St Martin’s is now a haven of calm in the heart of York, but in 1942 it was reduced to a smouldering ruin during a bombing raid on the city. The church stood desolate until restoration work began in 1961.

The clock, first fitted in 1668, and the gilded head of Father Time are replacements for the originals destroyed in the air raid. The jaunty ‘Little Admiral’ however, survived the fire and is still taking a sighting of the sun with his sextant.

One of the Vindolanda museum articles was a small fragment of a clock/calendar device. I found it fascinating.

This bronze fragment was found during excavations between the east granary and the principia (headquarters building) in 2008.

On it can see written SEPTEMBER, K(alendae), N(onae), ID(us), and AE (quinoctium). These letters clearly indicate that it was part of a timekeeping device or calendar. The ides were the first day of the month, the nones of September fell on the fifth, and the ides of September occurred on the thirteenth and the autumn equinox was on or near the twenty-third.

When complete the calendar would have been a circular disc about 30cms in diameter. Every two days a peg (not found) would have been moved into the next hole, indicating the correct date.

The exact nature of the particular device, of which this fragment was a part, is unclear. Cicero wrote a personal calendar into which a peg was inserted to mark the date (Att. 5.14.1,, 15.1). This fragment may have been part of a similar calendar, however the Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius (De arch. X8.8-15) wrote about a much more complicated device which was meant to measure varying of day and night-time hours throughout the year, the so-called anaphoric water clock (Latin: horologium hibernum) and an alternative theory is that this fragment could have been part of a similar mechanism. This is one of only three ancient portable calendars ever found, joining a Celtic one engraved on a bronze tablet unearthing in Coligny, France in 1897, and a Roman bronze menologium (register of months) from a well at the site of le Cagnot at Grand, France, in 1886.

The Vindolanda calendar is however unique and the first object of its type to come from Roman Britain. Whatever the original instrument looked like, this small piece give us an insight into the means by which life on the frontier was structured and the importance of remaining synchronised with the outside world.*

*From a signboard next to the clock fragment

This clock was made in or before 1386 and was originally located in a separate Bell Tower  (demolished 1792) just to the north of the Cathedral. It is probably the oldest working clock in existence – and like all clocks of that date had no face but struck the hour on the bell (now located in the Cathedral roof space.)

In 1956 it was repaired and restored to its original condition by The Friends of Salisbury Cathedral and set up here.*

*From an information board next to the clock

the old stable block, which is listed in Edward Ferrers’s  ‘Account of what I have built and altered in and about Baddesley house’ as costing £76 17s 7d in 1714. Some of the arched entrances were bricked up to allow the interior to be fitted out with Victorian loose-boxes.

The timber-framed clock turret above the stable had to be renewed by the National Trust in 1981, after it had become dilapidated. the single-handed turret clock has a fine unaltered mechanism now restored to working order. Edward Ferrers spent £19 4s on ‘The Clock, Bell, Fan Dyall Board etc.’