belfry. But I have done with home, with father, with patriotism, with claret, with walnuts, and with all simple pleasures. Ca va sans dire. They talk to me of Good, and Nature. The words are meaningless to me. Are there realities behind these ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various

... visiting by twilight that solitary Isle of St Clements, where Monks exchange the voluntary seclusion for penal dungeons, (l'un vaut bien l'autre!) the sky glowing with its last light, lingered over its tall belfry and few old trees, and a sea as smooth as a crystal pavement slept at the base of its grim walls, all in vain; Campanile, Convent, Grove, and that pyramidal Powder Magazine, looked obdurately sullen enough to tell their own uses, had I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... wrong thing. And I have no doubt that wherever he went he helped hold good the precedent that preachers' boys are not especially angelic. For instance, we have it on good authority that Bob, aged fourteen, once climbed into the belfry of a church and removed the clapper, so that the sexton thought the bell was bewitched. At another time he placed a washtub over the top of a chimney where a prayer-meeting was in progress, and the smoke broke up the meeting and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... cannons; only talent remained. Therefore in both those books there are pages worthy of Dante. Quite a different thing happened with "Docteur Pascal." Being the last volume of the cycle, it was bound to be the last deduction, from the whole work the synthesis of the doctrine, the belfry of the whole building. Consequently in this volume Zola speaks more about doctrine than in any other previous volume; as the doctrine is bad, wicked, and false, therefore "Docteur Pascal" is the worst and most tedious ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... past one o'clock when the sweet-toned bell in the Presbyterian Church steeple began to ring. Dr. Hemingway was at the rope in the belfry. His part was to give us our signal. At the first peal the windows of every Union home blazed with light. The doors were flung wide open, and a song—one song—rose on the ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... W.F. Cobb, St. Ethelburga-within-Bishopsgate, London, Acc'ts, 5 (10s. received of a schoolmaster allowed to keep school in the belfry. 1589). Ibid., same p. ("Receaved of the owte cryar for a quarters rente for settynge of goodes at the churche doore ... iiis. iiijd..." 1585). The canons of 1571 forbid this practice: "Non patientur [sc. the wardens] ut quisquam ex ... istis ... sordidis mercatoribus ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware

... and climb into the tower and toll. "Now, my friend, I'll teach you to shudder," thought he. He stole forth secretly in front, and when the youth was up above, and had turned round to grasp the bell-rope, he saw, standing opposite the hole of the belfry, a white figure. "Who's there?" he called out, but the figure gave no answer, and neither stirred nor moved. "Answer," cried the youth, "or begone; you have no business here at this hour of the night." But ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... expression having been deemed sufficient by the church builders for the joys of such a small parish. Passing by the tower with her husband on the path to the gate she could feel the vibrant air humming round them from the louvred belfry in the circle of sound, and it matched the highly-charged mental atmosphere in which she ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... And yet it is the same wide river upon whose crowded shore now stands the great city of New York; the same fair river above whose banks now towers the noble front of the massive State Capitol at Albany. And that lofty edifice stands not far from the very spot where, beneath the pyramidal belfry of the old Dutch church, the boy patroon sat nodding through Dominie Westerlo's sermon, one drowsy July Sunday in the summer ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... the soft twilight but the chime of bells from its many towers, which rang out the evening angelus just as they saw, standing on the summit of a gentle slope to their left, a building with steep grey slate roofs and belfry, rising above low white surrounding walls, and knew that they ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... Jefferson. You can always count on Bunch having a few freak ideas in the belfry where he keeps his butterflies. Bunch and his wife, Alice, live out in Westchester County, about half a mile from Uncle Peter's bungalow, where friend wife and ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart

