Talk:Salisbury Cathedral clock

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The Oxford History of Technology (vol 3, pg 650) qualifies the claim that this is the world's oldest clock by adding "...striking the hours in sequence..." Whether this means that another non-chiming clock predates Salisbury is not clear. Nor does the text explain how an earlier clock might strike the hours out of sequence.

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By "striking the hours in sequence" they mean it strikes once at one o'clock, twice at two o'clock, etc. 14th century striking clocks just had one strike on any full hour, so once at two o'clock. Actually, most 14th century turret clocks were astronomical clocks, mainly for the purpose of showing various planetary movements.

I know that my edits are a bit controversial, but the dating of the clock was done in a pretty slapdash way. Just because you find a clock in 1928, it doesn't mean that you have discovered the clock that was mentioned in 1386.

If the Salisbury clock is really that old, it would mean that during 300 years, there was almost no progress in making turret clocks. The construction of the clock with the wrought rectangular frame is something that starts showing up in the 16th century. Especially the hoop wheel and the hatchet-like locking mechanism are something that wasn't really used in the 14th century. You can't really refer to the Wells clock for dating, as the dating of the Wells clock was based on the dating of the Salisbury clock ...

Anyway, an interesting discussion to be had if anyone wants to!

Christian Dannemann (talk) 09:10, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Correction of some parts of the article.

1 The few images of the Gros Horologe of Rouen that I have found show an early (octagonal?) lantern pinion on the 2nd arbor of the strike train, meshed with a coarse-toothed great wheel; I understand this clock is accepted by most as of 1389. To my eyes this is very, very similar to the work of Wells and Salisbury, and so fully justifies the present dating of these two movements, at 1392 and 1386 resp. And in Rouen, here is an example of an early birdcage frame, such as Wells and Salisbury. 2 In your 1956 restoration table you mention the moving of the strike let-off arbor from the front of the frame to the rear. I feel that you have been drawn by an image on the internet of the clock which has been reproduced back-to-front. My reference is “Clocks and Clockmakers of Salisbury” by Martin Snell, in which can be found a coherent series of images from 1928 onward, which clearly show the let-off arbor at the rear of the frame from 1928, together with the clockwise rotation of the locking plate. Further, there are no signs whatever on the front posts of the frame of previous mortices to carry the cocks for the arbor. 3 You also mention reversal of the hoop wheel. Martin Snell does not record this in his otherwise very full account of activities in 1956. Clearly the hoop wheel has at some time been reversed to prevent further wear to its teeth. When the wheel was reversed in the past, the hoop had to be moved to the other side of the wheel for it to align with the stop arm on the let-off arbor, and predictably the hoop pegs securing it to the wheel were not perfectly equispaced, hence spare, original hole in the band of the wheel. And hence the hoop now overlying the trefoil ends of the wheel arms. 4 On page 3, in the line above ‘References’, should this read ‘lantern pinion’ instead of ‘bird cage’? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Salisbury_cathedral_clock&action=edit&section=new# — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rfinwells (talk • contribs) 18:21, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Assessment

The article is better than a Start, but at this point in its development it should have much better referencing. Moonraker (talk) 22:52, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Article title

So why not Clock? "Salisbury Cathedral clock" seems to suggest a general class of clocks connected with Salisbury Cathedral. Could or should the sources trump MoS here? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:58, 10 May 2020 (UTC)