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A selection of the stock showing the range and quality of the pieces we can offer. This is only a selection of our stock. If you have a specific need, please contact us. If we do not have anything at present we would be happy to search for you. Please contact us for prices. 30 hour longcase by a renowned Quaker maker. John Ogden Darlington. A simple but impressive early pine case with the original chocholate brown finish. The dial also displays the restraint of a practicing Quaker, carefully executed radial matting in the centre and the absence of spandrels. Circa 1715. 17th century London 30 hour Thomas Johnson Rattcliff Cross A London made pine case with the proportions and elegance of the capital. The case is in wonderful condition, the original guilding still evident on the columns. Showing signs of a previous finish, the case has at an early date, been scumbled in order to produce faux bois. Thomas Johnson was a fine maker at times working outside the constraints of the City. Lancashire longcase Circa 1785. Monks, Preston. A fine example of Lancastrian clockwork and cabinetmaking.Solid mahogany with flame veneer on the door and base, decorated with beautifully executed scroll pediment and fluted columns. The dial also betrays favoured features of the region, centre date, moonroller and a thought provoking aphorism; God appointed the moon for seasons. Scottish wall clock. Circa 1800. W. Kellham, Egremont. Weight driven eight day wall clock. Cuban mahogany flame veneer on the door and base whilst radially applied to the edges of the hood and base. Painted dial with the original background. Height 56". A local clock made by Sevenoaks maker John Payne A good quality eight day movement with a finely engraved sheet silver dial with strike silent hand in the break arch. The case is typically Kentish in design as is the colour and straight grain of the oak. Circa 1780. Fruit wood case clock. Johnson, Grays Inn Passage A nicely proportioned bracket clock signed Johnson, Grays Inn on the painted dial. Eight day movement with original verge escapement. Strike silent and pull repeat. The fruit wood case is ebonised and now has an attractive soft colour and good patination. 7" convex dial. 13£ high. Circa 1790. Lantern clock John Millar Third period lantern clock signed John Miller, London. Circa 1680. John Millar has the distinction of being apprenticed to both Samuel and Joseph Knibb. The movement has its original verge escapement, strikes on the hour and has a complete alarm. The clock is 13 1/2" to the top of the finial. The dial 6 1/4" diameter. This pretty clock has good proportions, a pleasing colour and fine patination. It can be hung on the wall either by the original hoop and spurs or stood upon an oak bracket, both of which allow the rope, weight and counterweight to hang below. Longcase clock Richard Haughtin Month duration marquetry longcase signed Richard Haughtin London. 11" dial in floral marquetry and walnut case. Circa 1695. French decorative clock Fort A Paris A typical example of a good French decorative clock. The castings on this portico clock are beautifully chased and finished. The case also retains its original mercury gilding which is burnished on the highlights giving the clock a very attractive variation of soft colour. Fine quality movement signed Fort A Paris. Empire style, Circa 1820. Eight Day Dial Clock J Bramble Oxford Street Weight driven eight day dial clock signed J Bramble Oxford Street. Circa 1800. 14" convex painted dial with brass counter-balanced hands. Cast brass bezel carrying a convex glass, mounted on a slim mahogany surround. The attractive mahogany case is decorated with flame veneers on the door and chisle shaped bottom. Height 38". Eight Day Scottish Longcase William Robb, Montrose Eight day Scottish longcase signed William Robb, Montrose. Circa 1780. Beautiful mahogany case of superb colour and proportions with tulip wood cross-habanding and satin wood inlay. Engraved brass dial with moon dial, seconds and date ring. Height 81". Seaweed Marquetry Simon DeChaumes, London Seaweed marquetry signed Simon DeChaumes, London. Circa 1700. Simon DeChaumes was one of a number of Hugeneuot craftsmen, whose talent boosted the standard of English clockmaking. He was made free of the clockmakers company in April 1691 and is recorded as working in London until at least 1704 at "his house, the sign of the clock, the corner of Warwick Street, Charing Cross". Height 86". Mahogany Mercury Barometer Signed, A. Peduzzi, 51 Spear Street, Manchester Circa 1790 Fine four dial barometer. Main dial 10". The quality of these earlier "Banjo" shaped is not always perceptable but close inspection reveals the finer engraving, superior cast bezels and quiet elegance. When held the surprising weight belies the merit of the materials used. Fine quality Sheraton Barometer Signed, Corti and Son Holborn Hill London. Finely engraved dial, original silvering. A good sign of quality is the cross banded veneer on the side. Circa 1790. Dial of longcase clock Stephen Bridges Dial of wonderfully original thirty hour longcase clock. The iron framed movement is outstanding as is the single brass hand. Although unsigned the pewter chapter ring has the touch mark of Stephen Bridges London (Cotterell No 572). Sundial