... interesting! Now, what's that bell for?' he went on, pointing to an old ship's bell in a rude belfry at the end of an outhouse. 'Was that a chapel once?' The red-eyed giant seemed to have difficulty in expressing himself for the moment ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... an explanation, when the wedding-bells began to clang out from the belfry, merry and roughly rejoicing. "Tom-boy bells," Hadria called them. They seemed to tumble over one another and pick themselves up again, and give chase, and roll over in a heap, and then peal firmly out once more, laughing at their romping digression, joyous and thoughtless ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... possible that some of our countrymen, when they see their own style reflected back to them from a foreign page, may be able to appreciate its exquisite truth to nature. Christian, still a boy, is at play with his companions; he hides from them in the belfry of a church. It was the custom to ring the bells at sunset. He had ensconced himself between the wall and the great bell, and "when this rose, and showed to him the whole opening of its mouth," he found he was within ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... of truly rare beauty. Listen," and he opened a worm-bored book, "listen to this motto printed in raised letters on the bronze robe of the great bell of Schaffhausen, 'I call the living, I mourn the dead, I break the thunder.' And this other which figured on an old bell in the belfry of Ghent, 'My name is Roland. When I toll, there is a fire; when I peal, there ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... daily labours. They had been constructing marvellous edifices in Florence even during the time when party feeling ran so high that it would have sacrificed the very existence of the city to its rancours. {32} The noble Cathedral had begun to rise before Dante had been banished, but there was no belfry till 1334 when Giotto laid the foundation-stone of the Campanile, whence the bells would ring through many centuries. The artist had completed his masterpiece in 1387, two years before the birth of Cosimo. It was ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... be seen the solid walls, the array of towers, the high belfry, the iron gates, and the ponderous drawbridges of the Chateau de Lomervo; and many are the dependent buildings, courts, and gardens, surrounded by the thick copse wood that covers its domain, which extends over three neighbouring hills. Under the principal facade is a large lake, whose blue ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... his arms sank, the thin hands strove to fold themselves—fell apart, and, sighing rapturously, Friar Martin sank back upon his pillows like one that is weary, and, with the sigh, was dead. And lo! in that same moment, from tower and belfry near and far, rose a sudden wild and gladsome clamour of bells ringing out peal on peal of rapturous joy, insomuch that those who knelt beside that couch of death lifted bowed heads—eye questioning eye in ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... it became a bishopric, there having been fifteen bishops prior to the Norman Conquest. The double title of Bishop of Bath and Wells was first assumed in the days of King Stephen. In looking at the town from a distance two buildings rise conspicuously—the belfry of St. Cuthbert's Church and the group of triple towers crowning the cathedral. There are few aggregations of ecclesiastical buildings in England that surpass those of Wells, with the attractive gateways ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... they lie only by the sky-lines of distant hills, always feel so pleasantly remote. And the peace and austerity of this little valley are heightened by the dove-cot of a farm invisible in the olive-yards, and looking like a hermitage's belfry. The olives are scant and wan in the fields all round, with here and there the blossom of an almond; the oak woods, of faint wintry copper-rose, encroach above; and in the grassy space lying open to the sky, the mountain brook is dyked ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... fill of old-world customs, for she was allowed, by special favour, to go into the belfry and help for one brief minute to pull a bell. And after service on Christmas morning she stood in the church porch and watched the distribution of the "roth shillings", which, in accordance with the terms of an old charity, were handed over to "twelve ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... of a fool, the raving of a madman, or the studied machinations of a villain, and paced the little quay or pier adjoining the entrance to the bridge, in a state of incredible anxiety and vexation. At length the hour of twelve o'clock swung its summons over the city from the belfry of the metropolitan church of St. Mungo, and was answered and vouched by all the others like dutiful diocesans. The echoes had scarcely ceased to repeat the last sound, when a human form—the first I had seen for two hours—appeared passing ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... priest who proved false to his own vows of chastity, and there is a most amusing old ballad—by no means cleanly in its language—purporting to be the lament of a priest suspended in the iron cage, appointed for the purpose, from the belfry of the Campanile San Marco, and enduring the jeers and insults of the mob below. We may suppose that with advancing corruption (if corruption has indeed advanced from remote to later times) this punishment ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... on the side nearest the road, into which he might have peered, as he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have looked through it, standing on the ground, had not the opening been walled up. There is an odd kind of belfry at the peak of one of the gables, with the small bell still hanging in it. And this is all that I remember of Kirk Alloway, except that the stones of its material ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... hear of their burning churches, plundering shrines, and slaughtering ecclesiastics with apparently as little remorse as ever. In the very year in which the Danes of Dublin are said to have been converted, they burned the belfry of Slane while filled with religious who had sought refuge there. Meanwhile the Irish monarchies were daily weakened by divisions and domestic wars. Connaught was divided between two or three independent princes, and ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... a rapid vibration, with a melody silv'ry and strong, The bells from the sound-shaken belfry are singing their first maiden song; Not now for the dead or the living, or the triumphs of peace or of strife, But a quick joyous outburst of jubilee full of their newly-felt life; Rapid, more rapid, the clapper rebounds from the round of the bells— Far and ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... of the lady of the feathers, the bells seemed magical and strange to-night, thin and dreamy and remote. They rang outside the circle of the flames, yet they, too, had an eerie meaning. Nor did their music come, he thought, from any church tower, from any belfry, summoned by the tugging hands of men. Very softly they rang. Their sound was deadened by ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... thought as I looked at his shrivelled fearsome figure, 'has turned your head. There are certainly a few bats in your belfry. You will find your way into an asylum before ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... stockade, there were close to a hundred buildings, ranging from small cabins to a structure with a belfry. It seemed to have been a church, partly ruined in the war of two centuries ago ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire

