Workshop unchanged by time
“do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young"
William Shakespeare, ‘Sonnet 19’
GENERATIONS OF PASSING feet have worn down the stone steps leading to the door of a Derbyshire workshop, giving the impression that they have had their centres scooped out. This red-bricked property is a typical industrial building, dating back to the 19th century. Inside, very little has changed since then, both in the machinery and the methods of production used here. It appears as though time has stood still in the workshop of William Haycock Ltd; strange perhaps, considering that the very nature of the business is centred around the passing of time.
Ashbourne has been a clockmaking centre for centuries. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, there were at least five such businesses in the town, but only one of these, William Haycock, remains today.
The story began when John and Thomas Haycock went to work for local clockmaker Harlow, which had started up in business in 1740. In 1826, they took over the firm, changing its name to Haycock, and, in 1860, the company built a new works in Station Street, run by Thomas Haycock’s sons, Thomas and William. In 1865, William decided to set up on his own, and by 1897, he was well enough established to move to brand new works at Southcliffe, which is where it has remained to this day. William Haycock died in 1904, but the firm retains his name, and it is run today by sixthgeneration clockmaker Neil Haycock. Neil left school after taking his A-levels in 1984 and joined his father, Charles, in the workshop, learning on the job. After some time spent travelling, he returned to the family business.
A look into the past
The workshop is crammed from end to end with machinery, some of which looks as if it might have been there since the works first opened. Indeed, some of the equipment really is almost that old, while one machine in particular is a good deal older, and these are still in use today. “Most of them work a lot better than the new ones,” says Neil.
But it is not just the machines that look historical; the method of working them also dates back to a bygone age. Unlike the modern machinery of today, here, everything is run by whirling leather belts, turned by overhead line shafts. Originally, the power source was a gas engine, later replaced by an oil engine; today, an electric motor does the job.
In the old days, a great deal of work was done by hand. The workmen were given files, which had to be perfectly maintained: once a file became worn, it could still be used on steel, but not on brass. “At one workstation, a secret drawer was discovered that could only be opened with a hidden catch,” explains Neil. No doubt a crafty workman was making sure no one took his file while he was not looking.
A degree of mechanisation eventually took over some of the tasks, including the manufacture of two key components of any clock: the wheels and pinions. It is just as well, as, these days, Neil does everything himself. “It does get a bit lonely sometimes, but I couldn’t work for anyone else now,” he says. He does get out and about more nowadays, however, as he gets a lot of work repairing church clocks.
One of the main types of clock made here is the hook and spike wall clock; a style which was unique to the clockmakers of the Ashbourne and Derby areas during the 19th century.
Haycock’s version of the clock features a 7in (18cm) diameter engraved brass dial, a brass-faced pendulum bob and cast iron weight. The clock hangs from the hook, and the face is kept vertical by two spikes at the back of the clock that hold it away from the wall. The power is produced by a falling weight turning a drum, and regulated by the pendulum swinging to and fro at a pace that will set the timing of the clock. This motion then has to be conveyed to hands moving round the dial through the gear train: a series of wheels and pinions.
Teeth and gears
Good, precisely made and set gear wheels are essential to the accurate working of any clock, and they govern the speed at which the hands move. Obviously, the minute hand has to move exactly 60 times the speed of the hour hand. Everything needs to be engineered with great accuracy. One can easily imagine the frustration of someone cutting a wheel with 200 teeth, only to make a mistake on the last tooth and having to scrap the whole thing. The machines in regular ›
use for preparing these components have both already passed their 100th birthday.
The pinion is a shaft that is turned through gear teeth that carry the motion of the pendulum onto the gear wheel and thus eventually moves the hands. It is made of steel, and the first part of the process involves a special pinion-cutting machine, which is line-driven and dates back to 1910. There are two cutters regularly in use: the rough cutter and the finishing cutter. The movement is controlled by an ‘index’: a metal plate that controls the action of the cutters, depending on the number of teeth needed. This is by no means the end of the story. The pinion now has to be hardened by heating it up to cherry red, then quenching in oil. This process distorts the pinion, so it has to be tempered by being burned in a special oil, after which it is taken to a vice and the pinion laid in a groove. It is now hammered along its side, with the hammering process stretching the steel on that side. The craftsman keeps working at it until the pinion is true again.
