This salt has been designed as a bell, hence its name, and is made in three sections. The bottom two have shallow depressions in the top to hold salt and a spice, and stand on three ball and claw feet. Each section is flat chased with decoration (strapwork, stylised flowers and leaves) fashionable at the time, against a fine scale patterned ground. Such patterns recur in architecture and embroidery, deriving from printed pattern books which were the main source for the many craftsmen unable to travel outside England.

During the later Middle Ages elaborate salts shaped like buildings or ships in full sail stood in the middle of the dining table, marking the separation of the higher orders of society from the lower, who sat 'below the salt'. By the end of the sixteenth century smaller salts like this were considered more appropriate for the rising merchant class and gentry: this bell shape was particularly fashionable between 1590 and 1615.
This was one of Sir William Holburne's most treasured pieces: since much English silver was melted down by each side in the Civil War, earlier silver is relatively rare.