Clocks : Penarth

It’s time for more time pieces, this time my local clocks here in Penarth, south Wales.

Town Clock

First up is our official Town Clock. Located in the centre of a busy roundabout at the junction of Penarth’s main street and four other roads, this four-faced clock was designed to coordinate with the Victorian architecture for which Penarth is well known (the town rose to fame as a seaside escape for busy Cardiffians during the Victorian era). 

The clock, manufactured by renowned clockmakers J. B. Joyce & Co of Shropshire, was presented to Penarth by the local Rotary Club to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their local presence in 1987.

However, the current clock is not that clock. After ticking away for 20 years or so, the original clock started to lose time, showed different times on its different faces, and developed a degree of unreliability that locals found irksome. 

Apparently, the local water company stepped up to fund the purchase of a replacement town clock, which looks exactly the same as the old one and which was installed on Sunday 4 November 2018.

But what became of the old clock? Well, imagine my surprise when, just a couple of days after I had read the details of this replacement, my daily walk took me past Penarth Cemetery and there, plonked on the tarmac next to the old chapel buildings, was the clock. I have no idea what its long-term fate will be but the cemetery chapel is due to be renovated shortly so perhaps the old clock is being incorporated in that renovation in some manner.

Old Town Clock on the left, new on the right

Pier Pavilion clock

This is another tale of clocks being replaced. The original round Art Deco clock on the front of Penarth’s pier pavilion was presented to the District Council, in 1929, by a Mrs Esther Harris, partly in memory of her husband Hyman, who had long run a pawnbroker’s business in the town, and also in memory of her son Stewart, known as Solly, who was a casualty of the First World War. Private Stewart Ernest Harris, 8th Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment, was killed at Ypres on 26 August 1915, aged just 22.

The new, square clock was installed when the pier pavilion was refurbished in 2013, thanks to the generosity of locals Paul and Geraldine Twamley. This clock, which also has a pleasing Art Deco look, in keeping with the design of the pavilion, was made by Smith of Derby, clockmakers to the nation since 1856.

Public Library clock  

Penarth’s Public Library is a handsome building, built mainly of Pennant stone with Bath stone dressings, and it boasts the striking addition of a clock tower.

According to an article in The Cardiff Times, Saturday 17 September 1904, which was reporting the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone for the new public library (on 10 September), the District Council had ‘already voted a sum of money to provide a handsome tower clock in the tower, and Mr Robert Forrest has also generously expressed his intention of providing the necessary bell and striking apparatus.’ When the library opened on 30 August 1905, The Cardiff Times again reported the event (on 2 September 1905), including confirmation that Mr Robert Forrest had indeed ‘generously contributed £100 towards the cost of the clock in the tower.’

If you’re particularly fascinated by this clock, you can watch a very short video of it on YouTube, including its chiming of the hour. Prior to moving to Penarth, I looked at buying a flat in an old building opposite Penarth Library. The flat was nice, if small, and had a peep-of-the-sea view but I’m now very glad I didn’t buy it because I think the sound of the library clock striking not only every hour of every day, but also every quarter hour, might well have become very annoying.

London : clocks

As you might expect in such an historic city, London has some very imposing clocks. Here are some of the more famous I spotted during my recent visit.

Little Ben

Big Ben may be the most famous clock in London, perhaps in the western world, but its tower was covered in scaffolding due to the ongoing restoration and refurbishment of parliament buildings, so here’s Little Ben instead. This clock, which sits at the corner of Victoria Street and Vauxhall Bridge Road, has a plaque that reads:

First erected in 1892. Taken down in 1964. Restored and re-erected on the 15th December 1981 by the Westminster City Council with the help of Elf Aquitaine UK, offered as a gesture of Franco-British friendship.

Little Ben’s apology for summer time

My hands you may retard or may advance
My heart beats true for England as for France.                          J.W.R.

A miniature version of Big Ben, the clock’s time was, in the past, set to daylight saving time rather than Greenwich Mean Time, so was correct for France in the winter months and for Britain in the summer, hence the comment on the plaque about ‘Franco-British friendship’ and the little ditty. 

I imagine local residents and commuters found that extremely confusing and the clock, which was removed again for refurbishment in 2012 and returned in 2016, now reflects the correct local time.