... material, which is either chalk or lime. The church is the largest building in the town, and is a rough specimen of architecture, which is rudely finished within. It has a flat-sounding bell, propped up in a sort of a belfry. To make a noise on this, a piece of iron, or several stones are used; and, when an attempt at chiming is made, it is very laughable. The figures representing saints, and even the altar, are a strange ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... a patron remarkable, says Dr. M'Crie, "for great respectability of character," Erskine of Dun. Born in 1508, about 1530 he slew a priest named Thomas Froster, in a curiously selected place, the belfry tower of Montrose. Nobody seems to have thought anything of it, nor should we know the fact, if the record of the blood-price paid by Mr. Erskine to the priest's father did not testify to the fervent act. Six years ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... one drove past one got a glimpse of shady walks and old-fashioned flowers. The extensive out-buildings near this manor house, stables, carriage-house, dairy, showed that the establishment was fairly large. There were sleek cattle in the farm yard. On one of the out-buildings was a small belfry, with a bell to summon the work-people from afar to meals, and this seemed like the olden times when the seigneur fed his labourers under his own roof. On making a formal call at the manor house one noted ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... houses, even houses built of boards, were spared at the commander's word. The convent was burnt and pillaged, stones and mortar littered the street in front of the Hotel de Ville, and upon the sidewalk lay the famous bells which came crashing to the street below when shells burst in the belfry. From cellar to garret nearly every remaining house was systematically drenched with naphtha and the torch applied, and when all was over hundreds of gallons were tossed into the River Scheldt. Over a small group of houses in the poorer section of the city, where the prostitutes were quartered, ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... and his companions rose the white glistening walls of the Hotel Dieu, and farther off the tall tower of the newly-restored Cathedral, the belfry of the Recollets, and the roofs of the ancient College of the Jesuits. An avenue of old oaks and maples shaded the walk, and in the branches of the trees a swarm of birds fluttered and sang, as if in rivalry with the gay French talk and laughter of the group of officers, who waited the return of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... de Ville and belfry which puts the market-house and belfry of Bruges quite in the shade from an impressive architectural point of view. There is not the quiet, splendid severity of its more famous compeer at Bruges, ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... will not ring the great bell of St. Paul's. The DEAN and Chapter, while regretting that Sir WILLIAM DUNN should be deprived of a health-giving exercise, had, as a point of fact, declined to countenance his contemplated invasion of their belfry. ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various

... whose annual dinner her statue, surrounded by flowers, presides. She is extremely popular in Brittany, and once a year, on the last Sunday of June, pilgrims arrive at Le Faouet to celebrate her festival. Each, as he passes the belfry which stands beside the path, pulls the bell-rope, and the young men make the tour of a small neighbouring chapel, dedicated to St Michel, Lord of Heights. Then they drink of a little fountain near at hand and purchase amulets, which are supposed to be a ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... other side of the railroad was a new pontoon bridge, built on boats, painted with Uncle Sam's light blue color. Farther up, the wagons were fording the stream. As you crossed the pontoon bridge, you came directly to the little stone engine house, with its belfry, where John Brown held the power of the great State of Virginia at bay. All else of the Government buildings are in ruins. The long lines of brick and stone walls blackened by fire, and the picturesque ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... to be a noble mansion. Like all of its class, it is flat-roofed; but the parapet is crenated, and small ornamental turrets over the angles and the great gateway relieve the monotony of its outlines. A larger tower, the belfry of a chapel, appears in the background, the Mexican hacienda is usually provided with its little capilla, for the convenient worship of the peon retainers. The emblems of religion, such as it is, are thick over the land. The glimmer of ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... the mountain side, while at our feet an unfathomable abyss seemed ready to engulf us. A little later we were passing through a charming village with its cottages and graceful belfry, above which light fleecy clouds floated lazily. Farther on a great lake with its blue waters, so calm and clear, would blend with the glowing splendour of the setting sun. I cannot tell you how deeply I was impressed ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... Antwerp itself is not more captivatingly lightsome and lovely. High above the ancient city, with its encompassing river and wide-stretched plain, confronting the far- off mountains, almost on a level with their summits, visible from afar as a lighthouse in mid-ocean, rises this belfry of Rodez. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... question was speedily answered by the sudden clanging of a gong inside the fire house, followed by the sound of running footsteps and, an instant later, the wild alarm of the shrill-tongued bell in the little belfry. ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... home and the light is come And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits. ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor

