Clock Workings

While this does not look like a traditional wide angle shot it is using a Sigma 10-20mm which I find really useful for capturing things, like this example, in tight spaces.

This is a turret clock in my local village hall. It is enclosed in a smallish cupboard in the roof space some 15 feet below the three clock faces and chimes in a tower above.

It is effectively in three parts:
On the left is the mechanism for driving the hour number chimes. In the middle is the mechanism for the clock hands. On the right is the mechanism for driving the quarter hour chimes.

Originally the clock and two chiming mechanism were driven by three cables with 39 weights of 113 stones in total weight descending down a 50ft well. The weights had to be regularly wound back up probably using a handle fitted to the three square sectioned shafts seen in the photo. Now it is driven by the three modern motors on the upper rail that drive each mechanism via the vertical chains. The middle motor drives the clock hands and the outer motors are the chime winding motors using two much smaller weights. One of these weights can just be seen on the left of the image.

The plate in the middle indicates that the old part of the mechanism was made by "Thwaites & Reed London" in 1912. The firm was established in 1740 and still appears to be in business.

The photo was taken at 08:42am using:

Pentax K-5 with a Sigma 10-20 @ 12mm, tripod Mounted.
2sec, F14, ISO200 & -0.3 exposure compensation.

Shot raw, processed in LR5 and then resized for the web in PSE14.

Glyn