Thomas Tompion - Olivewood Tompion architectural turntable-base tic-tac escapement table clock.
Join Dr John C Taylor OBE from the Clocktime digital museum as he discusses the backplate of The Olivewood Tompion Table Clock, circa 1673.
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The advantage of the turntable base is that I can turn the clock around on the base to show you the back, not going too quickly, so I interfere with the pendulum. Then, open the back and you can see the beautiful polished gold finished gilt with mercury gilding on the brass and the lovely engraving on the lambrequin 'Thomas Tompion Londini Fecit'. So, here we've got the countwheel and it's just struck three and as the hour progresses and the hour hand moves round, just as it comes up to about five to, it will cock the mechanism and it's being cocked now. Can you see it come up? And that releases the countwheel so that when the clock then is tripped, it will start to count. So, on the hour it drops 1, 2, 3, 4 and the indices drop into the slot and that locks the strike. So, you've got 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. The pivot for the tic-tac escapement, the little cock here, it's beautifully shaped and engraved with a little flower on here. It's a utilitarian part and yet it's beautifully made. The vertical pivot for the bell arbor for the alarm and the whole thing is a thing of beauty, although it's just a utilitarian part to mount the bell hammer. The pendulum rod and the pendulum bob have a thread and so that you can adjust the length of the pendulum by screwing up the pendulum bob on the thread to shorten it or screwing it down to lengthen it. The clock has been made with a support for the pendulum so you can carry the clock from room to room without the pendulum dashing around and so if you want to move it, you stop it, click it into the beautiful little hook there, again a utilitarian piece, but with lovely shape in it. So, the top of the three-side (III) of the train, you can see the alarm mechanism to make the hammer rattle against the bell to wake you up in the morning. So, I believe that this clock was a kit of parts which came from Samuel Knibb's workshop. There was a very similar kit of parts which was made up by Joseph Knibb into a similar clock but Tompion differentiated his clock by getting rid of the half hour markers and made a statement that this was the way forward.