NEBULA VOLUME 44 Issue 2 PAGE 8
The oldest timepiece seen was some years ago in Salisbury Cathedral , a wrought-iron mechanism , not easily recognized , in the north aisle . This was created for the purpose of pulling and sounding a bell ( s ) thus identifying the various daily activities for the monks and clergy . It was probably made by specialists on the European continent ( France or the Netherlands perhaps ) and a similar invention is in Wells and Windsor .
This ‘ bell-clock ’ may have been connected with Salisbury ’ s original magnificent bell tower in the 14 th century but in 1792 the tower was demolished . The ‘ bell-clock ’ was ‘ lost ’ until 1926 and was duly restored by the Cathedral authority . Basically a weighted mass creates the gravity to drive the escapement , a truly ingenious piece of technology for its age , which then transfers a horizontal shaft to force a bell rope .
Medieval time measurement in many places , notably Italy and France , had a bell tower and / or a simple dial that only defined hourly changes . I suppose we have to thank ancient Babylonian astronomers / astrologers for the modern hours of a day , who divided the heavenly zodiac into 12 bits . And a remarkable attitude to water in
THE PASSAGE OF TIME by Melvyn Taylor
those long gone times meant that somehow water clocks were constructed . ( A fascinating piece of wet-engineering may be seen in St . Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol . It is called the Chaotic Pendulum and was devised and installed by a learned and very clever team in 1997 ).
On the passage of time , 1965 was when I joined the LAS at the recommendation of a landsurveyor in the old West Riding County Council ’ s architects ’ department . In 2009 when we celebrated the 150 th year of its founding a thoughtful soul and friend pointed out the 44 years represented about 30 % of its history . Meetings were held in the Mathematics Dept of the University and the air was distinctly academic : Dr . Robin Jakeways could be consulted on aspects of these meetings but two talks duly stick in my memory . One was about the 98-inch mirror for the Isaac Newton telescope that was being proposed and the speaker showed how tests were to be done . One blow of a timber mallet on it would reveal any fissures that could make it unusable . This action proved correct (!). Then there was a demonstration using radar ( in the lecture room ) on the detection of meteors - it went over my head even though I had had a
grounding in physics . Often the ongoing work on cosmic-rays done by teams at Haverah Park , outside Harrogate , was up-dated by the Physics Dept .
But returning to time , sundials are very attractive for aesthetics and practical purposes and recently I saw a catalogue of saleable items . It was obvious from images of these that most did not have the appropriate angle of the gnomon even for southern or high northern UK latitudes . And back to Salisbury , the attached photograph taken in 2005 shows an appropriate ‘ starry ’ feature on this dial located on a wall under the eaves of a house in Fisherton Street .
The Salisbury Medieval Clock