Clock Towers

January 22, 2020

Clock Towers

***Note: This blog first appeared on my Caris Roane blog in July, 2017

Time. Deep breath or big sigh. Take your pick. Time governs us all.

Over the last few months, I’ve started using a simple timer while I work. It tells me when to stop and it tells me to hurry up because I’m running out of time for whatever task I’m performing.

To be honest, it works very well for me and helps me move from one project to the next with a fair amount of ease.

Clock towers have helped entire communities stay on task. Or at the very least provided a means of bringing villages, towns and cities together in times of need.

Here are a few FunFacts about Clock Towers:

Clock Towers:

· One of the earliest known clock towers is the Tower of the Winds in Athens. It has 8 sundials and one water clock. (See the public domain photo on Wikipedia.)

· Before the 1950’s, most people didn’t have watches. Before the 1700’s most people didn’t have clocks in their homes.

· Clock towers started as striking clocks that sounded the hours with a bell or a gong. The hours were struck with their number: one for one o’clock, two strikes for two o’clock, etc.

· Clock towers were placed in or near the center of a community and were frequently the tallest structures around.

· Eventually, dials were placed on the outside, often on all four faces of a square tower, to allow the townspeople to read the time at will.

· The tallest free-standing clock tower in the world is the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower at the University of Birmingham, UK.