Cambridge (Part 2)

Whilst Part 1 had a mixed bag of mundane and spectacular clocks, Part 2 tends to the latter with the influence of the colleges.

But we start off with the Guildhall in Market Place.

Some nice animal motifs going on here, although quite a long way up and probably missed by many people due to the hustle and bustle of the market in the square.

Just around the corner is the church of Great St Mary's.....

.... with its great clock:

And so on to some of the colleges. The clock on Kings College is not all that spectacular in itself (in relation to other Cambridge clocks) but I think that its supporting architecture lets it off the hook!

And down the same road (Kings Parade / Trumpington Street) are three more great clock / architecture combos. Closest by is Corpus Christi College, which like many of them you have to go through the porter's lodge to find the hidden world behind.

Nice lawn too. Next door is the church of St Botolph's.

And next door to that is Pembroke College:

And finally on the dash back to the railway station, on a whim I popped through a fairly anonymous archway in St Andrews Street, which turned out to be Emmanuel College.

And my favourite of all the clocks spotted in Cambridge.

So endeth Part 2. No more Cambridge clocks at present, but I am sure another visit is called for.

Cambridge (Part 1)

Lots of clocks in Cambridge,and so this posting will be broken down into two parts. I suspect that there are a lot more clocks that I haven't captured (I'd take a punt on that!) which will have to wait until another visit.

The railway station is unusual in that it doesn't have a clock in or on the main buildings, but commuters rushing down Station Road can be pleased or dismayed as appropriate by the time shown on the clock mounted on the small roundabout in front of the station (taking a picture of it can be quite dangerous due to cars, taxis, buses and cycles coming from all directions - although it looks quiet in the picture below).

On the long walk into the city centre, the first clock to be encountered is on St Paul's church on Hills Road.

Further up the road brings you to the junction with Lensfield Road. Here you can find the Catholic church with its rather unusual clock - unusual in the sense that it is a large mounted clock rather than one that is an integral part of the main building structure (a la St Paul's above), and that experience to date has shown that very few Catholic churches have clocks.

On the opposite side of the junction is the Yim Wah Express restaurant which has a rather battered (and stopped) clock.

Hills Road now becomes Regent Street as we continue heading to the city centre. At number 60 are the offices of Abbotts estate agents. I love the motto on the clock ("Time to move"), it's just a shame that the glass case couldn't be cleaned.

Regent Street turns into St Andrews Street and then into Sidney Street where you are in the city centre proper. Here you can see the magnificent building, clock tower and clock of what is Lloyd's Bank.

All rather splendid really.

Before ending Part 1 of our Cambridge tour, a quick look at two nearby shops. H Samuel in Lion Yard has one of their standard design clocks....

....whilst in Petty Cury, the branch of Nationwide has this slightly unusual design (with fading indications that it used to be a branch of Next).

Part 2 will, amongst others, look at some of the colleges.

Vauxhall

As its Spring (you can tell by the cold weather and all the rain), the first stop is the flower market between Nine Elms Lane and Wandsworth Road. I rather like this simple clock "tower" - nothing flash but rather elegant in its own way.

The inscription below the clock reads "In memory of Barrie Collingridge OBE". I couldn't find any information on this gentleman, but I suspect he was a partner in one of the traders in the market. If anyone knows any more please let me know.

Looking from this clock, you can see the next one on our itinerary today:

This is a fairly typical "clock on the roof of a newish building", the building in question being Wendle Court at 131-137 Wandsworth Road.

Moving east onto South Lambeth Road, you can catch a glimpse of a clock tower of the sort you might find on a local town hall. .

Tracking this clock down proved difficult, until I eventually found the entrance to the gated Regents Bridge Gardens (gated communities are up there with shopping malls on my list of things not to like). This is the closet I could get.

From the style and names of the buildings I would guess that they were once a government facility, but again I would be happy if anyone could enlighten me (and perhaps the owners of the site could invite me in for a good look at the clock).

The final stop today is the bus station at Vauxhall. From a distance this has the promise of clocks at every one of its stops, until you get close and realise that none of them has any hands.

A quick trawl on the web reveals a letter from TfL last year, saying that the hands were removed as all the clocks were showing different times. However they would be replaced by a digital clock. Shame on you TfL. Come on Boris, now you have been re-elected, get some proper clocks back in place at Vauxhall.

Oh well, onwards and upwards!