Askham St Nicholas

Clock

Clock
face

Clock mechanism

‘Specification & Tender for a good well-made Clock to show the time on Two External Skeleton Dials, about 5ft each in diameter, and to strike the hours on the large bell, for the Rev. J. P. Wills M. A., The Rectory, Askham, Markham, Newark.’ (from Wm. Potts & Sons Ltd., Guildford Street, Leeds, 3 May 1912).

On 3 May 1912 an estimate and specification for an hourly striking clock was tendered by Wm. Potts and Sons Ltd, Guildford St, Leeds, a clock was then placed in the tower of the church in 1913, it cost £45.

The clock has a two-train plate and spacer movement, pinwheel escapement, and count wheel striking. It has a 1½ seconds pendulum and a single 5ft diameter skeleton dial on the east elevation of the tower. A triple line system is used for the driving weights to achieve seven day running from the limited drop.

The clock at Askham is identical to the William Potts clock at Ilkley parish church, West Yorkshire, designed by Edmund Beckett Denison (who later designed the Great Clock for the Palace of Westminster). The Askham clock is to the same design, and was originally fitted in Guisley church, West Yorkshire, in 1855. Potts built a three-train clock for Guisley in 1911 and moved the earlier clock to Askham in 1913.

The clock was restored in 2007.