Was planning to do this in the summer but it looked like a hard site to go to so went to them flats by the tunnel instead, I would love to have a another shot at this always had an interest in this tower since I saw it on the ferry!
It'd been cut, hadn't it? Bells do crack, but rarely more than a fracture which affects the tone- it's more likley that someone cut it somehow- could you do that to bronze with an axe grinder? Don't know that it would be much more than half a ton looking at the width of the crown in old photos, if you could get it onto the floor and then break it up there....
It was about an inch & half thick! I actually recall it being a rough break, not gas axed or sawn.
If like to imagine it just cracked one day and fell off