... doing duty at the castle of Cape Town, kept a tame baboon for his amusement. One evening it broke its chains unknown to him. In the night, climbing up into the belfry, it began to play with, and ring the bell. Immediately the whole place was in an uproar; some great danger was apprehended. Many thought that the castle was on fire; others, that an enemy had entered ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... historical association), you would pause on the brow of Symonds's Hill to enjoy a view singularly soothing and placid. In front of you lay the town, tufted with elms, lindens, and horse-chestnuts.... Over it rose the noisy belfry of the college, the square brown tower of the church, and the slim yellow spire of the parish meeting-house, by no means ungraceful, and then an invariable characteristic of New England religious architecture. ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody

... front such as Chinese mess boys wear; and a battered, rimless straw hat. He drew near the table with weary feet, hesitatingly and dazed, as though he had lost his way, peering about like an owl thrust into the light of mid-day from a darkened belfry. ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... painted by Peter of Cortona, representing the reconciliation of Jacob and Laban, (now in the French Museum), the painter has represented a steeple or belfry rising over the trees. A belfry in the mountains of Mesopotamia, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various

... waists, it flickered on the ground and made it rosy for their feet, it bloomed upon the ceiling that its glow might set off their bright faces, and it kindled up a general illumination in Mrs. Craggs's little belfry. ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens

... wedding, leaving my lord of Hereford gownless and fuming in the organ-loft of the little church at Plympton. His guard was variously disposed about the sacred edifice: two of the bowmen being locked up in the tiny crypt; three in the belfry, "to ring us a wedding peal," as Robin said, and the others in the vestry or under the choir seats in the chancel. The old baron had been forced to climb a high tree, and had been left in the branches of it feebly ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... Reformateurs de la langue franaise au 16me sicle." Behind are the public gardens containing some capitals of ancient columns. Near it is the Place St. Jean, with a handsome fountain. North-west from St. Aspais are the Prefecture and the belfry St. Barthlemy, restored in 1858. The Palais de Justice, the theatre, the Gendarmerie, and another of the prisons, are all together at the north end of the town. The gardens of Melun produce excellent pears—some are very large. ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... strengthened by a deep moat. In the centre of the old town is the Place d'Armes, in which stands the former hotel-de-ville (rebuilt in 1740, restored in 1867), with busts of Eustache de St Pierre, Francis, duke of Guise, and Cardinal Richelieu. The belfry belongs to the 16th and early 17th century. Close by is the Tour du Guet, or watch-tower, used as a lighthouse until 1848. The church of Notre-Dame, built during the English occupancy of Calais, has a [v.04 p.0966] fine high altar of the 17th century; its lofty tower serves ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... so anshunt in history, Read yo the Latin words high in the steeple, Hear yo the sounds that arose from the belfry, It seem'd to be shaating along ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... possible that he should not do so after such usage as he had received from Lord Trowbridge? So meditating,—but grieving that he should be driven at such a moment to have his mind forcibly filled with such matters,—still hearing the chapel bell, which in his ears drowned the sound from his own modest belfry, and altogether doubtful as to what step he would take, he entered his own church. It was manifest to him that of the poorer part of his usual audience, and of the smaller farmers, one half were in attendance upon Mr. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... whistles! High up in the steeple, where it is free to come and go through many an airy arch and loophole, and to twist and twine itself about the giddy stair, and twirl the groaning weathercock, and make the very tower shake and shiver! High up in the steeple, where the belfry is, and iron rails are ragged with rust, and sheets of lead and copper, shrivelled by the changing weather, crackle and heave beneath the unaccustomed tread; and birds stuff shabby nests into corners of old oaken joists and beams; and dust grows ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... Maria Maggiore, in which is deposited the "holy gate," has the highest belfry in Rome, and above its portico we see a beautiful chamber where the new Pope stands to dispense the first blessing among the people. In the chapel of the Crucifix five pieces of the wood of the Saviour's manger are preserved in a ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... architecture is the Campanile of the Cathedral, at Florence, built by Giotto and Taddeo Gaddi, who were painters as well as architects. Here it will be seen that the height of the windows is increased as they are placed higher up in the building, and the top windows or openings into the belfry are about six times the size of ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey

