CONGREVE CLOCKS
William Congreve, the son of a British General and more famous for his invention of the first Rocket in 1795, patented in 1808 a new Principle for the Measurement of Time using a rolling ball escapement. His original piece was powered by a Cannon ball although later models were driven by springs.

His resulting clock was far from accurate, however the mechanism provides a fascinating and hypnotic spectacle for the viewer. The Sinclair Harding Congreve uniquely has the track mounted on top of the clock. A ruby ball meanders along the track triggering the mechanism every 15 seconds to gently reverse the ball. The skeletonised track also makes it easy to clean and provides a reasonable degree of timekeeping.

The matching dial is made from brass on to which is applied a cold enamel of the correct colour. The quarter hour indicators are then machined through the enamel before the dial is finally given a coat of clear enamel. The clock is powered by a spring through a hand made chain, which drives the movement through a Fusee to ensure the clock mechanism sees a constant torque. The movement is 8 days and is wound from the back of the clock on our model with the elliptical dial or from the front on our model with the circular dial. At the other end of the train a fly absorbs any shock loads at each index and prevents the tray indexing mechanism vibrating.