My article for the event:
On Saturday 29th June, a ceremony was held to unveil the restored and refurbished floral clock in Greenhill Gardens, Weymouth. Weymouth's floral clock is the only remaining working floral clock with its original clockwork in Great Britain, and only 8 out of the original 38 still exist.
The floral clock was installed in Weymouth in 1936 and was one of the last ones with mechanical clockwork made by James Ritchie and Sons of Edinburgh. At the time it cost £200, which according to the Bank of England, is £11,848.24 in 2024 due to inflation. This was at its time a costly feature as terraced houses in London suburbs reportedly cost £375 in comparison.
The main feature is the 14ft wide clockface which is decorated in over 5000 plants for an eye-catching display. Although it is reported that when the clockface was originally installed, it used over 10,000 plants.
20 feet away is the clock house which contains the clock mechanism. The previous house hid the mechanism and had become overgrown, rotting and leaking by 2019. The Friends of Greenhill Gardens took on the project and designed the new clock house to show off the mechanism through two glass window sides. The clock house was built by JAIC of Portland.
Horologist Leon Harvey worked diligently to fully overhaul and restore the clock. The clock has ticked around 500 million times and requires winding up daily and oiling annually. Thanks to the continuation of that, despite the neglect of the old clock house, very few pieces from the mechanism needed repair. Nevertheless, the clockwork was overhauled and everything underneath the floral clockface and mechanism within the clock house was removed and stripped. They have been cleaned, repaired, polished and repainted.
The clock mechanism also includes a cuckoo which sounds every quarter of an hour thanks to bellows and organ pipes. The cuckoo had not worked for the last 30 years due to damage but has now been restored by Shane Seagrave and Rob Harris. It called out three times to mark the unveiling of the clock house.
Also at the unveiling, pianist Tamara Konstantin cut the ribbon to declare the new clock house open. Tamara composed the piece “Greenhill” which played during the ceremony.
The restoration has relied on funding from Derek Luckhurst and public fundraising, the support of The Friends of Greenhill Gardens, Horologist Leon Harvey for the clock restoration, Shane Seagrave and Rob Harris for the cuckoo restoration, and gardeners Jason and Danny. Thank you to all that have supported the project and go on to visit it.
Written by Emma Joyce