Sundial

Today was a lovely sunny day. Here's a photo of a sundial in my garden and a curious cat. The sundial still needs to be screwed down, but maybe I should wait until next week when the clocks move forward for British Summer Time ;)

Cat checking the time - time for another nap!

My Montine wristwatch: now cleaned up with it's new strap. I've been wearing the watch for about a week and it's keeping good time.

Smiths Stopwatch

This is a 1970s Smiths mechanical shockproof 1/5 second stopwatch... unfortunately the watch glass is badly scratched and makes the photo look blurred. The good bit is the watch runs well.

Montine Restoration

I have a new project to restore the Montine wrist watch in the photos below. The watch has a mechanical self winding Swiss movement.

A rather scratched and sad looking Swiss made Montine wristwatch. The watch has 25 Jewels and has an 'Incabloc' - in case you were wondering what an Incabloc is (like I was), it's a shockproof mechanism to protect the jeweled balance wheel of the watch - the most likely part of a watch to be damaged if the watch is dropped.

In this photo you can see the semi circular rotor which winds the watch when the watch wearer moves their wrist. The balance wheel is at the 9 o'clock position and you can see the Incabloc and balance wheel jewel (it's a ruby jewel).

This is the new strap I've bought to fit to the watch.

Watch, tweezers (anti magnetic), case opener, screwdrivers and watch case back.

Sutton Clocks

At the intersection of Cheam Road and Sutton Park Road in Sutton (Greater London) town centre the Holiday Inn hotel and City House office block have large publically visible clocks. The clocks are diagonally opposite each other at the intersection.

City House, Sutton

City House Clock

Holiday Inn Hotel, Sutton

Holiday Inn Clock

Location: 51°21'40.62"N 0°11'43.65"W

Croydon Town Centre Clocks

I walked through Croydon's town centre this morning and took photos of five different clocks, three of which were not working!

This is at the corner of Wellesly Road and George Street - the building is a branch of the Bank of Scotland, for business banking. The clock on the building is wrong, it shows 1:48pm but the time was before 8:30am.

Incorrect time on the Bank of Scotland building.

Croydon Clock Tower at 8:34am . The street is Katherine Street and the time on the clock is correct.

This is a Yates pub, on the High Street. The clock in the photo isn't running.

Close-up shot of the Yates (non-working) clock. This is the south facing face of the clock.

Another photo of Yates (north face of the clock now) - the buildings are brilliant, they have real character.

I'm now on the pedestrianised street called north End. To my right is yet another clock, with the text Kookai, that is not working. Directly in the middle is the Croydon Clock Tower.

Kookai is a high fashion woman's wear business, but it has long since moved on from this location - only the clock remains (with the incorrect time).

North End pedestrianised shopping street. To my right behind the row of shops is the Whitgift shopping centre, and to my left behind the row of shops is the Centrale Shopping Centre - Croydon has many shops!


I took this photo inside the Whitgift Shopping Centre. The clock is a cube with a clock face on each side. The clock also chimes - and more importantly it has the correct time!

Inside the Whitgift Centre

St John Church Clock

I had to dig out my camera tripod for these photos as it was pretty dark. It was also a little creepy walking through a graveyard at night!

The church is St John Evangelist in Shirley, Croydon. It was built in 1854 and the design is early Gothic. The exterior of the church is decorated with flint-stone, sand-stone and rag-stone.

St John Church at night - the camera makes it look brighter than it really was. Note the shadows of the grave/head stones on the church.

7:08pm - The flint stones decorating the exterior of the church are clear in this photo.

Location: Shirley, Croydon, UK