legends · 4 min read ·
Claim for Loss
A museum's insurance claim describes an Iron Age bell that moves toward the front door each night.
**Salcombe Museum Trust — Insurance Claim Form C-26-044**
**Object:** Ceremonial bronze bell, Iron Age, 38 cm, accession no. 1971.8 · **Valuation:** £140,000
**Claimant:** Trust Treasurer · **Nature of loss:** Object found in different gallery
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**Conservator's statement (T. Aldous, 7 October)**
At 08:30 on Monday 6 October, I opened Gallery 2 (Iron Age) and found the bell absent from its display case. The case was locked. The glass was intact. The alarm log shows no entry.
At 09:00 the security officer found the bell in Gallery 5 (Medieval), on a plinth normally occupied by a stone font. The font had been moved to the corner. The bell sat on the plinth in the centre, mouth down, resting on a square of pale fabric.
We returned the bell to its case. We secured it with a bolt. We checked the case at close of business. It was there.
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**Conservator's statement (T. Aldous, 9 October)**
On Thursday 9 October, the bell was in Gallery 8 (Local History), on a table beside the wartime exhibit. The case in Gallery 2 was locked and empty.
I have studied the alarm logs. The gallery doors open from the inside only on the museum's fire release. The release is not triggered. The cameras show the empty gallery at 03:00. Then, in the next frame, the bell on its new site. Between the two frames, 0.04 seconds. The camera records twenty-five frames a second.
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**Claim form (continued)**
**Description of loss:** The object was not lost in the ordinary sense. It was never absent from the museum. It is moved overnight, from one gallery to another, by no agency we can identify.
**Why we claim:** The bell is damaged by the moves. On 12 October the clapper was found detached. On 14 October there was a hairline crack from the rim to the shoulder. On 17 October the crack had widened.
**Loss adjuster's query:** Please clarify who is responsible for moving the object.
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**Loss adjuster's report (M. Pryce, Hartley & Dane, 24 October)**
I attended the museum on three nights between 19 and 23 October. I sat in Gallery 2 with a night-vision camera and the conservator. At 02:59 on 21 October, we watched the bell in its case. It was still. Under the infrared it appeared as a pale shape, the metal faintly warm.
At 03:00 the bell rang. A single low note. The sound lasted four seconds. The cabinet glass vibrated. When the note died, the case was empty. The bell was in Gallery 5. We went through at a run. It was on the plinth, mouth down, still humming under my hand.
I do not claim to understand it. I note what I observed. The bell sounds once a night, and where it sounds, it stays.
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**Conservator's statement (T. Aldous, 25 October)**
I looked into the history of the bell. It was found in a peat bog in 1971, by a man cutting turf. It was lying on its side in the dark with no sign of a burial or a settlement. An Iron Age bell is a ritual object. This one has no marks of ownership, no inscription, no tradition.
There is a note in the original accession register, in the hand of the first curator: *The bell was found with a track beside it, a line of flat stones, leading away. We did not follow it.*
I asked the Trust's archaeologist to look for the track. The bog has been drained. The stones are now under a car park. But the line of the stones runs, from the findspot, directly towards the museum.
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**Loss adjuster's report (continued)**
It is my professional opinion that the object has not been stolen, lost, or damaged by any insured peril. It is moving under its own power to a location it has chosen. The pattern of its moves is not random. Each position is closer to the main entrance than the last.
Position map: Gallery 2 (6 Oct), Gallery 5 (7 Oct), Gallery 8 (9 Oct), Gallery 9 (12 Oct), Corridor B (14 Oct), Foyer (20 Oct), Shop (26 Oct).
I do not recommend settlement. I recommend that the museum remain closed until the object has reached its destination.
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**Decision (Hartley & Dane, 28 October)**
Claim **C-26-044 is approved** on the basis of *loss*. Sum payable: £140,000, to the Salcombe Museum Trust. Payee: the Treasurer.
*Loss adjuster's note: the Treasurer died on 26 October. The payment cannot be made. The Trust has no other signatory. On the morning of the 27th, the bell was found at the front door of the museum, on the step, facing the road, as though ready to be carried out. The door was locked from within. The alarm was on. The sound it made, in the empty street, was the same low note, struck once, for a long time.*