If you’ve been to Old City since the spring, you may have noticed a huge metal bell suspended in the air at 3rd and Walnut.
That’s the Bicentennial Bell, a 200th birthday gift from Great Britain to the United States. Made of copper and tin alloy, the five-and-a-half-foot-tall bell weighs a whopping 12,466 pounds, according to the National Park Service. It carries the inscription, “For the People of the United States of America from the People of Britain 4 July 1976: LET FREEDOM RING.”
The gift bell was made in the same foundry in London where the original Liberty Bell was cast over 200 years earlier, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Queen Elizabeth II appeared at a July 6, 1976, ceremony to dedicate the bell, which marked the beginning of her six-day Bicentennial tour of the country. During her remarks, the queen declared that our Independence Day should also be celebrated in Britain. Why? “In sincere gratitude to the Founding Fathers of the great republic for having taught Britain a very valuable lesson.”
Queen Elizabeth was the first-ever reigning British monarch to visit Philly, the Inquirer reported. While she was here, she took a look at the original Liberty Bell, and was given a mini replica fashioned out of scraps from when the cracked bell was drilled and bolted in an attempt to fix it.
For 37 years, the Bicentennial Bell stood at the former park visitor center at 3rd and Chestnut, but it was moved to storage in 2013 when construction of the Museum of the American Revolution began.
And then in April of this year, it went back on display at the then-under-renovation Benjamin Rush Garden a block south of its original location. The garden and bell were rededicated last month.
Editor’s Note: Some of the links above lead to archived newspaper articles. You can view them by logging in to the Philadelphia Inquirer Digital Archive 1860-2001 with your Free Library of Philadelphia card.
