In Praise of Time
It comes in many shapes and sizes, the public clock is a part of our heritage but do we still gaze up at them? Andrew Lee takes a look at some of Somerset's finest and asks if we value them enough?
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In Praise of Time
We have never been more aware of the time. We are surrounded by devices that tell us what it is. From the computer I’m typing this on, the phone sat next to it on my desk or any number of other devices from the radio, the oven, the TV. In fact just about anything with a silicon chip in it will tell you the time.
Today’s time is set automatically by each device. No need to reset your device clock for daylight saving. It knows when to do it and often if you are abroad will also automatically adjust itself to time zone it finds itself in.
Time has become personal and private. A screensaver to life.
But it was not ever thus.
Once time was a public commodity. And it was local too. Let me ask you dear reader, when it is noon in London, what time is it in Somerset? You may be thinking the question redundant or that the questioner has lost his marbles. Both may be true.
The obvious answer is that it must of course be noon in Somerset when it is noon in London. Why after all would Somerset be in a different time zone?
Except that until the 1850s and the arrival of the railways (and the need for an homogenous timetable), time was measured using solar time. In other words by the position of any particular community on the face of the earth relative to the sun. In essence for every degree of longitude you move about 4 minutes in solar time.
So if let’s say it is 12 noon in London then very approximately, it is actually (using solar time):
11.51am in Frome
11.50 in Wincanton
11.49 in Wells
11.48 in Taunton
11.46 in Minehead
Time was kept in each community by reference to solar time and the public clock was the keeper of that time.
Only in the second half of the 19th century, as Britain adopted a standard time for the whole country - Greenwich Mean Time, did those quirky differences in time vanish. Time was no longer local and specific to each community. But it remained important.
The town clock has always been important as the point of reference when people needed to mark their day’s labours by the hours of the day, or more precisely by daylight hours.
The public clock might be on the church, on a bell tower or perhaps hanging in suspense above the High Street. Wherever it is it is a thing of beauty, with elegant and intricate mechanisms locked away behind a pristine face illuminated with elegant numerals. Initially Roman numerals before a taste for Arabic ones took over in the 20th century.
The public clock has been with us for much longer than you might think. Public clocks, often attached in the early days to a carillon or bell tower, have been with us since the 12th century.
Only with the arrival of the watch did time start to become personalised. That too was longer ago than you might imagine. The earliest versions of the wearable watch appeared in Augsburg in the 16th century.
However personal the watch may have been, watches would run for a limited before they needed to be rewound and reset. And when checking the watch was keeping good time, or resetting it, at least until the advent of radio and TV, the public clock remained the point of reference.
Watches are still with us of course but they too, in the face of the myriad of electronic timekeepers that surround us, are falling from grace, It is true that the value of the Swiss watch industry grew to £22.8bn during 2022. It was something of a record year. But that hides the fact that Swiss watches are simply becoming more expensive and we are buying many fewer. Just 15.8m Swiss watches were sold in 2022 down from 28.1m in 2015.
As the office is slowly but surely replaced by working from home, as meetings become remote, the importance of a time piece that simply tells the time and nothing else has diminished. Sales of watches that serve simply as timekeeping devices are falling. Only devices such as the Apple Watch – which is of course not a simple watch - are seeing substantial sales growth.
And so we have fallen back as a society on a myriad of electronic devices all of which tell us the time. Which is all well and good.
We take these things for granted until…..
…. leaving the house in a rush before Christmas, (you know the sort of thing, too much on the mind, work, not work, Christmas, relatives, holidays, an ailing father and an exploding head trying to keep a mental checklist) I left my mobile and laptop behind. It took me some time to realise it. Although how much of course, I could not actually tell.
And while, yes of course the car had a clock in it, once out on the streets of Somerset, I was left somewhat bereft.
For the first time in a long time I started to notice our public clocks. More poignantly I noticed how many of them were no longer working. Trying to navigate a working day with an analogue pad and paper, no laptop and no phone, became a challenge. And, as luck would have it, in Somerton, Langport and Shepton Mallet, my three ports of call that day, there was no functioning public clock to guide me through the day’s timetable.
In the case of Langport the blip was temporary, the town clock is a little temperamental and had decided to take a rest that day. But Somerton has no public clock, though there is a sundial on the outside of the Parish Rooms. I need hardly tell you the sun was not shining that day.
Arriving in Shepton Mallet it was to find that things had also ground to a halt timewise. The clock above the High Street has been stuck for what seems like years. It is actually only a couple. The town gave up on it in the summer of 2021. Since when it has been left rather forlornly at midday. The clock which was once the Post Office clock and had been a feature of the High Street for decades, proved too expensive to repair and something of an unreliable timekeeper.
In the end councillors agreed that whilst the clock enhanced the street scene and would be missed, as a time piece it served very little purpose and it was not a wise investment to continue to carry out repairs. Instead, the hands could be set to midday and the power supply removed.
Practical perhaps. But does a clock that no longer works enhance the street scene? The mechanisms may be hidden from view but the whole purpose of a clock is to tell the time. Perhaps to remind the passerby of the ethos of public spirit which raised it high above the street in the first place?
But even today a public clock is more than just a timekeeper.
Would we retain a petrol station that no longer sold petrol? Or a train station that no longer had trains? Mostly not.
