Time has come for clock’s unveiling
A unique three-pendulum clock designed to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the British Horological Institute was finished on Saturday.
It has pride of place in the institute’s headquarters at Upton Hall and will be one of the main attractions at its three-day anniversary show, which is open to the public and starts on June 13.
The team of horologists which has spent the past four years working on the clock will officially present it to the institute on the final day of the show on June 15.
The aim of the project has been to create a beautiful and striking monument that shows the skills and craft the institute is trying to encourage to thrive.
The self-winding clock is almost 7ft tall and has been designed by the team leader, Mr James Arnfield from Stockport.
He was inspired by the Skylon sculpture that he remembered seeing as a youngster at the 1951 Festival of Britain.
The clock has been fitted in a glass cylinder that is suspended in mid air with stainless steel wires attached to a green granite base from India.
Most of the materials used are stainless steel and black anodised metal, which give it a clean and modern 21st Century design.
The time is read at the top of the clock where there are three circles. The bottom scale gives the hour reading, the middle the minutes and the top the seconds.
The 24 time zones are marked so users can see the time in any part of the world.
“The whole clock is unique. There is nothing like this in the world,” said Mr Arnfield. “It has been designed specifically for this location.”
At the start of the project Mr Arnfield made a model using a small test tube so the rest of the team could visualise what he wanted to create.
A dozen horologists were involved with making it.
They are mainly amateurs and their combined skills enabled them to make the masterpiece, which Mr Arnfield said was probably worth £1/2m.
Many of them were also involved in a project to make a millennium clock that was given to the Queen and is kept in a private drawing room at Sandringham.
The team members live across the country and each worked on a section of the clock in their own workshops.
They got together about eight times a year at Upton to work on it together.
The design was changed slightly as the clock progressed. Mr Arnfield originally envisaged a four-pendulum clock but that became three.
Mr Arnfield said the three stainless steel metre-long pendulums ensured that the timekeeping was not affected by any outside vibrations.
They are arranged in an equilateral triangle and oscillate towards and away from each other in unison.
Any vibrations which would affect one pendulum is cancelled out by the others.
The team included Mr John Crozier (75), a retired aircraft engineer from Marston who has been a member of the institute for the past six years.
He said he was proud to be involved in the project and was very pleased with the finished product.
Interest has already been shown in it from German clock-makers who plan to visit next month and there has also been interest from an English company.
The clock will be one the items to be discussed at the 150th anniversary seminars at Upton next weekend.
A total of 150 delegates are expected from all over the world for the three days of seminars presented by horological experts.
The show director, Mr Hugh Barnes, said the seminars were aimed at professionals for the anniversary celebrations with the public invited the following weekend.
The institute moved to Upton Hall in 1972 when they bought the building from the Holy Ghost Fathers, a Roman Catholic missionary order that had used it to train senior students for the priesthood.
It is now used for training workshops and seminars as well as a museum which is open to the public three times a year or by prior arrangement.
Its curator is Viscount Alan Midleton, who used to be an expert on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow.
He said the hall had a collection of more than 1,000 clocks and about 4,000 watches, including one that once belonged to Antartic adventurer Captain Scott. They have all been donated to the institute.
It is one of the best collections in the country and many of the items are priceless.
