Clock tower

“ And it cannot be conceived that any but children should take in a spirit of serious admiration the mechanical toy which dwells in the famous clock tower, where once an hour Father Time inverts his glass and the giants strike on the drum, and at noon the procession of Apostles appears from one open-snapping door above the clock and disappears jerkily into another. ”

“ The clock-tower, for instance, is quite a feature in the landscape, and from here one cannot perceive that the clock does not go. Nothing can be prettier than the effect of the red-tiled roofs and white walls peeping out from among thick clumps of trees, whilst beyond the ground rises again to low hills with deep purple fissures and clefts in their green sides. ”

“ There was a strange old Clock Tower which has been standing there since the time Columbus discovered America. Two big bronze men stand on top of the tower and strike the hours on a great bell with their heavy hammers. First one man raises his hammer and strikes the bell and then the other man strikes it, until the right hour has been struck, from one to twenty-four o'clock, which is midnight.
It seemed strange for Molly and May to go to bed at nineteen o'clock instead of seven, but that was what they did in Italy, for there the clock faces have twenty-four hours on them instead of twelve. ”

“ Beyond, the fierce light at the top of the Clock Tower gives token of busy work within, for a so-called “autumn session” is going on. Everything betokens din, bustle, and hard work. Passing under the archway we are in “Dean’s Yard,” and what a sudden change! It almost seems a monastic inclosure. The moon is at the full; the noise of the streets is suddenly hushed. Here are the old-fashioned buildings, low and antique, with the entrance to the Cloisters of the Abbey. The chimes from the Clock Tower are giving out eight. ”

“ The great clock in its ancient gate-house tower has something to say to me as I pass it by, as it has had something to say to kings and princes, to black-cowled monks and purple-robed bishops, to the Maid in her forbidden armour, to the child Queen of Scots when she slept in this ancient city,—perhaps to Charlotte Corday. "Time hath wings; how, O mortal, hast thou spent thine?" ”

“ The high clock tower, built by Berchtold of Zähringen in 1191, is near the middle of the city. Every hour its works set in motion puppets which represent a cock, a procession of bears, and a bearded old man with an hour glass, who strikes a bell. ”

“ The House of Silvery Voices is silent now. But its echo still lives and makes music in Our Square. For, with the proceeds of Stepfather Time’s clocks, an astounding total, we have built a miniature clock tower facing Number 37, with a silvery voice of its own, for memory. The Bonnie Lassie designed the tower, and because there is love and understanding in all that the Bonnie Lassie sets her wonder-working hand to, it is as beautiful as it is simple. Among ourselves we call it the Tower of the Two Faithful Hearts. ”

“ It is perhaps generally thought that the clock-tower, from the smallness of its detail, harmonizes better with the adjacent front, while the Victoria tower, magnificent in itself, would have tended less to dwarf the rest of the building, had it stood almost independent of it, connected only by some grand cloister.
Such is a brief notice of the actual features of the building. The task of criticism must be left to others. ”

“ The clock in the neighbouring church-tower began to strike, and its dismal metallic sound trembled and wept, flying away into the void, and being lost in the maze of silently whirling snowflakes. I began to count the strokes, and went into a fit of laughter. The clock struck 15! The belfry was old, and so, too, was the clock, and although it indicated the right time, it struck spasmodically, sometimes so often that the grey, ancient bell-ringer had to clamber up and stop the convulsive strokes of the hammer with his hand. ”

“ A Church tower without a clock and bells seems an unfurnished edifice, which must be fitted and filled before it can serve the purpose for which it was built;—like a form without life, a body without a soul. A good Church clock is useful to everybody; it is the friendly monitor alike of rich and poor,—the regulator of every private time-piece,—the standard of time for a whole parish or township. By it the artisan or mechanic trudges off to his daily labour ”

