To the left and behind the clock shed is the top of the shaft where the weights were hung on steel cables from pulleys on the timbers above. This is the shaft we looked into when we first entered the steeple at the Sanctuary level. Those cables were wound on drums in the clock. Above this ceiling is the open part of the steeple with the bell carriage and bell. Heavy timbers are required here to support the weight of the bell and the forces when it is swung in a peal. A failure in these timbers caused the bell to go silent in the mid 1990s and remained silent until the 1997 restoration (remember all that red steel work?). I remember a service when the bell was exuberantly pealed and we were all startled by the sound of the whole Meetinghouse shaking like an earthquake. I climbed up and found some of those timbers splintered from the pounding of the bell carriage above.