The clock in the tower was bought and placed there through the efforts of Prince Ranjitsinhji, the cricketer. He often lived at Gilling Rectory in 1889. He organised cricket matches at Gilling in which county cricketers played, to raise money for the clock and the repair of the Tower. The clock is by G.J.F. Newey of York.
The clock was built in 1908 and is a beautiful mechanism with brass cogs. It is a small flat bed clock with a gravity escapement, and strikes the hours. It runs for a week, and is wound with a large handle (very similar to the lock-key used on the canals!). There are two weights to be wound up the tower, the smaller for the clock itself, and the larger to power the strike mechanism which involves a hammer striking the largest of the three bells in the bell chamber above. The strike-weight requires approximately 200 turns of the handle, the clock-weight 100.
The clock generally keeps extremely good time, but it is affected by temperature changes in the tower. It is regulated by adding or subtracting small weights from a tray attached to the (approx.) 6-foot pendulum; fine adjustment uses pennies and halfpennies, which account for about one or a half second a day respectively.
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