The Quarter Boys

This pair of gold-painted chubby cherubs perched on the belltower of St Mary’s Church capture the bombastic spirit and opulent aesthetics of Georgian-era England. The statues were fitted with complex clockwork mechanisms that allow them to chime the bell at quarter past the hour, hence the name bestowed on them by the town: “The Quarter Boys.”

The inscription just above the clock reads, “Our time is but a shadow that passeth away.” Erected in 1760, this oddly placed innuendo was intended to remind the residents of Rye of the finitude of life and to seize the brief time we have allotted to us by fate. Carpe diem!  

However, the message may be seen in a more cynical sense, as it probably served as a pious reminder to the townsfolk to save their souls from hellfire by attending services—and of course by donating their all-important pennies for the upkeep of the church.

Even though these pudgy sculptures may lack the visceral impact of a skeletal memento mori, they certainly invoke thoughts of the transience of life with their bell-chiming marking the passage of time. Indeed they are an apt embodiment of the famous last line of the John Donne poem No Man Is an Island: “Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”