Symmetry breaking in Wigton bell tower

In the bell tower, we hang the ropes from a device that lowers from the ceiling. It is then pulled up again to get the ropes safely out of the way. Ours is a lovely carved wooden bell but it is often called a spider because it hangs from the ceiling and has 8 legs. When we have finished ringing and before we hang the ropes, it is empty, as shown below:

I have been blogging about symmetry recently and at this point there is perfect symmetry. It will look the same from every side. Any of us could hang our rope anywhere. But someone is always first...

Now I have no choice about where to hang my rope because they are always hung in order from the lightest to the heaviest. There is now only one hook on which I can hang my rope. When no ropes are hung, I could choose any of the 8 hooks and it would make no difference. That's the symmetry. Once one rope is hung, I have to choose one particular hook to make sure the order is correct. This would be what physicists call "symmetry breaking". A particular mystery in Physics is the fact that the Universe is made almost entirely of matter with very little antimatter. It is not symmetric in this regard. It is believed that the Universe began with symmetry, so what caused the symmetry breaking?