Open House London 2016

This weekend has been the annual Open House London time, with 750 buildings open to the public.

As usual, a big thanks goes to the overall organisers (see www.openhouselondon.org.uk), all the building owners, the staff and the volunteers for making this such a great event.

This is my record of the clocks that I saw at or from the buildings I visited.

Also, I thought that I knew the City of London pretty well in terms of its clocks, but on my wanderings between buildings I spotted five clocks which I hadn't previously recorded. These will be shown in later postings - in fact I feel that the time has come to have a post for every single public clock in the City of London, so watch this space. And judging by this weekend's experience, I will need your help in finding the ones that I don't know about. Any guesses yet for how many clocks there are in the City?

My buildings this year were St Paul's, St Lawrence Jewry, a talk at the Guildhall City Centre, St George's Bloomsbury, St Botolph's  Building, Holland House, St Botolph's church, Bevis Marks Synagogue and Drapers Hall.

So, we start with St Paul's Cathedral. I don't I need to say anything about the building, but here is its clock:

St Lawrence Jewry sits by the Guildhall, and is a 17th century building by Sir Christopher Wren (and hence linked to St Paul's) - although the interior is a more modern refurbishment following extensive damage in World War II.

And thank you to the volunteer who informed me that the ornate gilded ironwork in front of the Lord Mayor's pew was of course a sword rest.

Taking an excursion outside of the City, my next stop is St George's Bloomsbury in Bloomsbury Way.

 

This is one of Nicholas Hawksmoor's 18th century masterpieces.

And in typical Hawksmoor style is fantastically bonkers. The tower has a steeple based on the design of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, topped with a statue of George I...

...and a lion and a unicorn thrown in for good measure.

The St Botolph Building is at 138 Houndsditch (always great road names in the City), and is a 52,000 square metre floorspace office building completed in 2010.

No clocks on this building, but you can spot a few out of the windows of the thirteenth floor:

Christchurch, Spitalfields (another Hawksmoor theatrical creation)-

St Botolph, Bishopgate -

and Liverpool Street station -

And all credit to Clyde & Co LLP for opening up their office floor, and for displaying a collection of artwork from students from London arts colleges (www.artawards.clydeco.com).

The colour of the building was supposedly chosen to match the centre of the clock on nearby St Botolph Aldgate:

St Botolph Aldgate is by George Dance the Elder, and dates from the 1740s.

Next up is another place of worship, Bevis Marks Synagogue, dating from 1701 and the oldest synagogue in Britain.

And finally on to Drapers Hall in Throgmorton Street. This is one of the City's livery halls, and originally dates back to the 1530s, although with subsequent rebuilding. The magnificent interior is mostly Victorian.

This is the Livery Hall...

...with a clock on the right hand side of the end wall..

..and a wind direction gauge on the left hand side.

The Drawing Room has this clock in the fireplace:

I now wait for Open House London 2017.

Caledonian Park Clock Tower

This weekend has been Open House London 2014, when over 800 buildings are open to the public (see www.openhouselondon.org.uk). A big thanks goes out to all the organisations and volunteers that make this weekend happen. For me it is the usual hectic journey across the city to see as many buildings as possible.

One of the highlights was the Caledonian Park Clock Tower. Interestingly, this could be spotted from two other buildings visited - firstly from 5 Pancras Square, a brand new office and leisure complex for Camden:

...and also from the Victorian Waterpoint which now belongs to the St Pancras Cruising Club (as in canal boats), glimpse through the cranes and gasholders on the redeveloping railway lines north of Kings Cross:

The clock tower is located in Caledonian Park. The area was redeveloped in the 1850s to become the principal livestock market for London, replacing Smithfields.The size of the market was huge, and in 1862 it handled 300,000 bullocks, 1.5 million sheep (that's over 4,000 per day), 28,000 calves and 29,000 pigs.

The clock tower was one of the key features of the market, and one of the few buildings that remain today.

The tower is 45.6 metres tall and clad in Portland stone. Further details of the clock tower, the Caledonian cattle market and the previous and more recent uses of the site can be found in the publication "Caledonian Park and its surroundings" published by the Islington Publishing Society for the Caledonian Park Friends Group (www.caledonianparkfriendsgroup.org).

A sense of the size of the tower can be gained from the picture below, showing visitors on the belfry balcony.

 

 

 Time now to go inside. The start of the journey up the tower is by an easy spiral staircase, but the ascent soon requires negotiating steep ladder-like stairs.

As you go up you see the huge weights...

...and the enormous pendulum (for a sense of scale look at the pair of legs on the ladder to the left of the pendulum).

 

And so to the clock itself, manufactured by John Moore and Sons.

 

On the next floor up is the fantastic room containing the four dials - it is always fascinating to see these from the inside.

I don't know how big these dials are, but again the human scale comparison is shown in the photo below.

Up once more, and we come to the belfry. The bells were cast by C&G Mears Founders, now known as the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.

And the view from the balcony around the belfry (with its scarily low railings) is spectacular. The picture below show the view towards the cluster of tall buildings in the City of London. The grassy area and the buildings immediately beyond it were originally all part of the cattle market.

And finally just some further pictures taken inside.

Islington Council are currently holding a consultation (open until 5 October 2014) on repairs and improvements to the tower (www.islington.gov.uk/callyclocktower).