Clocktime: Sussex Tompion Table Clock c1680, 07 Movement Revealed

Thomas Tompion – The Sussex Tompion two-train, full grande sonnerie, repeating and striking table clock with asymmetrical fret.

Join Dr John C Taylor OBE from the Clocktime digital museum as he shows the Sussex Tompion movement out of the case.

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I have taken the movement out of the case so you can see the wonders that Tompion has crammed into his two train grande sonnerie striking clock. I am opening the pendulum lock and starting the bob pendulum swinging. The little bob pendulum releases the escape wheel through a crutch attached to the end of the pallet. The two pallets engage the horizontal escape wheel. Interestingly, the soft brass of the escape wheel absorbs dust from the atmosphere that wears the hardened pallet steel over the centuries, necessitating a repair, which you can see has been done retaining the original pallet arbor and the forge pallet base. Speeding up the frame rate slows the motion down to a lovely deep tick sound and allows you to see the recoil that the pallet imparts to the escape wheel on each tick. Back to normal speed. Looking at the back side of the pallet again, notice the recoil with each swing of the pendulum. The brass pendulum rod itself is hung by a spring from a suspension arm pivoted in the middle. The other end of the suspension armed has a curved rack which engage with the drive pinion with five teeth that engage with the six teeth of the suspension arm. Thus, the maximum rotation is limited to 180°. The spring suspension slides through a pair of cheeks. These control the total length of the pendulum as the spring slides between the cheeks. This two train grande sonnerie striking mechanism is extremely complicated as the strike train has to first strike the quarter on the three hour bells. Then followed by this, striking the hour on the hour bell. This sequence is exceptionally complicated but wonderful to see and hear in action. The main component is this flirt mechanism. Let's see it again in closeup. The strike train is directed first to the three quarter bells which are linked together as an increasingly harmonious chord. The hour bell has a long lovely low decay. Ting is for the first quarter, ting tang for the half hour, and ting tang for the third quarter. Each quarter is then followed by the preceding hour. And here's the mechanism going round. So you can see hands moving and then the quarters and hours striking round to the back to see the blur of the pendulum beating away. And you can see the lift mechanism for the pendulum for the control. If you want to take your Tompion up to bed, you stop the pendulum to stop it lashing about and then you can carry it up to your bedroom and listen to the strike in the dark.