Church Clock - Church of St Mary, Church Lane, Graveley, Hertfordshire. SG4 7LY - Town Clocks on Waymarking.com

Parish church Grade I listed. Nave C12th Norman; chancel enlarged from smaller semi-circular aspidal form in the early C13th ( some original Norman work can be seen in the western part of the Chancel ); west tower c1480; nave heightened and re-roofed in C15th; south porch probably C18th; north aisle, north vestry and general restoration 1887. Built of flint rubble with stone dressings, the steep old red tile roofs, pyramidal to the tower topped by lead covered standing cross with octagonal tapered shaft. Low pitched lead roof to the nave.

The west tower has a tower arch and west doorway of the late C15th, it is of two stages with external string courses below and above the belfry stage which has a two-light pointed louvred opening on each face. The three-light west window is of stopped pointed lights and stained glass of c.1889. West door of old shiplap vertical oak boarding under a pointed arch set in a deep square-headed moulded surround. The label has shield-shaped stops and there is a moulded deep stone dado-plinth to base of tower. It contains an interesting ring of six bells in the west tower the oldest being an Elizabethan casting of 1589.

The present clock was given to the church in 1890 and the donation is recorded on a brass plaque at the rear of the nave. It records:

              The Clock in the Tower of this Church is Dedicated
                   to the Glory of God in Loving Memory of
                 Thomas Robert and Rose Maria Townsend Wilson
                            of Newlands, Hitchin,
                         by their family and brother.
                            All Saints Day, 1890.

The clock face is on the south face of the tower above the lower string course and just below the bell chamber opening, it has a black face with the minute and hour marks and Roman numerals in gold-coloured paint. The non-counterbalanced hands are of a partial ornamental type also gold-coloured. Noticeably, the face is as large as it could be without standing it off the tower wall on spacers. A further plaque in the church records:

                           In Loving Memory of
                         George Morris Muschamp
                      29 August 1908 – 11June 1969
                   brother of Elizabeth Marshall Taylor
                        The Clock was Restored by
                his devoted wife Sylvia, Family and Friends
              The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord,
                    and He and he delighteth in his way.
                                           Psalm 37, verse 23.

Words variously from British Listed Buildings, Pevsner's Hertfordshire Buildings, and amended and added to with own on-site observations.

Co-ordinates are for the south porch.

Status: Working Display: Mounted Year built: 11/01/1890 Web link to additional info: Not listed

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