Clock tower

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This is an article on clock towers. For the video game series see Clock Tower (series).
The Clock Tower, Westminster, London

A clock tower is a tower built with one or more (often four) clock faces. The clock tower is usually part of a church or municipal building such as a town hall, but many clock towers are free-standing.

The mechanism inside the tower is known as a turret clock. It often marks the hour (and sometimes segments of an hour) by sounding large bells or chimes, sometimes playing simple musical phrases or tunes.

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[edit] Landmarks

Some clock towers are famous landmarks. Five of the best-known are the St Stephen's Tower, which houses Big Ben of the Palace of Westminster in London, the Rajabai Tower in Mumbai, the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Campanile in Venice, Italy, Zytglogge clock tower in the Old city of Berne, Switzerland

The famous clock tower of Zytglogge, Berne, Switzerland

On New Year's Eve 2004 four 6.3-metre clock faces were added to the top of the Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science building in Warsaw, Poland making it the highest 4-faced clock tower in the world and the second highest clock tower in the world.[1]. The NTT DoCoMo Yoyogi Building 240 meters (787 feet) is 10 meters higher and is the highest clock tower in the world. The Allen-Bradley Clock Tower holds the record for the largest non-chiming four faced clock.

[edit] History

Tower of the Winds in Athens

Although clock towers are today mostly admired for their aesthetics, they once served an important purpose. Before the middle of the twentieth century, most people did not have watches, and prior to the 18th century even home clocks were rare. The first clocks didn't have faces, but were solely striking clocks, which sounded bells to call the surrounding community to prayer. They were therefore placed in towers so the bells would be audible for a long distance. Clock towers were placed near the centers of towns and were often the tallest structures there. As clock towers became more common, the designers realized that a dial on the outside of the tower would allow the townspeople to read the time whenever they wanted.

The use of clock towers dates back to the antiquity. The earliest clock tower was the Tower of the Winds in Athens which featured eight sundials. In its interior, there was also a water clock (or clepsydra), driven by water coming down from the Acropolis.[2] The first striking clock tower was constructed many centuries later in 1154 near the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, by the Arab engineer al-Kaysarani.[3] A clock was put up in a clock tower, the medieval precursor to Big Ben, at Westminster, England, in 1288.[4][5] A clock was put up in Canterbury Cathedral, England, in 1292.[4] The oldest surviving clock tower in Europe is the Salisbury cathedral clock in England, completed in 1306. Another clock, put up at St. Albans, England, in 1326, 'showed various astronomical phenomena'.[4]

The Dipylon Clock Tower of the Carlsberg District in Copenhagen, Denmark

JB Joyce & Co claims to be the world's oldest tower clock maker (still in operation).[6] The company began life in 1690 and still manufactures clocks not far from its original premises in Whitchurch, Shropshire. Today it is a part of the Smith of Derby Group, started in 1856, which claims to be the largest tower clock manufacturer in the world. The company has manufactured tower clocks for St Paul's Cathedral in London and the Shanghai Customs building in China.

Line (mains) synchronous tower clocks were introduced in the United States in the 1920's by Telechron, now Electric Time Company of Medfield, Massachusetts. Electric Time Company is now the largest tower clock manufacturer in the world.

[edit] List of Clock towers

Africa
Ibadan, Nigeria
University of Ibadan Clock tower, Ibadan, Nigeria.

Asia
Hong Kong

India

Indonesia

Israel

Malaysia

Pakistan

Philippines

Singapore

Myanmar

United Arab Emirates

North America

South America

Europe

[edit] Gallery

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Clocktower at Geelong Grammar School, Victoria, Australia

The Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster, London, England (commonly referred to as Big Ben)

The Ferry Terminal Clock Tower, Hoboken, New Jersey

The Rajabai Tower, South Mumbai, India

The Clock Tower, Secunderabad, Andhra pradesh, India

The Spasskaya Tower, Moscow

Clock Tower, Faisalabad, Pakistan

Multan Clock Tower, Pakistan

Clock Tower, Sialkot, Pakistan

Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science, the second highest clock clock tower

The Clock Tower Building of The Chinese High School, Singapore

Einsiedeln Abbey, Switzerland

McGraw Tower at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York

Samford Hall located on the campus of Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama

The Clock Tower at Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong was part of the former Kowloon Station

Peace Tower, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Ontario

Clock Tower of Saint Nicolas church, Kozani, Greece

Sibiu Lutheran Cathedral, Sibiu, Romania

Malay College Kuala Kangsar, Malaysia

Central Terminal, Sydney, Australia

The old Star Ferry pier in Central, Hong Kong

Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower, The University of Birmingham, tallest clock tower in England made by Smith of Derby

Clock tower of the Mississauga City Hall in Mississauga, Ontario

Allen-Bradley Division Rockwell Automation Clock Tower in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

City Hall, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Sather Tower, University of California, Berkeley

Clock Tower, Rome, Georgia

The Cathedral of San Agustin bell/clock tower in Laredo, Texas.

Ferry Building, San Francisco, California

University of Texas Health Science Center in Laredo, Texas

Central railway station, Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Biserica Neagră, Braşov, Romania

Ein Kerem, "St. John be Harim" monastery, Israel

Clock Tower, Old Parish Church of Peebles, Peebles, Scotland

Botevgrad, Bulgaria's clock tower is a local symbol

Berkovitsa

22 Foot Diameter clock tower of Ayer Mill, Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA

Prilep, Macedonia's clock tower

[edit] See also

Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Clock towers

[edit] References

  1. ^ History of PKiN in a nutshell.
  2. ^ Joseph V. Noble; Derek J. de Solla Price: The Water Clock in the Tower of the Winds, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 72, No. 4 (1968), pp. 345-355 (353)
  3. ^ Abdel Aziz al-Jaraki (2007), When Ridhwan al-Sa’ati Anteceded Big Ben by More than Six Centuries, Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation.
  4. ^ a b c Clocks, Encyclopaedia Britannica 5, 835 (1951).
  5. ^ Frederick Tupper, Jr., 'Anglo-Saxon Dæg-Mæl', Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1895), p. 130, citing Archæologia, v, 416.
  6. ^ JB Joyce
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