IAN PARTRIDGE CLOCK PAGES

CHIMING CLOCKS

Chiming is a description for clocks that strike on more than two gongs or bells, and possess more than two hammers.

The most popularly used in chiming clocks are the Westminster quarter chimes -

"All through this hour

Lord, be my guide

And by Thy power

No foot shall slide "

Tune arranged in 1793 by Dr Jowett and Dr Crotch from George Frederick Handel's aria in the 'Mesiah'- "I know that my redeemer liveth," for St Mary's church in Cambridge. It was here that Edmund Beckett Denison (1816-1905) , First Lord Grimthorpe, first heard these chimes as a student.

Beckett was a lawyer, a mathematition and known for his 'contraversialist' religious views. He designed the Westminster Clock, known as Big Ben.

'Big Ben' is actually the name of the great 13 ton bell cast in 1858, which strikes that wonderfully sonerous and familiar 'E'.

ADJUSTING CHIMING CLOCKS

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