Sunday 11 December 2011

Ealing

A trip to Ealing to buy a new Paul Catherall print from the excellent For Arts Sake gallery. The first clocks are at Ealing Broadway station, which has at least three of the fairly standard LU clocks on its platforms.


And a different, but equally standard, clock in the booking hall:


Outside the station, on The Broadway itself, is a rather neglected clock above a shop. Not surprisingly, the clock isn't working, and shows a different time on its two faces.


Just down the road on The Mall, is another shop clock, this time over Paddy Power:


Many new shopping centres have clocks, probably in an attempt to make them seem to be more friendly to the urban environment that they are often blighting, but most tend to be very uninspiring. The Arcadia centre in Ealing, however, has this rather splendid example.


Normally places have at least one church with a clock, and Ealing is no exception. This is on The New Broadway, opposite the Arcadia centre.



Further down The New Broadway is Ealing Town Hall, currently undergoing external restoration. Lurking underneath all of the scaffolding is a clock:



The accompnaying sign says that restoration will be complete in January 2012 - a good excuse to revisit and buy another print from For Arts Sake!

Monday 28 November 2011

Kensington & Chelsea

These clock pictures are a result of a walk on a cold and blustery day in Kensington & Chelsea, starting at Harrods (where else in this pre-Christmas shopping period) and ending up on Bayswater Road.

The first clock is on the premises of W A Ellis on Brompton Road (Harrods has no clock (?)), and nearly opposite is Beauchamp Place which has a clock at Hamilton and Inches.



Further down the road is the famous Brompton Oratory. This unfortunately does not have a clock, but hidden behind it is the Holy Trinity church.


Continuing past the V&A (although I would always recommend a visit) and what I think is the most beautiful building in London (the Natural History Musem), and a hike down Cromwell Road, you arrive at Gloucester Road station. Whilst the station is worth a visit for its programme of platform art, today's interest is in the shopping arcade above, which has this splendid clock:


Turning into Earl's Court Road brings you past St Phillips church.


Reaching Kensington High Street and battling through the crowds of shoppers (and with a quick diversion into Hotel Chocolat), gives you the rather dilapidated clock at Henry Hallpike jewellers, a rather plain one at the Kensington Arcade (by the tube station) and one on a lovely building opposite.




Turning up Kensington Church Street brings you past the clock at the entrance to Lancer Square and one over an empty premises:



And finally, reaching Notting Hill Gate and turning back towards the main West End, one is able to ignore the "No Photographs" signs and take this picture of the security hut on Kensington Palace Gardens:


Time now for lunch!

Saturday 5 November 2011

Wandsworth

Wandsworth, town on the River Wandle. The big disappointment on arriving at Wandsworth Town railway station hot from Richmond (see earlier posting) is that the station entrance clock, clearly shown on Google StreetView, is no longer there. The entrance is being re-built, with not a clock in sight. Does anyone know if it is going to be replaced?

So just five clocks from Wandsworth. The first is from the impressive Town Hall, although not on the main facade as might be expected but on a side entrance.


Further down Wandsworth High Street is the parish church:


The  next clock is one of those interesting shop clocks which have sadly been neglected (is this on the Stopped Clocks website?), on West Hill.


Heading back to the station, hoping to get a closer view of the brewery clock, I came across this clock at Chelsea Cars on Armoury Way.



And finally, the Ram Brewery. Not easy to get a good shot of this clock because of the high concrete walls surrounding the site, but here it is:

Sunday 30 October 2011

Richmond

Richmond is a pleasant town on the Thames, spoilt only by the constant stream of low flying aircraft on their way to Heathrow. I managed to find six clocks on my walkabout in the autumn sunshine, but I am sure there must be others lurking about.

The first clock on arriving by train is at the station itself. The photo below shows the clock on the station exterior - I had difficulty in taking a picture because the buses providing rail replacement services kept getting in the way.



Just up the road is the church of St John the Devine. The difficulty in photographing this clock was due to the foliage from the mature trees - they clearly didn't think of these thinks when they built the church!


Moving into the main town, the second of the churches is St Mary Magdalene, with its very obvious and clear clock.


Moving to the commercial sector, Richmond doesn't seem blessed with clocks on shops. The examples found were a rather nice clock turret on Sheen Street and one on George Street that has clearly had several brand changes.



And the tour of Richmond ends with the clock on the Old Town Hall on Hill Street.

Sunday 23 October 2011

Kingston upon Thames Clocks



Kingston has a great range of clocks, although it is a pity that not all of them are working.


This new development is right by Kingston railway station, handy for all those commuters.


In the town centre itself, there are three stopped clocks, including the splendid one for the Kingston Building Society in Eden Street.




The other two are in Thames Street and Dolphin Street respectively.


It is nice to see modern buildings include clocks, but unlike the first one in today's blog many of them are uninspired. These two examples are the bus station and an office building in Wheatfield Way respectively:



Churches are always a good source for clock hunters. These two are All Saints and St Lukes.



And finally, the splendid clock tower at Surrey County Hall, a street clock in Clarence Street, and an unusual clock face at the Kingston Muslim Association.



Eccles clocks


This clock is on Morrisons supermarket in the town centre.