Westminster Abbey

When I was researching the clock on Westminster Abbey’s north-west tower, I discovered that you can buy a wristwatch of the same design, and Mallards, the company that crafts that watch (which can apparently be purchased in the Abbey shop), have included this brief history of the clock on their website:

It’s the north west tower that gave us the inspiration for our new wrist watch, as it’s home to the Abbey’s Georgian clock. The clock was made and fitted by John Seddon in 1738, seven years before the towers themselves were completed, but sadly, two years after Hawksmoor’s death. Each of the three dials has only one hand, which wasn’t remarkable in the 18th century, when accurate timekeeping wasn’t as essential as it is today – indeed, many domestic clocks had just a single hour hand. When the clock was refurbished in 1861, the movement was replaced but they stayed with the single hand – after all, the “Big Ben” clock had been installed by then, and perhaps two accurate clocks was considered an extravagance!

St Paul’s Cathedral

Not only have Smith of Derby been making clocks for over 150 years, they also restore and conserve many high-profile clocks, included the one at St Paul’s Cathedral, which they installed in 1893 and continue to maintain and service. A team at Smith inspects the clock on a regular basis and carries out a routine restoration plan to ensure the 126-year-old clock never misses a chime. As the Smith of Derby website explains:

The dials are integral to the fabric of the building, so cannot be removed. Members of our team qualified for full rope access are on hand to perform such restoration tasks. As with all dial conservation work we use the best quality paints and gold leaf, to ensure as long a life as possible.
...
The clock incorporates a weight driven mechanism with gravity escapement designed by Edmund Denison Beckett, which is similar to the one used by Edward Dent on ‘Big Ben’ in 1895.  With quarter chimes and hour striking the clock mechanism is now fitted with an electric winding system and the clock movement sits proudly in its 18 foot flat bed frame.

Details:
18 foot flat bed frame contains the clock movement
Originally manufactured and installed by John Smith and Sons in 1893
Incorporating a design of escapement by Edmund Denison Beckett
Electronic winding system designed and installed by Smith of Derby Ltd in 1969
Clock mechanism is 5.8 metres long

Royal Mews clock

Construction of the current Royal Mews buildings was completed in 1825, at a cost of over £65,000, as part of the rebuilding of Buckingham Palace commissioned by George IV. I have located one reference that attributes the design of the magnificent Mews clock, which adorns a tower above the Buckingham Palace Road entrance to the Mews, to prestigious clockmaker Benjamin Vulliamy (1747-1811). Vulliamy was granted a Royal Appointment as the King’s Clockmaker by George III in 1773 but he had died by the time of the 1825 rebuilding. It is, however, possible that one of his designs was still used for the clock, or that the clock was retained from an earlier building, or that the design was, in fact, that of his grandson, also named Benjamin ... which mention leads me nicely to my last clock (for now).

Horse Guards Building

Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (1780-1854) continued the family tradition of crafting magnificent clocks and of the Royal Appointment as Clockmaker to the Crown until his death in 1854. He is responsible for an impressive number of clocks including this one, which is probably most watched at 11am each weekday morning and 10am on Sundays as those times mark the beginning of the daily ceremony of Changing the Queen’s Lifeguard (more details here).   

An entry on Wikipedia gives these details of the Horse Guards building clock:

The clock is sited in the turret above the main archway; it has two faces, one facing Whitehall and the other, Horse Guards Parade, each dial being 7 feet 5 inches (2.25 metres) in diameter. It strikes the quarter-hours on two bells. Originally made by Thwaites in 1756, the clock was rebuilt in 1815–16 by Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy, the clockmaker to King George III. Prior to the completion of the clock of Big Ben in 1859, the Horse Guards Clock was the main public clock in Westminster. A dark stain above the Roman number two on the clock face is supposed to mark the time of the execution of King Charles I in 1649, which took place in the roadway outside Horse Guards. The annual ceremony of Trooping the Colour commences when the Horse Guards Clock strikes eleven.

East Sussex : Clocking on

I’ve just returned from a brief visit with friends in East Sussex and in London so there’ll be a few blogs about some of the architectural features I noticed on my travels. The first of these concerns clocks.

I wondered why so many churches have clocks on their towers but, as a friend pointed out, in times past many people wouldn’t have had clocks or watches, so a clock in a prominent position provided a public service – and possibly helped ensure the congregation was on time for church services.

Hailsham: Parish Church

Hailsham Parish Church dates from the mid-fifteenth century but its clock was installed much later, to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The church’s website says ‘Until that time the tower had a single diamond shaped clock face which had the distinction of having only one hand, the intervals between the numerals being divided into four quarters instead of five minutes.’

