The turret clock on the north face of the Sir John Moore Foundation has been watching over Appleby Magna for over 300 years. Although we now take knowing the time for granted, in the seventeenth century the clock was a visual and audible reminder that the village was entering a new age of technology.
Prior to the construction of the school in 1697, village life functioned in time to natural rhythms such as the changing seasons and the position of the sun. With the industrial revolution, the development of public transport systems and the regimentation of school life an accurate method of telling the time was needed.
People found themselves needing to know the precise time in order to catch stage coaches and later trains, start their shifts and arrive in lessons on time. The clock would have introduced a new sound to the village as it struck hourly using a complicated system of pulleys. The original bell, which was housed in the cupola, is dated 1585, pre-dating the school by over 100 years.
It was later replaced, and is now a feature in our community lavender garden.
An additional hand was added to the clock face in 1773 in the form of an additional hand to enable a more accurate reading of minutes.
