TICKING FOR CENTURIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 927, 21 March 1930, Page 13

TICKING FOR CENTURIES

ENGLAND'S FIRST CLOCKS

There are clocks in England which began ticking hundreds of years ago. and have been keeping time through all the changes of history ever since. The mechanism of the old clock in the tower of Salisbury Cathedral existed in 1386. and according to the “British Horological Journal,” it may prove to be the earliest turret clock in England. “Originally the Salisbury clock was installed in a thirteenth century belfry m the cathedral close,” it is stated. and when this was destroyed in 1796 the clock was removed to the tower There it continued to work until it was supplanted in 18S4 by a modern movement. The striking mechanism or the old clock Is more primitive than that of the Wells clock, and there are reasons for believing the two movements to be the work of one man. It may be the earliest remaining clock in the world which has a d:aj, and would probably go for hundreds of years if it received a little attention at trifling cost.” The oldjfclock of Wells Cathedral was made In 1340 by Peter Lightfoot, a monk, and was given new works in 1835. Lullington, Derbyshire, boasts an ancient timepiece which was mace by a village blacksmith. For four centuries it has told the time by chiming out the hours, but it has neither hands nor face. The sexton winds it up daily. Liverpool probably possesses the clock with the biggest dial in England —the massive electrically driven timepiece on the Royal Liver Building, with a face 30 feet in diameter. London’s most curious clock Is in the new Piccadilly underground station. It simultaneously tells the time of any part of the world.