The four-tiered belfry of the Assumption Cathedral was built from 1772 to 1776 under the guidance of the city mayor Illarion Luginin. The construction was overseen by merchants Sofron Sidnev and Ivan Guryiev, and it was designed by architect Prave. The metal spire, crafted by Iosif Zhukov at the request of the city community, was gilded in 1826. The belfry became one of the main architectural landmarks of the city, serving as a reference point for Kyiv Street, now Lenin Avenue. Its height from the ground to the cross was 70.4 meters. The belfry housed 22 bells and a clock with chimes. In January 1792, merchant elder Andrei Likhvintsev signed a contract for the clock's manufacture with gunsmith Ivan Kobylyin. By May, the clock was ready and installed with funds from the Tula merchant community. Four dials faced all cardinal directions, using letters instead of numbers, and there was only an hour hand. The clock chimed sixteen times every quarter hour, and each hour was accompanied by a three-minute chime. It needed to be wound once a week.

Later, the clock was replaced with a more modern version with two hands, but the exact date of this event is unknown. In 1778, a warm chapel in honor of Tikhon of Amathus was established on the lower tier of the belfry, with an iconostasis appearing in 1853 thanks to church elder Vukol Kuzovlev. The southern part of the chapel had an altar dedicated to John Chrysostom, in memory of the altar that existed in the Assumption Cathedral until the early 19th century. On the evening of September 28, 1936, a fire broke out in the upper tiers of the belfry. Due to insufficient water pressure in the hoses, the fire could not be extinguished, and only the lower tiers survived. The Tula City Council appealed to the Moscow Committee for the Protection of Monuments for permission to dismantle the remaining part of the belfry, claiming it posed a threat to traffic due to its proximity to large factories and educational institutions. The committee refused, and the Academy of Architecture confirmed the possibility of restoration. The committee believed that dismantling the belfry, the only monument of its kind for Tula, was undesirable. However, without permission, the Tula authorities unilaterally dismantled the belfry by March 1937.

In the late 1990s, a charitable foundation "Revival" was established in Tula to restore the belfry. The founders of the foundation included "Tsentrgaz", "Gazstroydetail", "Shchekinoazot", "Rostelecom", Tula Arms Plant, Kosogor Metallurgical Plant, and the Tula Administration. The president of the foundation was the general director of OAO "Tsentrgaz" V. V. Sokolovsky. In 1999, from June until frost, archaeological excavations were conducted at the site of the belfry, funded by the foundation. The foundation also financed the development of the restoration project prepared by restorer Leonid Potapov. Reconstruction began in 2012. On September 14, 2013, the bells of the under-construction belfry were consecrated, and on June 27, 2014, the spire was installed with the help of a helicopter. The height of the restored belfry reached 71 meters. In 2015, on the city day, a ceremonial opening of the belfry and the entire restored cathedral took place.