Thursday, October 18, 2007

Two faced

Last week, I noticed that the Morley Town Hall clock was ten minutes fast. At the weekend, I heard it chiming correctly from inside and noticed that time was right from outside along Queen Street. Then on Tuesday, I saw it was fast again from the Car Park but I heard it chiming correctly shortly afterwards. This puzzled me slightly. Then, in the evening, I saw two faces from another vantage point and the mystery was solved;

Rolf: Can you tell what it is yet?







One of the four faces was ten minutes ahead of the other three.

This other clock I see in Leeds near the brewery was wrong at about 4pm coming back from the Playhouse and I imagine it has been stopped, ten minutes to two being the most aesthetic time to show on a clock face. (Check next time you are in a Jewellers, most of them will be ten minutes to two or ten minutes past ten. The digital clocks will probably just be flashing 00:00 though).

There is a UK campaign to get public timepieces working again at the Stopped Clocks website and I have sent them this. It is fascinating checking places you know and the state of the horology.

3 comments:

James Higham said...

I'm all for this.

Ian Appleby said...

As a biker, I really value public clocks that tell the right time.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Well, what a lot I've learnt from this. I never thought about what time the clocks are set to in jewellers' , etc but will take note in future.