“ Every passer-by avails himself of the services of the pleasant, cheerful clock, and its agreeable unpretending chimes. Our old friend the tower is all for practical use, his cupola sheltering the bells, his gate for passage, his dial for telling time. ”

“ Thus, as in all great architecture, the plan is the basis of the whole scheme, and upon it is built up a most picturesque and expressive grouping, arising directly out of the plan. The two towers are most happily contrasted as expressive of their differing purposes; the Victoria Tower is the symbol of the State entrance, a piece of architectural display solely for the sake of a grand effect; the Clock Tower is a utilitarian structure, a lofty stalk to carry a great clock high in the air ”

“ This tower, together with the belfry of St Sauveur, is the highest point of the ancient town that crowns Dinan's rock. Up and up inside the turret we mounted, through lofts and empty chambers and timbered garrets, till the stone gave way to slate and wood and lead, and the soft tock-tocking of the clock itself began to sound. The clock is in a room with a locked and glass-panelled door, a machine of brass on an iron table, with a slow escapement, compensated pendulums, and the white hemp ropes of the weights disappearing through a hole in the floor to the stories below. ”

“ On the Schlossberg, which can be ascended by a cable tramway, beautiful parks have been laid out, and on its top is the bell-tower, 60 ft. high, and the quaint clock-tower, 52 ft. high, which bears a gigantic clock-dial. ”

“ He proposed a clock tower at one end of the front, which would also have had the additional advantage of giving greater importance to the building as seen down the street. A lantern was also designed, to rise from the centre of the roof, and relieve the flatness of the skyline. But these could not be carried out, the expense already incurred being very great, and the design remained without the relief proposed.
Another variation was at one time thought of with a view to giving more prominence to the main entrance. To a mere porch Mr. Barry had always an objection. ”

“ Clement, has a spire rising from a tall tower, so little wider than itself that it may safely be said to cover less ground than any tower in England, for it measures only five and a-half feet inside; it is blank except for a rather heavy window in the upper stage. The first thing that strikes you on entering is the extraordinary loud ticking of the clock. It has to be stopped during service, as no one can compete with it. ”

“ The utility of a Public Clock is considerably enhanced by its being provided with a dial marking the time in the simplest and most unmistakeable lines, so that it may readily be ascertained at any reasonable distance from the clock-tower what is the hour either by day or night. ”

“ George Biddell Airy [q. v. Suppl. I] and Dent, the construction of the great clock for the clock-tower in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster. The design was his, as an inscription records, and it included his new gravity escapement, in which a pendulum weighing 6 cwt. is kept going by a scape wheel weighing little more than a quarter of an ounce; this is known as the 'double three-legged gravity escapement,' and was inserted in 1859. Grimthorpe also prepared the specifications for the bell commonly called 'Big Ben,' after Sir Benjamin Hall, commissioner of public works. ”

“ Returning to the west gate, the curtain on its right extends past the west Garret Tower to the Clock Tower, all rebuilt 1750–86. The latter is circular, with a flat gorge and keel-shaped salient, and caps the south-west angle. Outside the last-named curtain, and reached through it by a gateway, are the stable courts, riding-school, and guest-hall, 135 feet by 35 feet, by 25 feet to the spring of the open timber roof, a very noble structure. These buildings are of modern date, 1856. ”

“ Nevertheless, I cannot be accused of having forgotten the information, and to prove it I will say that what I intended to add was that at night the numerals on the dial are not only illuminated but a flashlight from the tower sends [160] out the time to those too far away either to see the face of the clock or hear it strike. ”

“ We leave by the Cour du Mai and note, to our L., the restored clock tower, replacing the most ancient and famous clock of Paris. It was renewed by Germain Pilon in 1588 and restored in 1685. Demolished during the Revolution, the face and decoration were again renewed in 1852. The silvery-toned bell that hung here, called the tocsin, cast in 1371 and known as the cloche d'argent, was accused, together with the bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, before the Commune on 21st August 1792, of having given the signal for the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and its immediate destruction was ordered. ”