... of the oldest Gothic monuments in the country, has been completely demolished. The belfry tower is torn open, and one broken bell is lying on the ground at the edge of a pit some thirty feet in width, made by the explosion of an enormous German shell. A large wooden crucifix by the side of the church has been torn from ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... French nun in blue robes tugged at a rope depending from the belfry, and above us the bells rang out from two tiny towers. She looked curiously at me and my savage companion, her pale peasant's face hard, homely, unhealthy; then she kicked at a big dog who was trying to drink the holy water from the clam-shell ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... in the days when a green in the center of the village was a necessary defensive measure, she walked idly up and down. The straggling road under the great elms passed the plain white meeting-house, dating from 1813, the Academy with its belfry, the little general store and post-office combined, and wound out of sight between dignified old houses, "like Aunt Abigail's—mine now," she corrected her thought happily. No one was in sight. Up the road came the trolley, jogging comfortably along. It stopped at the Common ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... belfry at Rovigliano, a bell tolled with deep slow strokes as for some solemn rite, and the wave of sound seemed to send a wave of cold through the air. With a simultaneous movement, we drew closer to one another, settling the rug ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... out of his lips, when he caught sight of Jung Erh running out of the belfry. "Look at him," shouted Chia Chen. "Look at him! I don't feel hot in here, and yet he must go in search of a cool place. Spit at him!" he ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... advancing—that he was losing time with the spirits. He rose hastily, and wended his way toward Cormeilles; thence he wished to come upon a sunny path that led to the banks of the Seine, and Sartrouville, the belfry of which was plainly visible. When he reached the foot of the declivity, he turned his head and saw, on the summit of the hill, through the space left by the crooked branches of two plantains, a white wall, that seemed to laugh amid the verdure, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... in the Early English style, consisting of nave, chancel, north and south aisles, north porch, high open belfry with one bell, and has sittings for 400 persons. The materials of the structure are white brick, with dressings of Ancaster stone. It was considerably improved in 1887, and, more recently, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... none the less remarkably impressive with its solemn simplicity of outline. And those two square towers, pierced with narrow windows and overlooked by a round tower resting so calmly, so firmly on an open arcade of columns joined by round arches, are a belfry at once dignified and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... thy belfry, O Malines, The master of the bells unseen Has climbed to where the keyboard stands,— To-night his heart is in his hands! Once more, before invasion's hell Breaks round the tower he loves so well, Once more he strikes the well-worn keys, And sends aerial harmonies ...
— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke

... nearness of the chapel made our situation what is called eligible in advertisements, and gave us a side look on some native life. Every morning, as soon as he had fed the fowls, Taniera set the bell agoing in the small belfry; and the faithful, who were not very numerous, gathered to prayers. I was once present: it was the Lord's day, and seven females and eight males composed the congregation. A woman played precentor, starting with a longish note; ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... eggs are laid Along the belfry walls; The tempest does not reach her shade, The rain ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... me once ere I ride Off to God's countryside, Where in the treetops hide Belfry and bell; Tongues of the steeple towers, Telling the slow-paced hours— Hail, thou still ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... half-hour away. These story-and-a-half cottages, executed along simple Federal lines, are owned by the families who occupy them. They look out on a street lined with fine old elms and at the end is the stone mill with its belfry where still hangs the bell that once ruled the lives of spinners and weavers with its clanking iron tongue, morning, ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... Bishop was aroused very early on the following morning by the brazen voice of a bugle and the insistent clanging of a bell in the ship's belfry. As she lay awake, idly watching the rippled green water that appeared to be streaming past the heavily glazed porthole, she became gradually aware of the sounds of swift, laboured bustle—the clatter of many feet, the shouts of hoarse voices, and the persistent trundlings of heavy bodies ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... Europe's ancient fanes, Moss-grown and ivied o'er Bearing long centuries' darkened stains On belfry and turrets hoar— A hundred years and more hast thou Thy shadow o'er us cast; And we claim thee in our country's youth As a land-mark of ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... in any way. Fearing that prayers or sermons would encourage the "superstitions" of the Roman Catholic Church, they shunned any ritual over the dead or beautifying of their last resting-place. However, neglected as the spot was, the old stone church, whose golden belfry is such a familiar and pleasant landmark to all the neighboring countryside, still keeps its face turned steadfastly toward it. The congested traffic of the city square presses about its portico, but those who knew and loved it best lie quietly within the shadow of ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... and a fine sleet, which glistened on the clothes without wetting them, kept faithfully the tradition of Christmases white with snow. Raised there aloft, the chateau appeared like the goal of all things, with its enormous mass of towers and gables, the belfry of its chapel mounting into the blue-black sky, and a crowd of small lights that winked, went and came, twinkled at all the windows, and seemed, on the sombre background of the building, like sparks running through the cinders of burnt paper. Once past the drawbridge ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... a shudder creeping over her frame, for, whilst the prisoner pronounced these words, the belfry clock ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... framework of this factory remained; the ashes had commenced to smoke, giving forth flames from time to time. Here also every house had been destroyed and pillaged. Only the church remained standing, and on the belfry which was silhouetted against the sky, the weather cock seemed ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne

... had, as a visible sign of their freedom, a belfry, a high building with a watchtower, where a guard was kept day and night in order that the bell might be rung in case of approaching danger. It contained an assembly hall, where the commune held its meetings, and a prison. In the fourteenth century the wonderful townhalls ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... reproduce the old faithfully, and it was found possible to utilize a little of the old material. The figures of Venice on the east wall above the belfry canopy and Justice on the west are the ancient ones pieced together and made whole; the lions on the north and south sides are new. The golden angel on the summit is the old one restored, with the novelty, to her, ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... of the valley a group of red roofs and a belfry showed among the foliage. Thence some inspired bell-ringer made the afternoon musical on a chime of bells. There was something very sweet and taking in the air he played; and we thought we had never heard bells speak so intelligibly, or sing ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... miles S. from Cole Green Station, G.N.R.), has a stone church erected early in the seventeenth century. It has a wooden belfry and spire. The building was restored in 1856-7, but contains little of architectural or historical interest. There are, however, several memorials, notably the altar table in memory of Bishop Ken, born in the parish ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins

... parted with, he might, perhaps, have given us a pendant to his picture in the talking lady. Pity but he had! He would have done her justice, which I could not at any time, least of all now; I am too much stunned, too much like one escaped from a belfry on a coronation day. I am just resting from the fatigue of four days' hard listening—four snowy, sleety, rainy days; days of every variety of falling weather, all of them too bad to admit the possibility that any petticoated thing, were she as hardy as a Scotch fir, should stir out; four ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... when we came toward the farm, I seemed to be riding in a dream almost; and the voices of both men and women (who had hurried forth upon my track), as they met me, seemed to wander from a distant, muffling cloud. Only the thought of Lorna's death, like a heavy knell, was tolling in the belfry of my brain. ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... eclipse of the moon; and, to draw the theory out to a thin thread, anyone who has lived in a small German Protestant town will remember the chorals which are so often played before sunrise by a band of trumpets, horns, and trombones from the belfry of some church tower. Almost up to the end of the last century trombones were intimately connected with the church service; and if we look back to Zoroaster we find the sacerdotal character of this species of ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... the sacred valley. I sit down upon the parapet of the bridge, and I watch the running water; I go on voyages of discovery among the ruins; I dive into the underground vaults; I scale the shattered steps of the belfry, and being unable to come down again the same way, I remain astride a gargoyle, cutting a rather sorry figure, until the miller brings me a ladder. I wander at night through the forest, and I see deer running by in the moonlight. All these things have a soothing effect ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet

