Friday, 17 April 2020

Timeless

Despite our wristwatches, and near universal mobile phone ownership .....

Clock Towers Always Useful When You Need The Time ....

...... old cultural habits die hard.

So its no surprise that both locals and visitors to Bath have been using the Bath Abbey's tower clock (which is highly visible), to check the time ever since parts of the original building were saved and restored in the early 1800's.

In 1834, it was feared that the clocks weight might endanger the tower it had been placed in, so it was moved  to its present position at the end of the North Transept. The original clock was replaced in 1888, after the clock now in place was designed.

The Clock Stopped At Two Thirty Five, Is Right Two Times A Day

The last time the Abbey clock was out of action, was for six weeks in 1949, when times were perhaps a little slower paced than today, but there was an 'astonishing' number of complaints to the Abbey after the clock first slowed down then stopped at 2.35am/2.35pm, in October 2018.

It seems that despite all our modern appliances indicating the time, a quick glance up at the tower clock was the most common way for locals and tourists alike to tell the time. Many complained of missing buses and trains because of the clocks breakdown.

The Abbey's operations manager assured everyone that they would get it working again as soon as possible.

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments are welcomed, or even just thanks if you enjoyed the post. But please make any comment relevant to the post it appears under. Off topic comments will be blocked or removed.

Moderation is on for older posts to stop spamming and comments that are off topic or inappropriate from being posted .... comments are reviewed within 48 hours. I don't block normal comments that are on topic and not inappropriate. Vexatious comments that may cause upset to other commentators, or that are attempting to espouse a particular wider political view, are reviewed before acceptance. But a certain amount of debate around a post topic is accepted, as long as it remains generally on topic and is not an attempt to become sounding board for some other cause.

Final decision on all comments is held by the blog author and is final.

Comments are always monitored for bad or abusive language, and or illegal statements i.e. overtly racist or sexist content. Spam is not tolerated and is removed.

Commentaires ne sont surveillés que pour le mauvais ou abusif langue ou déclarations illégales ie contenu ouvertement raciste ou sexiste. Spam ne est pas toléré et est éliminé.