But the public clock, telling the time or not, is still a thing of beauty and elegance. A piece of public art to be admired for its own sake. As we adjust to a world in which we do not need it to tell the time, do we value it in the same way?
The number of public clocks that no longer work would suggest an answer to that question. Ever since the day I forgot my phone, I’ve looked up at town clocks everywhere I go in Somerset and beyond. So many are in a state of decay or have simply run out of time, hanging forlornly with their hands fixed for the rest of eternity.
Beyond the county borders, in Warminster the town clock is set at midday (perhaps for the same reason as in Shepton Mallet), on Worcester’s Shrub Hill Station another fine old station clock with Arabic numerals and the 24 hour clock set in red numbers is stalled at 7.21.
And even off Piccadilly Circus against a marbled building singing of the full pomp and circumstance that that part of London so likes to do, the public clock was frozen in time at 1.18. Although whether that was pm or am only time could tell.
We may not always turn to them for the time, but our public clocks, a little like our churches and listed buildings are something to cherish. Especially here in Somerset. They bear closer examination. And on a positive note, while some are not, many are still working and reliable.
How many people for instance, walking down Langport High Street notice that the town clock is not circular but octagonal?
The clock has stuck pointedly out from the town hall, since the beginning of the 19th century. But keeping it in a good state of repair is hard work. And expensive. In 2018 the town had to raise £7,000 to repair the clock, restore the white face and have the supports that allow it to soar above Bow Street below, well and truly checked over, replaced and strengthened.
In Taunton the fine old clock atop the mock Tudor Tone Chambers was finally restored in 2019 after two decades of time standing still. Black Roman numerals set against a white background is perhaps not so unusual for a clock of a certain age. But the green copula under which it sits and green panels which form a backdrop to it make the whole effect rather grand.
And at the other end of the High Street there’s a fine clock on the Market House offers the negative to Tone Chambers’ positive. Here white Roman numerals are set against a black backdrop the whole being an unmissable centrepiece to the building façade.
Over in Yeovil the town clock is of a more recent vintage. Set up at the top of Henford to mark the millennium on a column wrought from Ham stone. Each face of the square base is illustrated with the crafts on which the town grew and thrived. And buried in the base below the clock is a time capsule with the contents chosen by members of the public.
The clock itself is a strange if compelling mix of ancient and modern. The Roman numerals in black against a white background but the face square rather than round.
In Castle Cary the public clock is in danger of fading into the mists of time. It must have been a grand affair once on top of the market house with a weather vane for a hat. Today the hands are stuck. The first time I noticed it at ten to two (the time was actually 11am) and the grey face with numerals weathered into oblivion. It is surely crying out for a little love and a lot of restoration.
On my next visit to the town it had moved on and was now telling the stallholders in the market below that it was 3.35. Sadly the actual time was closer to five to one!
The Town Clerk assured Somerset Confidential that this is not the usual state of affairs: “I have checked with one of our Town Councillors who has confirmed that the clock is working but it does stop occasionally and then requires someone to re-start it.”
Meanwhile at the other end of the town on a hill keeping watch, the church tower boasts a clock similarly frozen in time at 6.35. At least it will be correct twice a day.
Which is of course a problem with public clocks. Being high up so as to be seen may be essential, however it can also make them difficult to access and maintain. And clockwork things do have a habit of wearing out and needing running repairs as we have seen in Langport (see above).
Moving north to Frome, the high street, rather as in Taunton is dominated by two public clocks. At the top of the High Street the jet black clock is set not with numerals at all, but rather fancy gold letters spelling out FROME SELWOOD which happily came out at exactly 12 letters.
Whilst at the other end of the High Street the clock on the Blue House boasts a more traditional Roman numerals set in gold against a blue background (they do like their gold in Frome) are helped in their mission by an elongated minute hand that rather dwarfs the hour hand. The clock made by James Clark a renowned local clockmaker for the princely sum of £22 and installed in the 18th century Blue House. And he seems to have made a decent job of it as it is still ticking over today.
It is not all good news though. The not so old Westfield Centre clock is now without hands of any description rendering it quite literally pointless.
There is much to admire. And as many of these public clocks continue to strut their stuff to the march of time. Many have been with us for decades if not centuries and continue to perform their public service.
However many could do with some tlc and perhaps investment to turn them once more into functioning distributors of hours and minutes. Is it not time that money was set aside to ensure they survive for centuries more to come. As Langport and Shepton Mallet have discovered, this can be an expensive labour of love.
It is too much to expect small towns to bear the expense. And as local government is increasingly underfunded, there needs to be a new source of investment to draw on. Public money set aside to preserve our clocks. To recognise them for what they are. In the jargon of the day, they are heritage assets.
Meanwhile we should admire them and appreciate our public clocks while we still have them.
After all, tempus fugit.
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Finally if you enjoyed this edition, please feel free to share it……
Makes me feel I should look up more often - I've never spotted the Frome Selwood clock and I like clocks. However I was told recently that many young people are no longer able to read a clock face - which just makes me feel old.
What a lovely article, but sad that the authorities no longer care about these poignant features of public life.
Leaving these masterpieces to rot away, tells me all I need to know about those in charge of our finances.
They should realise that this policy leads to the deterioration of pride in a community , which once gone seldom reappears.
Perhaps the powers that be should have taken notice of New York's 'Broken Windows' policy!