Clock tower

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.

Landmarks

Some clock towers are famous landmarks. Five of the best-known are the Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster, which houses the Great Bell (generally known as Big Ben) 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.^[1]

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.^[2]. 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.

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.^[3] A striking clock tower was constructed many centuries later in 1154 near the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, by the Arab engineer al-Kaysarani.^[4] In England, a clock was put up in a clock tower, the medieval precursor to Big Ben, at Westminster, in 1288;^[5][6] and in 1292 a clock was put up in Canterbury Cathedral.^[5] The oldest surviving clock tower in Europe is the Salisbury cathedral clock, completed in 1306; and another clock put up at St. Albans, in 1326, 'showed various astronomical phenomena'.^[5]

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).^[7] 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 1920s by Telechron, now Electric Time Company of Medfield, Massachusetts. Electric Time Company is now the largest tower clock manufacturer in the world.

List of Clock towers

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

Asia
Hong Kong

• The Clock Tower at Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong was part of the former Kowloon Station
• The old Star Ferry pier in Central, Hong Kong

India

• Ram Narain Periwal Clock Tower, Fazilka, Punjab
• Clock Tower, Chaura Bazaar, Ludhiana, Punjab
• Rajabai Tower, South Mumbai
• The Clock Tower, Secunderabad, Andhra pradesh
• Ghanta Ghar, Dehradun, Uttarakhand

Indonesia

• Jam Gadang, Bukittinggi

Israel

• Jaffa Clock Tower, Tel Aviv-Yafo

Malaysia

• Malay College Kuala Kangsar Clock Tower
• Sultan Abdul Samad Building, Kuala Lumpur
• Stadhuys Square, Malacca
• Jubilee Clock Tower, Penang
• Birch Memorial Tower, Ipoh, Perak
• Malayan Railway Building, Penang

Pakistan

• Merewether Memorial Tower, Karachi
• Clock Tower, Faisalabad
• Clock Tower, Sialkot
• Clock Tower, Multan
• Clock Tower, Hyderabad

Philippines

• Manila City Hall Clock Tower, Manila
• Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene Clock Tower, Quiapo, Manila

Singapore

• Clock Tower Building of The Chinese High School, a national monument of Singapore
• Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall

Myanmar

• High Court (Burma)

United Arab Emirates

• Deira Clocktower in Deira, Dubai

North America
Barbados

• Parliament of Barbados, Bridgetown, Barbados

Canada

• Central Post Office (Ottawa), Ontario, Canada
• St. Paul's Cathedral (London, Ontario), Canada
• Hamilton City Hall, Ontario, Canada
• Old City Hall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Queen's Quay Terminal, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Kerr Hall, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Upper Canada College, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Hart House, Soldiers' Tower (University of Toronto), Toronto, Ontario
• Queen Street Viaduct, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Cathedral Church of St. James (Toronto), Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• St. Lawrence Hall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Press Building, Exhibition Place, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Fire Hall & Police Station, Exhibition Place, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Summerhill-North Toronto CPR Station, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Toronto Fire Services Station 227, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• former Toronto Fire Department Hose Station # 8, Toronto, Ontario
• Peace Tower, Parliament Hill Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
• Clock tower of the Mississauga City Hall in Mississauga, Ontario
• Gare du Palais, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
• Montreal Clock Tower, Quebec, Canada
• Place d'Armes Clock Tower, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Vancouver City Hall, British Columbia, Canada

Mexico

• Reloj Monumental, Pachuca, Hidalgo, México

United States

• Union College, Lincoln, Nebraska
• Main Building of The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
• Mercantile National Bank Building, Dallas, Texas, United States
• Baker Tower at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire
• McGraw Tower at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, United States
• Samford Hall located on the campus of Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama
• Allen-Bradley Division Rockwell Automation Clock Tower in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
• City Hall, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
• Saint Agnes Church St. Paul, Minnesota, United States
• Sather Tower, University of California, Berkeley, California
• Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
• Memorial Tower, Louisiana State University, United States
• Clock Tower, Rome, Georgia, United States
• Cathedral of San Agustin bell/clock tower in Laredo, Texas, United States
• Ferry Building, San Francisco, California, United States
• University of Texas Health Science Center Clock Tower in Laredo, Texas, United States
• Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Tower, Baltimore, Maryland
• Chapel Hall, Gallaudet University, Washington DC, United States
• Webster County Courthouse (Iowa), Fort Dodge, Iowa

South America

• Tower of the University of Saint Mark, Lima, Peru

Europe

• Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster, London, England (Big Ben is the name of the bell inside)
• Dipylon Clock Tower in the Carlsberg District, Copenhagen, Denmark
• Spasskaya Tower, Moscow
• Einsiedeln Abbey, Switzerland
• Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw, Poland
• Clock Tower of Saint Nicolas church, Kozani, Greece
• Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower, The University of Birmingham, England
• Central railway station, Helsinki, Finland
• Sibiu Evangelical Cathedral, Sibiu, Romania
• City Hall, Cardiff, Wales
• Victoria Tower, Liverpool, England
• Clock Tower, Clevedon, England

Gallery

This section looks like an image gallery. Wikipedia policy discourages galleries of random images of the article subject; please edit or remove the section accordingly, moving freely licensed images to Wikimedia Commons if not already hosted there.

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 (commonly referred as Old Joe)	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	Clock tower at The Henry Ford in Michigan	5 faced Clock tower at Dehradun

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Clock towers

• Bell tower
• Campanile
• Minaret
• Su Song (engineer who built a clock tower in Song Dynasty capital of Kaifeng)

References

External links

• Towerclocks.org - Tower clocks database