Jen Capewell wrote to ask about the fate of the “running ball clock” which was on display for decades in a Richmond jeweller’s shop window.
We are directed to Leslie Wenham’s 1989 book, Around Richmond in Old Photographs, which contains a souvenir postcard of the clock. The card was probably sold by the jeweller’s in King Street.
Leslie Wenham's postcard showing the "running ball clock" that was on display in Richmond for more than 100 years until the 1960s
Sir William Congreve, the inventor of the military rocket, patented the first “rolling ball clock” in 1808. A ball rolls down a zigzag on a plate beneath the clock’s dials. When it reaches the end of the zigzag, it knocks the second hand on by 15 seconds, and the plate is immediately flipped up so it starts another 15-second journey down the zigzag. This journey back and forth is never ending.
A Congreve-style "rolling ball clock" from a YouTube demonstration
In 1837, Buckingham Palace officials described their “rolling ball clock” as “a most complicated and troublesome machine”.
According to the postcard, in the Richmond “running ball clock”, the ball took 20 seconds to complete its journey along the 110 inch zigzag, so it must have been a modification of Congreve’s clock. The postcard says the ball travelled 7½ miles a day and 2,737½ miles a year.
The clock is believed to have been made around 1835 by James Fawcett, who was born in Richmond in 1807. He was an employee of clockmaker Robert Murray, and so the ingenious machine was displayed in Mr Murray’s shop window for nearly 150 years.
And then it vanished.
When Mr Wenham, a great Richmond historian, wrote his book in 1989, he said: “The clock disappeared some 20 years ago and its present whereabouts is unknown.”
It is 33 years since Mr Wenham wrote his book, and, sadly, in that time, the Richmond clock has not been rediscovered, but if it were to turn up, the Richmond ball would have another 90,337½ miles on the clock.
The postcard is in the Richmondshire Museum.
Muker in 1966, with the institute in the centre to the left of the telegraph pole
Just after Christmas, we told of T’Awd Roy, an ancient festivity that took place – sports, feasting, fairs, dancing and snogging – in Muker over several days, climaxing with a 'princum prankum' dance on January 6.
Until England adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, January 6 was Christmas Day.
The old festivity got its name from a leadminer’s word 'roy', meaning a 'spree' or a good old-fashioned knees up. Although much of T’Awd Roy died out towards the end of the 19th Century, its name still lives on.
Jackie Pope, editor of the Reeth and District Gazette, tells us that the annual Owd Roy Domino Drive was held in Muker Literary Institute on January 6. The institute was built in the 1860s to assist in the self-improvement of miners and agricultural workers – it contained a library and a newspaper room as well as a social meeting venue.
“The Old Roy Domino Drive had a great turnout of 68 players and with the many excellent and tempting raffle prizes, and it raised £670 for the institute,” says Jackie.
The Awd Roy dominoes match in Muker institute. Picture: Jackie Pope
THE second day of the traditional T’Awd Roy was sports day. The Darlington & Stockton Times of 100 years ago remembered how in the good ol’ days, the dalesfolk indulged in “lowping, two hitches, three hitches, hipsy-gipsy, and cat gallows”.
What, we wondered, were these wonderful long lost sports?
“My husband and I still use the word ‘lowping’,” says Chris Redman, who lives in Leeming Bar but was born and raised on the North York Moors. “To lowp is to jump. We might say something like ‘I’ll lowp ower t’wall’ if we’re in the mood to talk in old dialect.
“I believe it’s Viking in origin. A party of Norwegians I took around York recently certainly understood when we were comparing words we still have in common!”
The Oxford English Dictionary agrees. It says that the modern word 'to leap' comes from the Old English 'hleapan' which originates with the Old Norse 'hlaupa'.
But we still don’t know the difference between two hitches and three hitches or how to play hipsy-gipsy or cat gallows.
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