Current issue of Antiquarian Horology

Volume 47, Issue 2, June 2026

On the front cover: A hidden monument for Christiaan Huygens in a garden in Haarlem. The story is told in this issue.

This issue contains the following articles:

Langley Bradley’s ‘lost’ Westminster turret clock resurrected
by Warwick Rodwell, (pp. 166–180)
In the early 1700s Langley Bradley became Sir Christopher Wren’s favourite clockmaker, and his output included a series of important turret clocks for Whitehall Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral, Blenheim Palace, Hampton Court, and St Margaret’s church, Westminster. The last was made in 1712 and remained in the church tower until 1973, when it was removed and its place later taken by modern sundials. The clock was thought to have been lost, until it was rediscovered in 2005 by Professor Warwick Rodwell, Consultant Archaeologist to Westminster Abbey, amongst the debris in a disused works yard. He rescued the movement and organized its restoration by Julian Cosby, leading to its eventual reinstatement in St Margaret’s church tower by the Cumbria Clock Co. in 2019. This article explores the history and vicissitudes of the clock and the lost carillon that was annexed to it by Thomas Bray in 1802.

A hidden monument for Christiaan Huygens
by Stefanie van den Steen, (pp. 181–188)
In the garden behind the headquarters of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen, KHMW) in Haarlem in the Netherlands, stands a sandstone scale model of a public monument for Christiaan Huygens that had been planned in 1905, but was never built. The scale model, constructed in 1909, is hidden from public view and hardly anyone ever gets to see it. As part of a search for traces of Christiaan Huygens, the author went to see it, and published an article online, richly illustrated with her own photos. An adapted version is presented here.

Harlow and Davenport eight-day longcase clock movements
by John A. Robey, (pp. 189–201)
This article discusses the eight-day longcase movements made by the Harlow manufactory in Ashbourne, and its successors the Davenport family after 1851. After an experimental phase movements were made that are instantly recognisable with very distinctive strike-work, particularly the rack hook with a C-curve and a double hook. Variations in the shapes are discussed and how they were fabricated. Special two-train quarter striking and custom-made movements were also available.

‘Knib’s Dyal went five minutes too fast’: an overlooked calculation of public time in 1692
by James Nye, (pp. 202–206)
A well-known query published in the Athenian Mercury has long been cited as evidence of apparently chaotic public time in late seventeenth-century London. This article returns to the original issue and examines the editors’ response, situating it within its contemporary intellectual context.

‘American Superiority’ at the 1851 Great Exhibition
by Bob Frishman, (pp. 207–225)
The AHS Electrical Horology Group (EHG) has issued more than one hundred technical papers since 1970, covering topics that are often highly specialised. In 2009, former AHS member Dr Hans Vrolijk was persuaded by the EHG Secretary to prepare a paper on the life and work of Frank Holden. With the benefit of hindsight, this was not the right outlet as the resulting work should have been offered to the editor of Antiquarian Horology, as it was of wider horological interest. With the benefit of some more recently available information and a couple of new images, here at last is Hans’s work, edited by James Nye.

The horizontal turret clock in Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie
by Denis Roegel, (pp. 226–233)
This article concerns the horizontal turret clock described in Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie and its model. It aims to show that the clock illustrated in the Encyclopédie existed, and that its probable closest kin is Lepaute’s clock for the École Militaire in Paris (1758).

Truth and Time: an eighteenth-century night clock
by Sunny Dzik and Leighton Gillibrand, (pp. 234–245)
Night clocks with pierced dials, wandering hours, and backlit illumination were developed in Italy in the late 1650s, remained popular for decades, but then lost favour with the advent of pull repeat striking. In 2025, Dreweatts sold an example considered to be from Northern Italy and unusual for having been made in the eighteenth century. We present a description of the wandering hours mechanism under the dial and show selected examples from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of paintings and engravings depicting different versions of the allegory of ‘Truth and Time’ which forms the basis for the dial painting on this clock. Read this article here

Thomas Browne’s only signed lantern clock and the origin of the Bristol School
by Lee Borrett, (pp. 246–253)
This article introduces and illustrates the only signed lantern clock by Thomas Browne of Bristol, stylistically datable to about 1650, and its publication fills a long-standing gap in the horological literature. Although thoroughly discussed in the principal texts on lantern clocks, it has remained visually absent. The dial, frame and movement are discussed and illustrated, and the complete clock is compared with an unsigned example to confirm that they and other clocks attributed to Browne originated in the same workshop, to form the basis of what is now known as the Bristol school of clockmakers.

‘Unfreezing Time #26’ by Patricia Fara (pp. 254-255) (Read the whole series of articles here)

The issue totals 148 pages and is illustrated mainly in colour, and is completed by the regular sections Horological News, Unfreezing Time, Notes from the Librarian, Book reviews, AHS News, Letters and Further Reading.