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Bellcote on the parish church of St Alban the Martyr, Charles Street, Cowley, Oxford.
Wikimedia Commons

A bell-cote or bell-cot is a shelter containing one or more bells suspended within arched openings. They are often set over the east wall of a church’s naveCentral part of a church, used by the laiety., or the structure’s west wall.[1] The suffix –cote is Old English, meaning a small house or shelter.[2]

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Bibliography


Curl, James Stevens, and Susan Wilson. “Bell-Cote or Bell-Gable.” The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture, 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2021, https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191918742.001.0001/acref-9780191918742-e-504.
OED. “Cot, n.” Oxford English Dictionary, Online, Oxford  University Press, 2021, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/42379.