The Tower Struck by Lightning

- 1805

The tower, which was famous for its ivy, was struck by lightning in May 1805. The accounts for that year show the purchase of ropes, tackle, and scaffolding, and the payment of £151.6.6d to Thomas Francis and Job Yeardsley ‘for taking down and re-building the steeple’. In 1867 the top of the spire was damaged in a gale and the Liverpool architect G.A. Audsley oversaw a second rebuilding. In 1905 the tower and steeple were again repaired and repointed. The weathercock and vane was regilded in 1805, 1868, and 1904, but was afterwards declared unsafe and removed.

The ivy grew from a large root in the corner where the door is sited, but in 1847, when the door was reopened, ‘this emblem of eternity’, as Reed called it in his article of 1848, was cut down. Some ivy remained growing round from the south side and by 1911 snow and rain on the creeper were causing damage to the bell chamber. Louvres were then added to the small windows to prevent it entering the spire. A prophecy that the world would end when the ivy reached the vane is ascribed to Nixon, the Cheshire Prophet who is said to have lived during the reign of James I. None of his prophecies were printed before 1714 and none mention Bebington, but Egerton Leigh in ‘The Legend of Bebington Spire’ written for the Ballads and Legends of Cheshire in 1867 gives him the credit:

Hast thou heard what hast been said

By seer Nixon, prophet dread?

Of Bebington’s high-soaring spire

Thus he spoke in words of fire.

‘When that spire’s vane shall clasp

Ivy with its fatal grasp,

Then the last stern trumpet’s call

Live and dead shall summons all.’

Once it almost reached the height,

Filling Cheshire with afright;

When the lightning’s scorching blast,

Through the threatening ivy past.

Twice since then in utmost need,

Chance hath baulked the ivy’s greed;

Still the tendrils seek the sky,

Struggling towards the spire on high.

After the publication of this ballad the tradition took on the air of an old established legend. Philip Sulley in his work on The Hundred of Wirral (1889) refers to it as such and cites the earlier occasions on which the top of the steeple had collapsed as the ivy neared the vane. ‘The creeper,’ he said, ‘is now nearing the summit again and its progress is watched with some interest by the older inhabitants, who wonder whether nature will again interfere to prevent the consummation of the material half.’

Charles Reed refers to another popular belief concerning the tower: ‘The most peculiar circumstance connected with this tower is the popular tradition and belief that it was the work of Inigo Jones, as well as the tower of the neighbouring church of Eastham, to which it certainly bears a remarkable similarity. I have endeavoured to ascertain the origin of this belief; and the worthy Rector, the Rev. R.M. Feilden, has told me he has seen documents that prove this; but these documents I have never been able to obtain a sight of. It is known that Inigo Jones had works in the neighbourhood, and an old Hall, a few miles off, is one of them.’  Ormerod had mentioned  Inigo Jones in connection with Eastham and discounted the tradition, but it spread to Bebington because of the similarity between the spires. Those who chose to believe the story overlooked the fact that Inigo Jones was born two hundred years after the tower was built.