Bill Smith has been Clock Keeper at St Barnabas since 1983 (when he took over on the death of Harold Olding who was Clock Keeper for about the previous ten years). Bill has three assistants – John Branson, Brian Pancott and Richard Sopp – who work a rota to ensure the clock is wound every Saturday. This is a rather physical procedure that needs 36 turns of a large winding handle for the ‘going train’ (which drives the hands) and 180 turns for the ‘striking train’ (which makes the clock strike every hour).
The TURRET CLOCK in the church tower
The clock was made by Gillett & Johnston Ltd of Croydon; the date on the cast frame is 1877. Gillett & Johnston are still in business and currently provide routine maintenance of the clock.
Screwed to the frame is a plate inscribed with the name James Padbury, Bishop’s Waltham – probably the installer.
For those interested in the technicalities:
Nominally an eight-day clock, it has a flat-bed two-train movement mounted on cast iron brackets set into the wall of the clock chamber in the church tower. It has a going train and a striking train, both powered by weights which are manually wound every Saturday.
The going train, which weighs about two hundredweight, requires 36 turns of the winding handle to raise it fully; the striking train, weighing in at about 31/4 hundredweight, needs 180 turns. A maintaining power device is used to keep the clock running while it is being wound: a small weight on a lever which is raised and engaged with the mechanism to maintain power to the going train.
The clock has a Lord Grimthorpe double-three-legged gravity escapement and a pendulum which, at 14 feet, is unusually long, with a two-second period.
The pendulum is hung on a separate cast iron bracket fixed to the wall above the clock movement. A small screw-adjustable weight on the bottom of the pendulum allows the clock’s timing to be altered. Adjustment of this weight, up or down, effectively alters the length of the pendulum and hence the period of oscillation.
The hands are adjusted by means of a nut on the shaft that drives the leading-off rod. This nut has to be unlocked to disconnect the clock from the hands – which allows the leading-off rod to be moved manually.
