Height

7 foot 11½ ins

Case

Ebonised fruitwood on oak with concave throat mouldings, hood with inverted-bell top and three ball finials, pierced ebony frets below, brass-capped Doric columns, trunk door numbered 533 on leading edge, simple skirted plinth.

Dial

11 inch square gilt-brass latched dial signed Tho: Tompion London on a silvered oval plaque in the matted centre, seconds ring and pinhole adjusted date aperture, silvered chapter-ring, lozenge half-hour and half-quarter marks and blued-steel hands; Indian-mask-and-scroll spandrels with foliate and strap engraving (G.515) between; bolt-and-shutter lever between chapter II and III.

Movement

5¾ by 7½ inch plates with six latched baluster pillars, going train with anchor escapement, bolt-and-shutter maintaining power, brass-rod pendulum with calibrated rating nut, rack strike, base of backplate punch-numbered 533.

Duration

8-day.

Provenance

By repute, HE Gurney, director of Overend, Gurney & Co, bankers, which suffered a notorious run and collapsed in 1866.

FH Green, Royal Exchange, London.

18th Viscount Hereford, sold Sotheby’s, London, 3 October, 1991 lot 268.

Literature

FH Green, Old English Clocks, 1931, p.38 & 42, pl. XXIII.

Evans, Carter & Wright, Thomas Tompion 300 Years, 2013, p.484-485.

Garnier & Carter, The Golden Age of English Horology, 2015, p.100-103.

Escapement

Anchor