The Town Hall Mechanical Clock is something we made up. Rather than copying an existing church tower, we decided to create an imaginary gothic clock tower this time, either a country church tower, or the clocktower to a town hall. I quite like church towers and medieval buildings that were cobbled together over a long time, reacting to previous builds and their landscape. So this one is a broad, asymmetric, stocky tower, with an off-centre spire. This is the sort of building where an original well-proportioned tower had a spire added in a later generation. However, the problems of suspect foundations meant it had to be shored up on one side, and a mass of mis-matching buttresses thrown up to support the weight.
In form this takes its is inspiration from several sources. First is Miles’ home parish of St Mary’s in Bridgwater, which has a later spire on older stocky tower. Second is St Machar’s Cathedral in Aberdeen, with its stocky fore-towers and delightfully dumpy spires. Third, there is a late medieval door and window, a bit like those of the Somerset Towers at Evercreech or Kingston St Mary. Finally there are some of the wonderfully asymmetrical gothic buildings of Germany. So this is something of a blend of very different medieval forms.
`
Our mahogany clock also takes its lead from an old balsa and obeche wood clock we devised a few years ago. Again, this wasn’t based on a single model, but came together during the making. That one was slightly taller, more fantasy German style of gothic tower.
The mahogany Town Hall steeple was is our first architectural clock to have a mechanical movement, an 8-day time-only Hermle 771-000 with a 18cm pendulum. The pendulum bob swings back and forth behind the big window. This mechanism has an audible but not overpowering tick. See below for more pictures.
Size:
- 42cm tall
- 18cm wide
- 12.5cm deep.
You will be able to see this clock for sale here.
