Tunbridge Wells (Part 2)

Let's continue our journey through Tunbridge Wells, and on to the MultiYork store at the junction of Calverley Road and Crescent Road.

And just around the corner on Crescent Road is Welham Jones funeral directors.

On now to the oddest clock in town. The millennium brought all sorts of strangeness to the world, including it seems this 5 metre high clock by local sculptor Jon Mills.

It seems to have received mixed views from the locals, but in my view strange is good.

We are back on Mount Pleasant Road, where the local branch of the Nat West bank has this rather uninspiring timepiece.

Continue down Mount Pleasant Road, on back past the railway station (no, not time to leave town just yet), round into Vale Road, and voila, the square clock of Morrisons.

We are on the High Street now, at the lovely premises of Payne and Son, with its ornately bracketed (and colour-coordinated) clock.

We keep walking south into Nevill Street, where we find the church of King Charles the Martyr. This is an oddly positioned clock as it is only really visible from one direction.

On now into The Pantiles, an early version of a shopping mall (thankfully outdoors). The clock was installed in 1924.

Close to the clock is The Cake Shed, which does fantastic sandwiches, and even more fantastic cakes. All in all a good place to replenish energy levels during this long walk around town.

Not too far to go now. Just south of The Pantiles is the old Tunbridge Wells West station. The station closed in 1985 and is now an eatery, and much of the railway site is now a supermarket, but the Grade II listed station building and its clock remain.

Based in the old goods shed, the Spa Valley Railway has restarted railway services from (or from very close to) the West station. The SVR's station has its own clock:

 

Wow. We are now at the end of a very long walk around Tunbridge Wells. Perhaps time for just one more cake before heading home.....

Hartlepool

This is the final stop on my recent clock-spotting tour of north-east England.

Let's start with a bit of shopping at Morrison's.

Followed by this nightclub in The Avenue.

Next up is a turret clock on an NHS premises on Victoria Road.

H Lamb is a family-run  jewellers shop on York Road. "Potts of Leeds - Five Generations of Clockmakers" lists a clock of 1939  for H Lamb in their previous premises in Lynn Street. I don't know whether this is the same clock.

A little bit further down the road is Maynews newsagents.

This next grand building is the old Hartlepool Co-operative Society building  in Park Road. Completed in 1915, it has now more recently been converted into flats.

Sadly the only remains of the clock are this skeleton dial.

Down the road from the Co-op building, past the brewery, is Stranton Church (All Saints).

Into the hell that is indoor shopping malls. This is the Middleton Grange Shopping Centre, built in 1969 and officially opened by Princess Anne in May 1970. Apparently it was originally an open air shopping centre until converted into an indoor centre in 1992 (which in my view is a bonkers idea). The end result is a ground floor that has oppressively low ceilings, and an upper floor with a glass roof that makes it stifling hot.

Anyway, there are two clocks. The first is a standard small timepiece by the information point.

And the second is this more unusual (but not necessarily attractive) design:

The external design of the shopping centre can be simply described as dreadful. One side of its awfulness has the temerity to face a square with a huge war memorial. having said that, on the opposite side of the road is a brutal brick building that is Hartlepool Civic Centre - a building that does not have a lot of 'civic' about it.

Lets move on, to a time when shops were more civilised. This building now houses Wilkinsons, but was originally Binns department store.

Hopefully the netting around the clock tower is a sign of preservation or restoration. I believe that this is a Potts clock of 1902.

Also a Potts clock is the one on the Hartlepool Art Gallery, originally Christ Church. The timepiece dates form 1919.

 

A more modern design can be found on top of MacDonald's near the marina.

 

Next up is a view of the clock in the Quayside Maritime Experience museum. I didn't have time to go and get a better view of the clock, so we will have to make do with this one.

The modern turret clock seems to be the in thing in the marina area. Here are two more:

 

This though is a much older clock. I didn't have time to explore further - I think this might be the Customs House of 1911.

We end our tour of Hartlepool with this delightful building, the Dock Office of 1846.