“ It is wound by a lever and not a winch handle. By-and-by, when it is finished and placed in a proper position in a proper tower, and I can increase the power, once a week will be sufficient."
"It is, I have heard, the most wonderful clock in London?"
"In London! In London! In the worlds sir. It is the most wonderful clock ever conceived by man." ”

“ Just then the clock began to strike far off in the tower. I counted—eight—nine—ten—eleven—I looked at my watch—twelve—thirteen—I laughed. The bell went on striking. [Pg 138]
"The old clock has gone crazy, like Judith," I exclaimed. Still it went on, note after note ringing out monotonously through the still air. We leaned over the rail, instinctively looking in the direction whence the sound came. On and on it went. I counted nearly a hundred, out of sheer curiosity, for I understood that something had broken, and that the thing was running itself down. ”

“ In the first stage of this tower, as it rises above the portal, is what, at a distance, appears to be a diminutive rosace. In reality it is an enormous clock-face, to which one's attention is invariably directed by the native, a species of local admiration which is universal throughout the known world wherever an ungainly clock exists.
The workmanship of the building as a whole is of every century from the twelfth to the seventeenth, with a complete "restoration" in 1853. ”

“ A minute space on each clock face is an arc of about fourteen inches, so the minute hand jumps about seven inches every half minute. In a quiet room at the base of the tower are the two master clocks that control the whole mechanism. ”

“ Moment by moment people began to recollect that the old man had not been seen out of the tower for many days, and that the young man had been seen to leave the tower and return. In such a crowded thoroughfare it was almost impossible that the door of the tower could be opened without exciting observation. It was also nearly impossible that any close observation could have been made. It is quite common for a busy man who lives close to a church clock that strikes the hours and the quarters, to hear and yet not heed the striking of the clock ”

“ The expansions and contractions of metal rods under the influence of the changes of temperature which take place in the course of each night and day have also been employed to keep a clock wound up, and if there were any need for it no doubt a small windmill rotating at the top of a tower would easily keep a turret clock fully wound, by a simple arrangement which would gear the going barrel of the clock to the wind vane motion, whenever the weight had fallen too low, and release it when the winding up was completed. ”

“ The tower on the right has a clock and a peal of bells. Each of the belfries has a platform with a balustrade, and the cupolas have a lantern tower, with several windows, and a lesser cupola above, crowned by a spire. On the top of the spire are a ball, a cross, and a weathercock. These{32} towers are perhaps the most ornamental parts of the whole pile.
Before the Church, or Templo, is the handsome Vestibule, with five arches, each having a door. The total number of the portals is ten. ”

“ If a clock is required it is not unusual to cast a Roman warrior in a flying chariot, round one of the wheels of which, on close inspection, the hours may be descried; or the whole of a cathedral church reduced to a few inches in height, with the clock-face occupying the position of a magnificent rose window. Surely the inventor of this patent clock-case could never have reflected that according to the scale on which the edifice was reduced, his clock would be about 200 feet in circumference, and that such a monster of a dial would crush the proportions of any building that could be raised. ”

“ We may add that the great majority of clocks of modern manufacture of any pretention to time-keepers are constructed with the dead beat escapement of Graham or a modification of it, combined with a mercurial or gridiron pendulum. For the best Observatory clocks of the more expensive kind other more elaborate forms of escapement are sometimes used, as, for example, that in the clock at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, which we shall refer to in detail further on, on account of other new points in its construction. ”

“ It is an interesting subject and one that never seems to exhaust itself. For all the wonders of my trade are not yet told. When, for instance, they put the clock on the Metropolitan Life Insurance building here in New York an undreamed-of pinnacle in clock construction was reached. There was a time when the clock on the London Houses of Parliament was the last word in the art—a veritable triumph of the horologe. Not only was it the largest timepiece in the world, but it seemed then the most miraculous. ”