Middlesex College is an academic building located on the campus of the
University of Western Ontario. The building is known for its
collegiate gothic
Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europ ...
architecture,
spire, and
clock tower
Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another buildi ...
. It currently houses the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.
Along with
University College, the building is one of the most iconic buildings on the
University of Western Ontario campus and is heavily used in promotion of the university.
History
The cornerstone for the building was installed in 1959 and the building cost was $1.74 million. Construction was completed by general contractors Ellis-Don Ltd. The building was opened in the fall of 1960. The Department of History was the first faculty housed in the building at this time.
The large clock tower houses five 8-foot diameter
bells that each weigh 400lbs which are tuned to
E,
B, E,
F and
G#. The bells were manufactured by
Gillett and Johnston
Gillett & Johnston was a clockmaker and Bellfounding, bell foundry based in Croydon, England from 1844 until 1957. Between 1844 and 1950, over 14,000 Clock tower, tower clocks were made at the works. The company's most successful and prominent ...
.
First installed with the clock faces in 1960, the bells were decommissioned in 2007 due to high refurbishment costs.
References
{{University of Western Ontario
University of Western Ontario
Collegiate Gothic architecture
Gothic Revival architecture in Canada