Dover Castle Clock is a

turret clock A turret clock or tower clock is a clock designed to be mounted high in the wall of a building, usually in a clock tower, in public buildings such as churches, university buildings, and town halls. As a public amenity to enable the community ...

from the beginning of the 17th century. It used to be in

Dover Castle Dover Castle is a medieval castle in Dover, Kent, England and is Grade I listed. It was founded in the 11th century and has been described as the "Key to England" due to its defensive significance throughout history. Some sources say it is the ...

, and is now an exhibit in the

Science Museum, London The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded ...

History and description

The origin of the clock is uncertain, but it is thought to date from about 1600. It was discovered in Dover Castle in 1851 and removed from there in 1872. It was restored and exhibited working in the Scientific Exhibition of 1876. The Dover is one of the few surviving clocks from this era that still has its original foliot, a primitive

balance wheel A balance wheel, or balance, is the timekeeping device used in mechanical watches and small clocks, analogous to the pendulum in a pendulum clock. It is a weighted wheel that rotates back and forth, being returned toward its center position by a ...

which was the timekeeper used in the earliest clocks, consisting of a bar with weights hanging from the ends, which rotates back and forth. Most medieval clocks had their foliots replaced by

pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the ...

s after 1657 when the pendulum was invented. In the 19th century this misled scholars into thinking the clock may have been made as early as 1348. In the 20th century the date of the clock was revised to about 1600.

Comparison with Combe clock

The clock is similar to one in the

Museum of the History of Science, Oxford The History of Science Museum in Broad Street, Oxford, England, holds a leading collection of scientific instruments from Middle Ages to the 19th century. The museum building is also known as the Old Ashmolean Building to distinguish it from th ...

that came from St Laurence's parish church in

Combe, Oxfordshire Combe is a village and civil parish about northeast of Witney in Oxfordshire. It is bounded to the south and southwest by the River Evenlode, to the northwest partly by the course of the Akeman Street Roman road and partly by a road parallel ...

. In 1938

Donald Harden Donald Benjamin Harden, (8 July 1901 – 13 April 1994) was an Anglo-Irish archaeologist and museum curator, who specialised in ancient glass. Having taught at the University of Aberdeen and the University of Michigan, he was assistant keeper (1 ...

, then Keeper of Antiquities at the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...

, reported "They are identical in design, workmanship and method of construction, even down to the peculiar and rather puzzling cranking of the arm for carrying the lever that lifted the hammer". The only difference he found was that the Dover clock is slightly smaller. Harden therefore concluded that the same clockmaker made both clocks.

References

Sources

* *{{page needed, date=July 2015 Collections of the Science Museum, London Individual clocks in England