~ Clockies in Holland ~

Geoff Walker, who is attending a course on Antique Clock Restoration at West Dean, reports on a trip to Holland

The clock course at West Dean does what they describe as a study tour. Strangely enough the prime location of choice for this is the North West of England and Liverpool in particular. There is the cuckoo clock museum at Tabley, the Liverpool museum and Lyme Hall. Not to mention Prescott museum where Lancashire pocket watches were made and are famous the world over. Even Coventry and York which were also placesof manufacture got their basic movements from Prescott to start with.

From September to November in the Hett Loo palace in Holland there was an exhibition of some of the world’s best clocks. So the North West tour was abandoned.

Last Sunday 11 of us including the two tutors set off for Holland. We went through the Channel tunnel on the train, in the minibus. That was quite an anticlimax, but for those of us who hadn’t done it before there was still a little excitement to think that we under the sea. Others swore if they saw a drop of water appear on the windscreen they would leap out of the bus and get ready to swim.

Once on mainland Europe however the going was very easy. There is a motorway which simply heads north from Calais. It would have been difficult to get lost really. After something like 4 hours we arrived in Amersfoort in Holland and found our hotel without too much trouble.

On the first day we drove to Utrecht and visited the museum of mechanical music. What a delight it was. We had the museum all to ourselves because it wasn’t open to the public that day. When we entered we could hear a very large fairground sized machine playing, and we followed our ears and found it. The music was so lively and compelling that some of us actually danced to it. Well ok it was me! And another chap joined me and we spun round together. I don’t think anyone from the museum was watching. But we didn’t care really anyway.

So for the whole day we had the attention of the museum director who had worked there for nearly 50 years. Some of the machines were absolutely unbelievable, like the piano and violin machine. However it must be said that there were limits to how well a machine can play music.

At the end of the day we still had a couple of hours before we had to leave the car park, so we wandered around Utrecht. There is a canal running through the middle of the town/city. It is very picturesque, and of course you have to keep your eyes peeled for bicycles.

On the second day we went to the Hett Loo palace. We had gone to see a collection of clocks mainly by English makers, but there were some Dutch clocks as well, of course! A Dutchman called Christian Huygens was the first to apply a pendulum to a clock, and this very clock was on display. It was made by the well known maker Salomon Coster in 1657. The pendulum had a revolutionary effect on the accuracy of timekeeping that there was an explosion of development, all in London from 1657 to 1690. Almost all the technical developments used in modern clocks were accomplished in those few years.

Most clocks were pretty good but there were some which were absolutely exquisitely beautiful.

On the third day we made our way home via Schoonhoven. There we visited a Gold and Silver museum which had an exhibition of Comtoise clocks. Comtoise is a region of France. But they had a permanent clock exhibition as well. Round the corner was a horological school, and the staff and students came to show us around the exhibition.

By the time we had finished we were quite saturated with clocks. I never thought that would happen!

Upon our return to West Dean we eulogised over the exhibition. Of course all the other students were confirmed in their opinion that the clockies are just a bunch of complete nutters.

                                                                                 Geoff Walker