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Bracket Clocks

If someone ever asks you to write about a topic concerning the Victorians, leave the country immediately! I googled Victorian clocks (which this article is about), and I got "clockwork toy pig with rider". My first thoughts went to the movie "Deliverence" staring Burt Reynolds (strike up "Dueling Banjos"). Actually, Clapham's Clocks itself has an old, beaten-up Victorian paper-mache bulldog I like to freak out the small kids with!

The Victorian era started when Queen Vic ascended the throne (not in a flaming chariot, but close) on June 20th 1837. It was the apogee of the British Empire when the Victorian era took off in all its manifest forms from steam power, china and silver, to name but a few of their many achievements (pre-Raphaelites anybody?). It was a time when the Brits ruled the World and no self-respecting home would be without a clock gracing their mantelpiece... the bigger the better.

The latest special display at Clapham's Clocks features clocks made between the 17th and early 20th centuries featuring a Bracket clock, a style favoured by the Victorians. Built around the 1880’s by Swinden & Sons of Birmingham, UK, it is rectangular in shape and called a Bracket clock because they stood on a smallish shelf, or bracket, protruding from the wall. These brackets ranged from the plain to the highly ornate, featuring carved fruit, flowers and birds. Always made of wood, they had inlay of brass and tortoise shell.

Bracket clocks had handles so they could be carried from room to room and, before the arrival of electricity, Bracket clocks would have repeating chimes. This was designed so if you wanted to know the time in the middle of the night, you pulled a lever and the clock would strike the hour.

Antique Bracket clocks are spring-driven pendulum clocks, housed in a rectangular case and often had glass sides so one could look and admire the fusee movements. They were first made in Holland but reached their peak in design in England by makers like Thomas Tompian.

The whole Town Basin is in for a major make-over, and Claphams National Clock Museum will be no exception. The potential for it is huge; all we need is imagination and a strong dose of enthusiasm to create an irresistible draw-card for tourists and locals. The Old Widow I'm sure would approve.