... first used to summon the people to worship in A.D. 551, by a bishop of Campania; the churches, therefore, that were erected by St. Patrick, (and he built many,) were originally without belfries; and when the use of bells became common, it was judged more expedient to erect a belfry detached from the church, than by sticking it up against the side or end walls, to mar the proportions of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various

... drawbridge was lowered and the great gate opened. The councillor rode straight to the town-hall. The doors were open, and numbers of the citizens were still gathered there. Moens did not wait to speak to them, but, running into the belfry, ordered the men there to ring their most joyous peal. The poor fellows had been lying about, trying to deaden their hunger by sleep, but at the order they leapt to their feet, seized the ropes, and Ghent was electrified by hearing the triumphal peal bursting ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... In the belfry of the church at Leuthen, on the tops of windmills, and on other points of vantage, Austrian generals with their staffs were endeavouring to obtain a glimpse beyond those tiresome swells, and to discover what was going on behind them, but in vain. There were the cavalry, ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... again, by moonlight, he would haul in the nets laid the night before. He loved to hear the masts creak, to breathe in the fresh and whistling gusts of wind that arose during the night; and after having tacked a long time to find the buoys, guiding himself by a peak of rocks, the roof of a belfry or the Fecamp lighthouse, he delighted to remain motionless beneath the first gleams of the rising sun which made the slimy backs of the large fan-shaped rays and the fat bellies of the turbots glisten on the deck of ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... life as to food and dress, we must recover them as to lodging. I said just now that the best architecture was but a glorified roof. Think of it. The dome of the Vatican, the porches of Rheims or Chartres, the vaults and arches of their aisles, the canopy of the tomb, and the spire of the belfry, are all forms resulting from the mere requirement that a certain space shall be strongly covered from heat and rain. More than that—as I have tried all through "The Stories of Venice" to show,—the lovely forms of these were every one of them developed ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... constitutional arm in arm with the nude Friday. No, it was not this: the memory of a vanished respectability called for some outward manifestation, and the result was—an umbrella. A pious castaway might have rigged up a belfry and solaced his Sunday mornings with the mimicry of church-bells; but Crusoe was rather a moralist than a pietist, and his leaf-umbrella is as fine an example of the civilised mind striving to express itself under adverse circumstances as we ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the first church, and he can go no farther. Give me your golden cross.' So the prince unfastened the cross which was his mother's gift, and the princess hastily changed herself into a church, the prince into a priest, and the horse into a belfry. ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various

... "Hit him on the belfry!" Jimmie grinned. "Knocked off a shingle and brought away a piece of it! Now, why did the Chink run away? That's what I'd ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson

... weather, and in his ears a sentence running, chiming, striking upon the word "gold"— "Ding-a-ding-a-dong! 'Taty-patch a gold mine—'taty-patch a gold mine!" The prosaic Mr Latter had set the chime ringing, as a dull sacristan might unloose the music of a belfry; but like a chime of faery it rippled and trilled, closing ever upon the deep note "gold," and echoed back as from a veritable gong of ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... square, in the centre of which is a fountain, and on one side of which stands a church of rustic style, showing its bell in an open belfry, she recalled the little bouquet of violets that he had given to her one night on the bridge near Notre Dame. They had loved each other that day—perhaps more than usual. Her heart softened at that reminiscence. But the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... three-hundred-foot sky-line as Trinity steeple once lifted above lower Broadway. We aspire still. Nor is the old Judson tower on Washington Square yet dwarfed. How many red sunsets have I seen glow through its belfry windows, while the tower itself was a black silhouette against the sky, and down in the shadowy Square the night lamps began to come out, or the asphalt, drenched by a shower, shone as if molten copper had been rained upon it! In how many ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... instant from the belfry on the roof there rang out on the night the sudden tumult of a bell; a bell that told as plainly as though it clamored with a human tongue, that the hand that rang it was driven with fear; fear of fire, fear of thieves, fear of a mad-man with a knife ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis

... the thoughts of the fated king. He had turned his face from the field, and his eyes were fixed upon the tower of the church behind. And while he so gazed, the knoll from the belfry began solemnly to chime. It was now near the hour of the Sabbath prayers, and amidst horror and carnage, still the holy custom was ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton



Words linked to "Belfry" :   Leaning Tower, campanile, bell tower, room, Leaning Tower of Pisa



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