Cutting edge
The first machine for cutting wheels for clocks was made in the 18th century by John Whitehurst, one of the eminent group of industrialists and scientists that included men such as Josiah Wedgwood and James Watt, who made up the Lunar Society of Birmingham. Whitehurst built a wheel-cutting machine for his clockmaking business in Derby, and when it was finally discarded, long after Whitehurst himself had died, Neil’s great-great-grandfather bought it. And here it is still, in full working order. Perhaps the most surprising feature is the fact that the actual cutter is driven by nothing more exotic that a loop of string, joining the large wheel on the line shafting to the far smaller wheel on the cutter itself.
The more modern version again uses an index, which is the mechanical equivalent of a computer program, to cut the teeth by moving the disc round one notch after each cut. The wheels are finally attached to the pinions on another specialist machine, which rolls over the end of the pinion above the wheel.
Workings on show
Both Thomas Haycock & Son and William Haycock were noted for their skeleton clocks, considered by many to represent their finest work from the Victorian era. Now, more than a century later, skeleton clocks are still being made at the Derbyshire workshop, using those original patterns.
“The clock gets its name because it is a free-standing clock, but with an elaborate open case so the mechanism is on view,” says Neil. A single clock can take months to build. “If I counted the hours I put in, I’d probably find I was selling at a loss,” he admits. But there is no hiding the pride he takes in creating such a magnificent timepiece.
Precision engineering
This is only a sample of the machines that are regularly in use for both building new clocks and repairing the old. Some even have their own little historical quirks. One lathe,
“I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us"
J M Barrie, Peter Pan
built during the Second World War, still has its instruction booklet, with details on how to blow it to smithereens in the event of an invasion.
What all these machines have in common is that they were designed to be precise and are a reminder that the clockmakers were the first precision engineers; hence why, when something works to perfection, it is said to run ‘like clockwork’, an idiom thought to date from the mid 1700s. There is an interesting juxtaposition here. When British inventor Richard Arkwright designed the first machines in the world that would take the manufacture of cotton yarn out of the home and into a factory powered by a water wheel, he needed experts to manufacture the parts. So he advertised for clockmakers. More than 200 years later, when a museum in Germany decided it wanted replicas of that Arkwright machinery, the job to build them came here to the Haycock clockmaking workshop.
Repair work
Because of the accuracy of the machines and Neil’s expertise that comes from years of experience, he is no longer called on just to make and repair clocks. He is asked to carry out all kinds of intricate repairs. His strangest request was to repair a broken bronze age ring for a wedding ceremony. “Among the most difficult jobs are repairing music boxes, where you not only need a good hand, but a good ear as well,” he says.
Neil’s greatest experience in repairing old clocks has been working with timepieces made by two of the greatest British clockmakers of the 17th century: Thomas Tompion and Joseph Knibb. “It is a real joy to see that quality of workmanship,” he says.
With the wide-scale availability of electric and electronic clocks that keep time perfectly, Neil needs to be versatile. “Many people seem to want things that are cheap and disposable these days,” he says. “But there are still others who appreciate the ticking of a clock, with its intricate network of moving parts, and the craftsmanship that has gone into making it.” And here, inside this Derbyshire workshop, craftsmanship of the very highest order can be found. n
CONTACT
William Haycock Ltd, Southcliffe Works, North Leys, Ashbourne DE6 1DQ; www.williamhaycock.co.uk
Adapted from
CRAFTED IN BRITAIN: THE SURVIVAL OF BRITAIN’S TRADITIONAL INDUSTRIES BY ANTHONY BURTON AND ROB SCOTT published by Adlard Coles, RRP £25, available online and from all good bookshops.