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Sutton Bonington St Michael

Clock

There was a church clock in St Michael’s church in 1731 as the churchwarden recorded that he paid ‘1 shilling for a lock for the church dore, 2 shillings for mending ye cog wheels and frames, and 2 shillings and twopence for ropes for ye clock’. The Nottinghamshire Guardian, reporting the re-opening of St Michael’s following restoration work 9 December 1858, reads 'The clock too has for some time past ceased to warn the inhabitants of time’s rapid flight'.  By 9 June 1859 the Loughborough Monitor reported that ‘An effort is now being made to obtain for Sutton Bonington a good useful clock, to be placed in the tower of St Michael’s Church’. The clock was ordered from Mr Bosworth of Nottingham and Joseph Ward, the local joiner, was instructed to install it.

The clock, always known as the Village Clock, looks out over the village from the west side of St Michael’s tower and was erected in 1860 at a cost of £90 9s 10d, paid for by donations. The Loughborough Monitor, 3 May 1860, reported ‘It is high time that such places as East Leake, Normanton, Rempstone etc had their village clock, and we shall be glad to see efforts put forth in furtherance of the project.’ 

For 114 years the clock was wound by hand, but an electric motor was installed in 1974 by Smiths of Derby as a gift from Lord Elton in memory of his father. The parts of the old weight and pendulum clock have been brought down from the tower and are stored in the north corner of the church with the possibility of reassembling them at some stage in the future as a heritage feature.