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A 'clock tower' is a tower built with one or more (often four) clock faces.The clock tower is usually part of a church or municipal building such as a town hall, but many clock towers are free-standing.
The mechanism inside the tower is known as a turret clock. It often marks the hour (and sometimes segments of an hour) by sounding large bells or chimes, sometimes playing simple musical phrases or tunes.

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Landmarks

History

Gallery

See also

References

Landmarks

Some clock towers are famous landmarks. Four of the best-known are the clock tower which houses Big Ben (often itself colloquially referred to as Big Ben) of the Palace of Westminster in London, the Rajabai Tower in Mumbai, the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin and the Peace Tower in Ottawa.
On New Year's Eve 2004 four 6.3-metre clock faces were added to the top of the Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science building in Warsaw, Poland making it the highest ''4-faced'' clock tower in the world and the second highest clock tower in the world.^[1]. The NTT DoCoMo Yoyogi Building 240 meters (787 feet) is 10 meters higher and is the highest clock tower in the world. The Allen-Bradley Clock Tower holds the record for largest non-chiming four faced clock. The chimes were intentionally left out so that the Big Ben tower would still have that record.

History

Although clock towers are today mostly admired for their aesthetics, they once served an important purpose. Before the middle of the twentieth century, most people did not have watches. Clock towers were therefore placed near the centers of towns and were often the tallest structures there. The use of clock towers in the West date back to the ancient Roman period, while other civilizations such as medieval China also featured clock towers (see Su Song).
JB Joyce claims to be the world's oldest tower clock maker (still in operation, presumably).^[2] The company began life in 1690 and still manufactures clocks to this day not far from its original premises in Whitchurch, Shropshire. Today it is a part of the Smith of Derby Group, started in 1856, which claims to be the largest tower clock manufacturer in the world today. The company has manufactured such notable tower clocks as that of St Paul's Cathedral and the Shanghai Customs building in China.

Gallery

See also

★ Bell tower

★ Campanile

★ Minaret

References

1. History of PKiN in a nutshell.
2. JB Joyce