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Wherwell Church - The Church Clock

The clock is defined as a small ting-tang quarter, flatbed tower (or turret) clock with strike, with the clock face being three feet in diameter made of cast iron with a skeleton dial. The clock was installed in 1911 to mark the Coronation of King George V. There is no makers name visible on the movement, but it does resemble the workmanship of Haycocks of Ashbourne.

Before 1911, time keeping in the village was managed by William Harding, chiming the Curfew bell at eight o’clock every evening. William Harding was Head Gardener at The Priory and tolled the bell for over thirty years.

Since then, the practice was to wind up the clock every Wednesday and Sunday after Church. This was done for over thirty years by Mr Fred Goddard, who had combined the offices of Church Warden, Parish Clerk, and Verger through the Second World War.

The Wherwell estate ceased to take electricity from the water power of the River Test (150 volts only) and came on the national grid in 1952. In 1965, an electric auto-winding system known as ‘monkey on a stick’ was added to the Church clock.

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