Introduction

Clocks or at least timepieces have always been important to churches. Not only was it important to have an agreed and identifiable time at which to meet to worship God, but once churches had towers there was somewhere a clock could be prominently displayed for many to see and thus by which to govern many of their day-to-day activities.

The word clock comes from the Medieval Latin clocca meaning bell and is indicative of the close relationship between the two. When the timepiece was a sundial, the priest could use this to tell him when to ring a bell to call others to worship; once there was a clock it would not necessarily have had a face but a clock or clocks would allow people to hear it/them and thus to know the time - as of course could (and can) those who cannot see the clock. We don't know about past clocks, but this is particularly relevant in Gillingham where the church is not in the highest spot in town and has only one face.

On this page you can read about and see pictures of what we know about our timepieces, and also see and listen to video clips of the clock.

The present one clock face

When the present clock was installed in 1914 the then Vicar, the Revd. Southeby, offered to have two faces if the Parish Council would pay for the gas needed to illuminate the dial. After the installation was complete the Council was refused, so the tower has one non-illuminated clock face only, 2 attractive windows and one plain circle drawing attention to the lack of the second face!

The present clock

The present flat-bed clock was installed in 1914 to replace one which had been there since 1720. It is by Gillett and Johnston with Cambridge (or Westminster) quarter chimes.

The strike and chimes are electrified but the clock itself is still wound by hand once a week, by turning the handle 42 times. The weight falls in the south west corner of the tower. The two electric motors can be seen above the two old winding squares.

When you hear the clock ...

The hour strikes on the tenor bell, the quarter chimes on other bells. The hammers are positioned to "clock" (hit) the bells when they are hanging mouth down.

The clock sounds better outside of the tower, where the sound is more mellow (it is hoped to add a recording from the outside shortly).

... and when you don't

When the bells are swinging around being rung they could be damaged if the clock hammers swung as usual. So that these bells can be rung without any danger of damage to them the hammers can be pulled back out of the way when ringing is taking place: wires with a loop on the end are pulled down in the ringing room and the loops pulled over hooks. Because of the effort needed to raise the bells (the tenor - 24cwt - in particular) the bells are left "up" when several lots of ringing are to take place close to each other - usually between Sunday morning ringing and Monday evening practice. If there are not enough ringers to ring all eight bells the tenor may be left "down" and the clock will strike the hour but the chimes won't be heard; if all the bells are "up" neither strike nor chimes will sound. If there is a wedding or visiting ringers on a Saturday the clock may be silent from Saturday to Monday.

Occasionally mechanical failure or human (we forget to put the hammers back) means the bells are silent at other times. In addition, because the chimes and strike are electrified an interruption to the power supply can confuse the clock - it still continues to work but you may hear the wrong quarter chime or hour struck - hopefully no one relies on the clock to tell them the time these days!

The previous clock

The previous three-train clock movement was made by William Monk of Berwick St. John, about 1720, according to the records of William Saunders made in September 1886 in his manuscript book, kept at Sherborne Abbey.

It originally had only one hand and the quarter chimes were like those at Beaminster and Netherbury: 1; 1,2; 1,2,3 and 1,2,3,4 on 4 of the bells.

Repairs and renewals were carried out by John Conway of Sturminster Newton in 1840, as is recorded on a board in the base of the tower.

Mass dial

Mass dials were forms of sundial, set in the south walls of churches to indicate the times of services. Medieval scratch dials were usually circular with lines every 15 degrees to mark each half hour. Ours, however, is semi-circular, dividing the daylight hours into 4 tides of 3 hours each (at midsummer) and is therefore known as a "tide dial". Being this type of dial indicates it dates from Saxon times. An iron style (gnomon) would have been inserted in the hole and it's shadow would have fallen at the noon (vertical) line at noon on Midsummer's Day.

This dial was found embedded in the wall of the Old Vicarage (now Rawson Court) and moved to the church for safe-keeping. Since other faces of the stone have carvings too it clearly has a history pre-dating its use as a dial; it is believed to be part of an Anglo-Saxon cross shaft. It must have been part of a standing cross used either to mark a grave or as the centre of an open air preaching spot before the church had a building.

Further reading:

Howe, Charles (1983) 'Gylla's Hometown: How a Saxon Settlement became an English Country Town"

Dalton, Christopher (2000) 'The Bells and Belfried of Dorset: part 1' (part 1 covers Dorset places beginning with the letters A to G and so includes Gillingham)