Lewes: Dial House, 221 Cliffe High Street

Dated 1824 and restored in January 2009, this stunning metal sun dial carries the motto Nosce Teipsum, which translates as ‘Know thyself’. Though I don’t know the original purpose of this building, which was built in the mid-17th century, I did discover that it housed a Quaker School for young women a couple of years after the date of the sundial, in 1826. In 2019, the building is home to the local branch of Waterstone’s bookshop.  

Lewes: St Michael’s Church

According to the Sussex Parish Churches website, this grand clock dates from the 19th century. The clock is not attached to the church itself but projects on decorative cast-iron brackets from the neighbouring church hall.

Lewes: Trinity Church, Southover (below, left)

The Trinity Church website has an excellent guide to the history of this magnificent old church – unfortunately, the guide makes no mention of the clock on the tower.

Lewes: Market Tower (above, right)

Lewes’s Market Tower, a Grade-II listed building, was constructed from red and brown brick in 1792. The crest below the clock depicts the arms of Lewes.

Pevensey: St Nicolas Church

Though this Anglican church is old, completed in 1216, its clock is rather more modern. According to Wikipedia, the two-sided tower clock was manufactured by Smiths of Derby and installed in 1908.   

Bexhill: Clock Tower

Though intended as a memorial to the coronation of Edward VII in August 1902, this clock tower was not completed until two years later. Except for the garish colour scheme, it is a rather plain construction of imitation Bath stone, with clock faces on all four sides. The Public Sculptures of Sussex website reports that the clock is not the original one.  

England: what I saw in London

In my last post I showed you images of many of the common tourist attractions in London, the places that everyone goes to and photographs. In this post I've included some of the more wacky and wonderful things that caught my eye as I strolled London's fascinating streets.

The old and the new seem to sit very comfortably together in London. On the left, the 21st-century Shard, Western Europe’s tallest building, home to offices, bars, restaurants and a hotel, towers over Southwark Cathedral, built between 1120 and 1420. On the right, St Paul’s Cathedral overlooks the pedestrian Millennium Bridge.

Finding a comfortable place to rest your weary sightseer’s feet is not difficult in London – it can even be fun. These book-shaped benches near St Paul’s Cathedral, just a few of the 50 scattered about the city, are a hit with young and old.

There are several places where a tourist can get a bird’s-eye view of London. You can spend an hour on the giant Ferris wheel that is the London Eye (cost £29.50), you can zoom 800 feet up to the top of The Shard (cost £29.95) or you can pay a mere £5 and catch the lift to the top of the tower of Westminster Cathedral, where you can stay as long as you like and enjoy 360 degree views over the city. This is the view straight down.

The royal angle - tourists love it. They risk getting bitten by those savage horses (!) to pose with members of the royal guard on horseback, they mob Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guard, and they spend hours watching guardsmen marching back and forth for no apparent reason.

Keep an eye out for the little details when you’re exploring London. Just walking along the north and south embankments of the mighty River Thames, you can see incredible ornateness in everyday items – just look at the sculptural details in these lamp stands and benches.

Tick, tock, check out the clocks! If you think Big Ben’s amazing, think again. These are just some of the clocks I noticed adorning London’s buildings. The Pied Bull Yard (some history here) is near the British Museum, The Cittie of Yorke is a Grade II-listed pub in High Holborn, and The Royal Palace of Justice, the site of the High Court and the Court of Appeal for England and Wales, is in the Strand.

London also has its fair share of the tacky. A cardboard statue of Mr Bean stands next to a Union-Jack-painted mini in the entrance to a jam-packed-with-crap souvenir shop in Piccadilly Circus, and Yoda solicits the tourist dollar in Trafalgar Square.

Look up! Most of the old buildings in London have wonderful sculptural decoration: human heads and figures, fantastical gargoyles, and geometric designs. The intricate decoration on the left is on Westminster Abbey and that on the right is on a building on Victoria Embankment.

London is a paradise for the culture vulture. See a Westend show, catch a concert, stroll the hallowed halls of the National Gallery, The Tate or the British Museum, or simply feast your eyes on the many public artworks that grace the city streets. This whimsical sculpture, The Navigator by David Kemp, at Hay’s Galleria, is part pirate ship, part water fountain.

Check out the signage. I spotted this sign for the famous Twinings tea brand as I strolled along Fleet Street. It was at these premises in 1706 that the famous R. Twinings tea company was founded by Thomas Twining. This original tea shop houses a small museum, detailing the history of Twinings, as well as selling their famous products.

Here be dragons! When you remember that St George is England’s patron saint and that he’s most famous for slaying dragons, it’s not surprising that you can find dragon images throughout the country’s capital city. These examples are on Holburn Viaduct.