Gray Fecit Sundial signed Gray Fecit 1706. Latitude 51 15. Good colour with original gnomon. Ancient methods of measuring hours in the absence of sunlight included the notched candle and the Chinese practice of burning a knotted rope and noting the length of time required for the fire to travel from one knot to the next. Devices almost as old as the shadow clock and sundial include the hourglass, in which the flow of sand is used to measure time intervals, and the water clock, or clepsydra, in which the flow of water indicates passage of time. Clepsydras became more complicated, even to the inclusion of gearing in about 270 bc by Greek inventor Ctesibius of Alexandria. Eventually, a weight falling under the force of gravity was substituted for the flow of water in time devices, anticipating the mechanical clock. The historical origin of the mechanical clock is obscure. The first recorded examples are found in the 14th century. Until that time, a time-measuring instrument was known as a horologium, or hour teller. The name clock, which originally meant “bell,” was first applied in the present sense to the huge, mechanical time indicators installed in bell towers in the late Middle Ages. Clockworks were initially heavy, cumbersome devices. A clock built in the 14th century by Henry De Vick of Württemberg for the royal palace (now the Palais de Justice) in Paris was powered by a 227-kg (500-lb) weight that descended a distance of 9.8 m (32 ft). The apparatus for controlling its rate of fall was crude and the clock inaccurate. Clocks of that period had dials with only one hand, which indicated the nearest quarter hour. A series of inventions in the 17th and 18th centuries increased the accuracy of clockworks and reduced the weight and bulk of the mechanisms. Galileo had described late in the 16th century the property of a pendulum, known as isochronism, stating that the period of the swing is constant. In 1657 Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens showed how a pendulum could be used to regulate a clock. Ten years later English physicist Robert Hooke invented an escapement, which permitted the use in clocks of a pendulum with a small arc of oscillation. British clockmaker George Graham improved the escapement, and John Harrison developed a means of compensating for variations in the length of a pendulum resulting from changes in temperature. Watchworks were developed when coiled springs were introduced as a source of power. This type of spring was used in Italy about 1450. About 1500 Peter Henlein, a locksmith in Nürnberg, Germany, began producing portable timepieces known popularly as Nürnberg eggs. In 1525 another artisan, Jacob Zech of Prague, invented a fusee, or spiral pulley, to equalize the uneven pull of the spring. Other improvements that increased the accuracy of watches included a spiral hairspring, invented about 1660 by Robert Hooke, for the balance wheel, and a lever escapement devised by British inventor Thomas Mudge about 1765. Minute and second hands, and crystals to protect both the dial and hands, first appeared on 17th-century watches. Jeweled bearings to reduce friction and prolong the life of watchworks were introduced in the 18th century. In the centuries that preceded the introduction of machine-made parts, craftsmanship of a high order was required to manufacture accurate, durable clocks and watches. Such local craft organizations as the Paris Guild of Clockmakers (1544) were organized to control the art of clockmaking and its apprenticeship. A guild known as the Clockmakers Company, founded in London in 1630, is still in existence. The Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland also produced many fine artisans whose work was noted for beauty and a high degree of mechanical perfection. The clock was often a decorative as well as a useful instrument. Early clocks were highly ornamented. Many bore sculptured figures, and clockworks were used in the towers of late medieval Europe to set in motion huge statues of saints or allegorical figures. Cuckoo clocks, containing carved wooden birds, which emerge and “sing” to tell the time, were made in the Black Forest of Germany as early as 1730 and are still popular. Some early English clocks were made in the form of lanterns or birdcages. The grandfather, or case, clock, which has the pendulum and weight exposed beneath a gear housing at the top of a tall cabinet, was designed before machine-cut gears were introduced, and it continues to be a popular ornamental clock. Watches were originally shaped like drums or balls and were worn suspended from a belt or kept in a pocket . Wristwatches became popular as watchworks became smaller. Beginning in the 18th century, Switzerland became the center of a watchmaking industry, particularly in the villages of the Jura Mountains. At first a cottage industry, with families manufacturing watch parts at home to be assembled and sold by a master watchmaker, Swiss watchmaking by the 1850s had led to the development of a number of small factories and the foundation of a major industry. Some modern Swiss watchworks are tiny enough to fit into pencil ends or in earrings. European clockmakers and watchmakers brought their skills and mechanical ingenuity to colonial America.
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antique clocks