Clocktime: Gothic Iron Wall Clock c1500, 01 Introduction

Anonymous - Gothic foliot-balance wrought-iron frame quarter-striking wall clock with iron hour and minute hands.
Join Dr John C Taylor OBE from the Clocktime digital museum introduces the Gothic Iron Wall Clock, circa 1500.
Discover more about early and antique clocks and watches...
clocktime.co.uk/artefacts/got...
I'd like to talk to you a little about the assembly of the Gothic Clock. 500 years ago, screws didn't exist so you couldn't screw it together and so the designer of all these parts had to design them so that they clip together. The bottom ring has a spring for the bell. If you look carefully, it's numbered so that it clicks in together, like that, and then as I move this round square, the whole thing is then locked together and it's stable enough to pick up and turn over. So, the bottom gantry is now at the bottom and the top gantry can then go in and this just takes a little bit of shaking and it engages. There it is, it's now fairly well and stable. So, first of all, we've got to put in the lower frame holders but isn't it beautiful? Look at the little ornaments, which have been put on simply to give pleasure to the blacksmith who is making it. So, here's the second one going into place and now, we can start to put the movement frame in. This is one of the movement plates. This is the bottom pivot here for the foliot and the top pivot for the verge escape wheel. And it again slots in at the bottom and the back of the movement plate has the two dots to correspond with the bottom and that just drops into place. The top plate wants to go on feeding the spring round, engaging the two tongues at the top. Now, the front plate goes on and it's got the same fixing method as the corner pillars, so that will just go in and then that goes over the end. Now that's locked and here's the back one going on the backplate. Then, the whole thing is held together with the two little tapered pins which go front and back and now it's perfectly rigid to have all the wheels put in.