Clocks A–Z · U

Unusual Clocks Around the World

Some clocks are built to keep perfect time. These six were built to surprise, to show off, or to make you think about time differently.

By David Ray · clocks.fyi

When telling time is not the point

Most clocks try to disappear into the background. The ones below do the opposite. Each is a working timepiece, but each was designed to make people stop, stare and sometimes laugh.

They span more than two centuries, from an 18th-century automaton in St. Petersburg to a 21st-century sculpture in Cambridge.

The Corpus Clock, Cambridge, England

On the corner of Bene't Street and King's Parade, set into a Victorian former bank building at Corpus Christi College, a gold-plated clock face is topped by a large mechanical insect. The creature is called the Chronophage, or time eater. Its mouth opens 30 seconds into each minute and snaps shut as the minute ends, as if swallowing it.

The clock was invented, designed and given to the college by one of its alumni, the inventor John C. Taylor, and built with the local engineering firm Huxley Bertram. Stephen Hawking opened it on September 19, 2008.

It is a tribute to the 18th-century clockmaker John Harrison, and the creature doubles as a giant version of Harrison's grasshopper escapement. The college believes it is the largest grasshopper escapement on any clock in the world.

There are no hands or numbers. Instead, 2,736 blue LEDs shine through slits in three rings to show the seconds, minutes and hours, and the apparent movement of the lights is produced mechanically. The pendulum is deliberately erratic, and the college says the clock can run up to 10 percent fast or 90 percent slow to bring itself back into line.

On the hour there are no bells. Instead, chains rattle and a hammer strikes a small wooden coffin. A Latin line beneath the clock reminds passers-by that the world and its desires pass away.

Want the exact time right now? See it on a big, clean clock at OnlineClock.app, free, with no sign-up.

The Peacock Clock, St. Petersburg, Russia

At the State Hermitage Museum stands a glittering piece of bronze, silver, gilding and paste jewels with three mechanical birds on it: an owl, a cockerel and, the star of the show, a golden peacock. It is both a clock and an automaton, a machine built to move by itself.

The Hermitage says it was made in the 1770s by the London automaton builder James Cox, helped by a German craftsman in London, Friedrich Jury. Cox reworked an existing mechanical peacock that had appeared in a Dublin lottery, added the cockerel and the owl, and removed some snakes. Prince Grigory Potemkin, who had heard of Cox's work through the Duchess of Kingston, ordered it for Catherine the Great's Hermitage, and the empress paid 11,000 roubles from her personal funds.

It arrived in St. Petersburg in pieces in 1781, and the Russian mechanic Ivan Kulibin got it working again. It has been in the Hermitage since 1797. The time itself is easy to miss: the dial is built into the head of a small mushroom. The museum describes it as the only large 18th-century automaton in the world to survive unaltered and still in working order.

The Shepherd Gate Clock, Greenwich, England

Outside the gate of the Royal Observatory hangs a clock that confuses almost everyone at first glance. Its dial shows all 24 hours, so midnight is at the top, 6 a.m. is on the right, and at noon the hour hand points straight down.

Installed in 1852, it was the first clock to show Greenwich Mean Time directly to the public. It is named after Charles Shepherd, a clockmaker from Leadenhall Street in London, who had installed one of the world's early electric clock systems at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851. The clock does not keep time on its own. It is what Royal Museums Greenwich calls a sympathetic clock, moved by electrical pulses from a master clock inside the Observatory.

Royal Museums Greenwich says the Shepherd system, commissioned by Astronomer Royal George Airy, remained the basis of Britain's time distribution for about 70 years. The clock is at the Observatory entrance and free to see.

See also: reading time on a 24-hour clock on OnlineClock.app.

The Zimmer Tower, Lier, Belgium

Lier's Zimmer Tower began as the Cornelius tower, part of the town's 13th-century walls. In 1930 it was converted to hold the Jubilee Clock, which Louis Zimmer, a man passionate about clocks and astronomy, gave to the town to mark Belgium's 100th anniversary.

The tower's front carries 13 different dials, and at 12 o'clock a carousel appears on the tower's right side, with four small automatons representing the four stages of life. Inside, Zimmer built an astronomical studio to give visitors a view of the universe and the solar system.

His showpiece is the Wonder Clock, built for the 1935 World's Fair in Brussels. Almost 5 m tall and weighing 2 tons, it has 93 dials, 14 automatons and a hand that Visit Lier calls the slowest-moving mechanical hand in the world: it takes 25,800 years to complete one turn. The clock was later shown in New York, where it impressed Albert Einstein, and in 1960 Lier added the Zimmer Pavilion especially to house it.

The World Clock, Berlin, Germany

Alexanderplatz's Weltzeituhr was part of the socialist-era redesign of the square. Designed by industrial designer Erich John, it was unveiled on September 30, 1969, after nine months of construction.

The clock is a 24-sided drum on a column, one side for each of the world's time zones, with the names of major cities engraved on aluminum plates. A rotating hour ring inside shows the time in every zone, a simplified model of the solar system turns on top, and a wind rose mosaic decorates the ground below.

According to the city of Berlin, the ring is driven by a converted gearbox from a Trabant, the East German car, in a room under the clock. After reunification the clock was restored, cities that had been placed in the wrong time zones were moved to the right ones, and more cities were added. It became a listed monument in July 2015.

See also: the current time in cities across every time zone on OnlineClock.app.

The rolling ball clock, Edinburgh, Scotland

At National Museums Scotland, a small brass ball rolls back and forth along a zigzag track on a tilting plate. When it reaches the end, it trips a lever, the plate tips, and the ball sets off the other way. Each run moves the hands on by 15 seconds, so the ball makes the trip 5,760 times a day.

The design is usually credited to Sir William Congreve, best known for his military rockets, who patented it in 1808. Yet the museum's clock was made by Edinburgh clockmaker Robert Bryson in 1804, four years before the patent.

It is mesmerizing but not accurate. Dust, temperature and humidity change how fast the ball rolls. When a conservator reset it every working day for two months, it gained or lost up to 45 minutes a day. In the workshop it once ran five minutes slow one day and two hours slow the next, and in 1837 staff at Buckingham Palace, who had to look after a rolling ball clock of their own, called it a complicated and troublesome machine.

In good conditions, the museum's conservator estimates it might manage about 15 minutes a day. The ball needs polishing at least every two weeks, and since the clock is only reset weekly on display, visitors are advised not to set their watches by it.

Questions people ask

What is the Chronophage?

It is the mechanical creature on top of the Corpus Clock in Cambridge, based on John Harrison's grasshopper escapement. Its name means time eater, and it appears to swallow each minute as it ends.

Does the Peacock Clock still work?

Yes. The State Hermitage Museum describes it as the only large 18th-century automaton in the world that survives unaltered and in working order.

Why does the Shepherd Gate Clock show 24 hours?

It was installed at the Royal Observatory in 1852 to display Greenwich Mean Time to the public, and its single 24-hour dial puts midnight at the top and noon at the bottom.

Who invented the rolling ball clock?

William Congreve patented it in 1808, but National Museums Scotland holds one made by Robert Bryson in 1804, so the credit is disputed.

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