Church clock on the bell tower of St Mary & All Saints' church, Willingham. It has a black face with gilded roman numerals and hands.
From the 'Willingham News', Jume 2007
"Yet again, Willingham has demonstrated its innate talent for ploughing a lone furrow. The vast majority of village clocks located in church towers are the property of the respective churches. Not so in Willingham. Our clock belongs to the Parish.
The installation of these clocks was not only a matter of civic pride but also fulfilled an essential function. Few households had clocks, and watches were pretty much a rarity, especially for the working man. Everyone relied on the village clock to tell the time and, by its chimes, to indicate important events such as lunch breaks and knocking-off times. According to the date on the clock, it was manufactured in 1887 by W Potts & Son of Leeds, who produced over 1600 of these turret clocks. It was paid for by public subscription to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria and installed in 1887. Since then, the Parish Council has paid for the maintenance and costs of clock winding. It replaced an earlier clock. It is interesting to note the initials HF and HD and the date 1877 scratched in the stonework to the right of the clock face.
The clock is approached by means of a narrow and claustrophobic spiral stone staircase set in the church tower and leading eventually to the belfry. Nowadays, there is an electric light. It must have been fun navigating the stairs in the dark, especially coming down. The stairs are a tight squeeze for any present day adult; people were much smaller at the time the church was built, but, even then, there could have been little room to spare.
The clock used to be driven by three weights; one each for the main drive mechanism, and the hourly and quarterly chimes. Until 1990, these weights had to be wound up manually. At one time, the clock was wound by Bert Huckle; when he was unavailable, Arthur Beaumont took over. Then, in 1959, Harry Beaumont assumed the responsibility. Apparently, Harry Beaumont was pretty fearless. There is a tale of how he was attached to a rope so that he could clean out all the gulleys around the roof of the tower, and lubricate the rod leading from the clock mechanism through the tower wall to the clock hands. What price Health and Safety! Perhaps his confidence rested in a higher power. Geoff Granger became the next clock winder followed by Frank Cook and Andrew Cook in 1988. At that time, the clock was jammed. An engineer came and used an oil can with the longest spout ever seen in Willingham to lubricate the rod driving the hands and thus remedy the situation.
From 1990 until earlier this year [2007], Andrew was in sole command of regulating the clock and changing the times when the clocks went forward and back. Phil King and John Anderson are currently charged with struggling up the staircase to look after the clock.
The clock is regulated by adding or taking away small lead weights on the pendulum. One previous clock winder apparently had no watch. It is said that he would ask the time of a passer-by and then climb the church tower to adjust the clock to that time. Of course, by the time he reached the clock, a couple of minutes at least had elapsed — but he still set the clock to the time that he had just been given, and thus the clock was always slow. The clock mechanism is affected by the weather, and always runs fast just after it has been serviced and lubricated.
In 1990, the decision was taken to install three electric motors to drive the clock mechanism and chimes (at the time of writing, a clock maker has just fixed one of these motors to get the clock running again). The decision making process was quite labyrinthine and involved the Parish Council, the Parochial Church Council, the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group and English Heritage, amongst others. It was a condition that the redundant pulleys and weights be stored at the church, and that the clock could revert to the manual system of winding at any time in the future.
There is a tale of one disgruntled parishioner taking a pot shot at the clock face around the time of the First World War. Jabez Few was a farm labourer with a penchant for unofficial game shooting. He often carried a gun. Apparently, he was also partial to a tipple. On this occasion, he was said to have been ‘tired and distressed’ when he heard the clock chime. His response was to say ‘If you strike once more, I'll shoot you.’ It did, and he fired. A man of his word. The magistrate was not impressed. Another time, someone made use of steeplejacks’ ladders and ropes to swing across the face of the clock and bend the hands. Despite such treatment, the clock has survived from one Queen’s Gulden Jubilee to another's, and beyond. It has been going now for 130 years and, it is to be hoped, will continue to serve the people of Willingham for very many years to come."
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