Clock Shop

Time never runs out when you are surrounded from wall to wall with turning clocks ticking away into eternity. The vibrant sound of metal machines making the sands of time swim into an ocean of human experience is what you find within the four walls of a dusty old clock shop. A place as mysterious and ancient as the first circle scored in the earth for the home of the original sun dial. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to consistently measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units: the day; the lunar month; and the year. Devices operating on several different physical processes have been used over the millennia, culminating in the clocks of today. None of the first clocks survive from 13th century Europe, but various mentions in church records reveal some of the early history of the mechanical clock. The word clock (from the Latin word clocca, "bell"), suggests that it was the sound of bells which also characterized the prototype mechanical clocks. The escapement mechanism had been known and used in medieval China, as the Song Dynasty horologist and engineer Su Song (1020–1101) incorporated it into his astronomical clock-tower of Kaifeng in 1088.