Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 279, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1916 — Clock in a London Church Can Be Heard But Not Seen [ARTICLE]

Clock in a London Church Can Be Heard But Not Seen

A public clock which can be heard but not seen is one of London’s curious possessions. It Is in the tower of St. Mflry Abbot’s church, Kensington, and is the only public clock in the immediate neighborhood. It chimes the quarters and the hours, but commits itself no further. It has no dial, no hands, no outward and visible sign of any kind to show that it is a clock. This eccentricity, it is explained, is the result of two causes, one esthetic, the other financial. When the tower was built in 1879 a clock was suggested as an afterthought, but the architect protested that it would mean file addition of 15 feet to the tower, and the ruin of its cherished proportions. A second point was that the church, having but slender'funds, could not afford a clock with a dial. A compromise was arrived at by installing the works of a chiming clock in the belfry without dial or hands.