Thomas Tompion eight-day turret clock movement

Technical characteristics

Type

Turret & tower clock

Duration

8-day

Escapement

Anchor escapement

Frame Finish

Painted green

Dial Signature

Thomas Tompion, Londini Fecit

Place recorded

United Kingdom

Maker / attribution

Thomas Tompion

Provenance Location

Brome Hall, Suffolk

Design

Visible features

• Open rectangular iron frame painted green housing brass gearing and dual wooden winding barrels • Square brass dial plate with silvered chapter ring, Roman numerals, and intersecting subsidiary seconds dial • Vertical bars extending above the top horizontal frame member to support train arbors and escapement components

Dial and Setting Features

Mounted at the front of the frame is a 12.5-inch square brass setting dial secured by four substantial pinned dial feet. The plate has a coarsely matted centre without spandrel drillings and carries an 11.5-inch diameter silvered chapter ring with Roman hours, an inner quarter-hour track, Arabic minute numbers, and meeting-arrowhead half-hour markers. A silvered subsidiary seconds ring intersects the chapter ring at XII, with numbers at intervals of six and engraved lines indicating every other second. Time is displayed by steel hands, and the lower edge of the plate is inscribed with the signature recorded as 'Thomas Tompion, Londini Fecit' (or 'Thõ Tompion Londini Fecit' in the footnote description).

Frame and Structural Construction

The movement is constructed within a heavy open rectangular iron frame, reported to consist of eighteen forged iron bars and painted green. The frame is formed by two upright rectangular end frames featuring splayed lower ends, united by four rectangular-section crossbars threaded at each end and fastened with heavy square nuts. Internal train components, motion work, and lead-off bearings are mounted between three sets of nutted vertical pivot bars. The bars supporting the going train extend above the frame outline to accommodate the escapement wheel arbor and the pendulum suspension point, while a strike-train bar is shaped as a stylised Y to provide a secure mounting point for the lower left dial foot.

Provenance and Historical Documentation

The clock is historically linked to Brome Hall in Suffolk, where it was later positioned in a stable-block turret before being sold from the estate in 1953. Source commentary suggests an approximate production date of 1686–1688 based on comparisons between the dial styling and Tompion's numbered domestic clocks. Direct documentation confirming the original acquisition is absent due to missing estate accounts from 1665 to 1689. Later records document payments to local clockmakers for repairing a 'Great Clock' at Brome Hall in 1699, although whether those references designate this Tompion mechanism or an earlier clock is not resolved in the record.

Identification

Source note

Facts transcribed from the linked source listing or collection record. Attribution and specifications are source-reported and have not been independently authenticated.

Catalogue references

No catalogue numbers recorded. Numbers are only published once transcribed from a verified edition of a standard catalogue — they are never inferred.