Clock Towers

A clock tower is a tower built with at least 4 (sometimes more!) clock faces. A clock tower will usually be a part of a church building or other 'official' building, but can also stand alone or on private residences.

The mechanism inside the tower is known as a turret clock. It often marks the hour (and in some cases segments of an hour) by sounding large bells or chimes and will sometimes play simple musical tunes.

A number of clock towers have become famous landmarks. Four of the best-known are the clock tower which houses Big Ben (often itself referred to as Big Ben - a common mistake) at Westminster, London. Other notable towers are the Rajabai Tower in Mumbai, the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow, Kremlin and the Peace Tower in Ottawa. 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. This made it the highest 4 faced clock tower in the world and the second highest clock tower in the world overall. The Allen-Bradley Clock Tower holds the record for largest non-chiming four faced clock; the chimes were intentionally left out so that the Big Ben tower would still hold the official record!!

Clock towers today are mostly admired for their aesthetics. However, they once served an important purpose. Before the middle of the twentieth century, most people did not have watches. Clock towers were therefore placed near the centres of towns and so were often purposely the tallest buildings there.

The use of clock towers dates back to the Middle Ages. The earliest clock tower was constructed in China and was completed in 1088. However, the first striking clock tower was constructed shortly after in 1154 near the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, by the Arab engineer al-Kaysarani. The earliest clock tower known in Europe was the Salisbury cathedral clock, completed in 1306.

JB Joyce hold the title of the world's oldest tower clock maker. The company began life in 1690 and still manufactures clocks to this day 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 today. The company has manufactured such notable tower clocks as that of St Paul's Cathedral and the Shanghai Customs building in China.