Clocking In

CLOCK towers are out of fashion in these days when owning a timepiece is no longer regarded as a luxury.

But there was a time when household clocks, let alone personal watches, were rare.

Many progressive cities and towns, especially those with active business communities, built centrally placed clock towers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Some were simple affairs, merely containing bells that were rung at key times, for example to call people to work.

But towers with working clocks were considered the ideal, becoming symbols of civic pride as well as letting people know the time of day.

Leicester's example, officially called the Haymarket Memorial Clock Tower, is slightly unusual in that it was conceived as a way to improve an area.

Leicester's clock tower ... smart as well as practical

What is now a relatively open space, forming a junction for five major streets, used to be occupied by an agricultural market and assembly rooms, the latter being divided into shops in 1805.

The shops came to be seen as a bit of an eyesore, and other businesses claimed they were an obstruction to Leicester's increasing commercial activity.

A campaign succeeded in 1862 in having the shops demolished, and within a few years the market was moved, leaving a wide open area that, perhaps ironically, businesses complained was difficult for people to cross because of increased traffic.

Rumours of a clock tower, or something similar, planned for another part of Leicester led to a subscription being started, with some £872 - worth about £600,000* today - raised in a year.

A further £1,200 was contributed by Leicester Corporation, and the clock tower was built in 1868 as the centre of a pedestrian island that in the early 1900s was flanked by tram lines.

The Memorial part of the clock tower's name refers to its statues of local worthies, mostly long-forgotten wool merchants but including Simon de Montfort, who today is best-known, if known at all, for leading baronial opposition to Henry III, but in the 13th century was noted as a Jew-persecutor.

Leicester City Council extensively renovated the site in the early 21st century, and it now forms the centre of a largely pedestrianised precinct.

*Using MeasuringWorth's average earnings index.