IanVisits…

I spent a rather pleasant 45 minutes at a small museum in the City of London devoted to the history of clock (and watch) making in London. The collection was begun in 1814 by the Clockmakers guild and is said to be the oldest collection specifically of watches and clocks in the world.

It is not that well known as a museum it seems, and was fairly quiet when I was there, with just a few other people wandering around - which makes it easier to see the exhibits, but is a bit of a shame as it is a really well laid out collection and there is a lot to see there - much of it very very rare indeed.

As you go into the museum, there are large explanation panels which go round the room in order (almost) and explain the history of clocks and clock making in London from about the 1600’s until the current day.

I was interested to learn that while today we consider Switzerland to be the height of watch making, in fact London has been historically the center for quality clocks, and Switzerland only gained prominence through “low quality” mass production in the 19th century.

The exhibition is a mixture of the mechanics of clock making - and the jewelry that is so often associated with the cases used to carry pocket watches.

The information boards are a good mix, being quite informative without either being too technical to understand or dumbed down to appeal to 10 year old kids. They also put each part of the history of clock making into context with the history of London so you can understand how great events such as the Great Fire of London or the Civil War affected clock making in the country.

Harrison and Longitude

I was also surprised to see that the museum houses the Harrison’s Chronometer H5 - which was the famous “watch” which solved the problem of measuring Longitude. Having been to the Greenwich Royal Observatory where the other Harrison clocks are displayed, I guess I had presumed that the actually winning clock was there as well. While the earlier clocks are visually vastly more interesting to look at - it is still quite something to see the original winning watch itself on display at this museum.

The story of Harrison and Longitude was dramatised in a very good 3 hour long docu-drama in 2000 staring Jeremy Irons.

Visiting

If you have a spare hour one day and are in the area of the Guildhall, I would recommend this little gem of a museum for a visit. I would say that a visit would last anything from 30 minutes to an hour depending on how engrossed you get in the exhibits.

To find the museum - presuming that you approach the Guildhall from the front main entrance - when you get into the courtyard, turn left and head towards the library. The museum is inside the building on the ground floor. There is an x-ray machine for bags - no photography is permitted alas.

The museum is open Mon-Sat 9:30am-4:45pm. Entry is free.

On the web

City of London webpage about the museum

The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers

Various shops, offices etc in Greenwich town center are to become a “living Advent calendar” this December. Each day, from the 1st Dec., a new display will be unveiled to the public until all 24 “windows” have been unveiled - with the 24th occurring inside St Alfege Church in the town center.

All the windows will be on show once they have been opened until January 5th.

Each window is being prepared by volunteers using a range of media, from multimedia installations to paintings, models and stained glass. The official website says that seeing them all will take approximately two hours - once they have all been opened I presume! A map of the different locations and the date they will be opened in available here (pdf file)

I quite like this idea as it is brings a bit of artistic fun to the run up to Christmas - a time for adults that is usually more stressful than pleasant - and it is quite a good community event.

Imagine if the shops on a major high street (or the West End) where to do something similar - could be quite amazing.

Several opening-associated events are being planned.

Monday 3rd Dec - Share a glass of mulled wine from 6.00pm.
Theatre of Wine. 78, Trafalgar Road, SE10 9TS

Saturday 8rd Dec - Opening events in evening. Blessing of the shop at 6.00pm.
Pets and the City. 334, Creek Road, SE10 9SW

Tuesday 11th Dec - Donkey procession down Westgrove Lane at 5.00pm. (this one I just have to see!)
23, Westgrove Lane, SE10 8QP

Thursday 20th Dec - Slushies, deckchairs, seagulls, waves. Starting at 4.30pm.
88, Ashburnham Grove, SE10 8UJ

Sunday 23rd Dec - Carol singing around the windows starting at 6.00pm.
Starting point: 58, Royal Hill, SE10 8RT

Monday 24rd Dec - 5.00pm Christingle Service with blessing of the crib. 10.45pm Carols by the St. Alfege choir. 11.30 Candlelit Midnight Mass.
St. Alfege Church. Greenwich High Road, SE10 9JS

As we approach the annual ice skating season in London, it is worth recalling that ice skating has been going on in London for many years - indeed, most people will recall the stories of the River Thames freezing over and people skating on it.

The River will never freeze like that again - alas, as the river is now much more narrow and hence flows faster so it can’t slow down to freeze. Also, there was a “mini ice age” at the time and the narrow gaps in the London Bridge caused a significant slowing of the river flow as well.

Anyhow - just over 100 years ago, on the 15th January 1867 was an ice skating disaster on Regents Park Lake. At around 3:30 in the afternoon there were about 500 people on the ice sheet when it was seen to move away from the bankside and split into several pieces. Most of the people stranded on the ice were rescued - but a total of 40 people died in the incident. The dead people were all thrown into the water in its deepest part of the lake.

The lake was later lowered in depth to help prevent further deaths.

For the average person, the largest denomination UK bank note that we would see is the £50 note - and even that is moderatly rare with the £20 being the normal largest note in day-2-day usage.

However, little known about is that there is a larger denomination available - the “one million pound note”.

Before shops start panicking about they could be able to offer change if someone walked into a shop with one of these notes in their wallet, it should be noted that these notes are for inter-bank purposes only. The key point is that they do however actually exist.

They are mainly used by the Bank of England to “transfer” currency from the English Bank to its bank note issuer counterparts in Scotland and is hence never seen outside the banking system.

Alas, a letter to the Bank of England for permission to show you an image of one of these interesting notes was politely declined. Oh well.

Incidentally, the words “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five [ten/twenty/fifty] pounds” date from long ago when the UK’s bank notes represented deposits of gold. At that time, a member of the public could go into the Bank of England and swap a banknote for gold to the same value. For example, a £5 note could be exchanged for five gold coins, called sovereigns.

However, the value of the pound has not been linked to gold for many years, so the meaning of the promise to pay has changed. Exchange into gold is no longer possible and Bank of England notes can only be exchanged for other Bank of England notes of the same face value - which is a bit boring frankly.

The Bank of England has a museum, which I have been meaning to visit for several years - but it is only open Mon-Fri and never on Bank Holidays (appropriatly enough), so it is a bit of a pain to get to during the week.

Just recently, Digg has started running adverts from a hair loss company - a lot of adverts in fact.

OK, I accept that my hair is receeding a bit, but it isn’t that bad!