Why old clockworks should be listed

EDWARD Blount was right to highlight in the Derby Telegraph (May 18) the plight the former Smith’s clockworks on Queen Street. And the letter from Max Craven (May 22) expands on the complex and chequered history of this property and the laudable attempts the Civic Society has made to help save and protect it.

It is one of the 12 most important historic buildings at risk in Derbyshire identified by the Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust as reported on the front page of your paper almost five years ago.

So, if it is on our list, why have we not done more to save it when we have taken action on other buildings at risk? The Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust encouraged the city council to place Allestree Hall on the market, which will now be developed into a top-class wedding venue; we are working with the Friar Gate Bridge Trust to identify a holistic solution to its re-use, potentially combined with the use of part of the adjacent goods yard; and we are forming a partnership between the city, the University of Derby, Historic England and the Derby Hippodrome Restoration Trust to find a new creative use for the Hippodrome.

However, we have been unable to make any progress toward the rescue of the former Smith’s Clockworks, because the owner is uncooperative and, as Max Craven explains, it is not listed, and therefore, despite being on the local list and in a Conservation Area, the city council does not have the legal power to enforce repairs or purchase with a compulsory purchase order.

Historic England has not listed it because it says the external fabric has been so much altered, especially the setting back of the façade for a road widening scheme.

But the real reason why it should be listed and thereby saved for future generations is, despite its many alterations, its direct connections with so many luminaries in British history during the age of Enlightenment, John Flamsteed, Joseph Wright, Erasmus Darwin, John Whitehurst, Benjamin Franklin, Matthew Boulton, Josiah Wedgewood and James Watt. It could also have been the centre of the Prime meridian had Flamsteed not been invited to Greenwich. Instead of the Greenwich Meridian the world‘s longitude would have been set from the Derby Meridian.

The importance of this association grows over time. Like my grandfather’s old axe, it may have had two new heads and three new handles while he had it,

but it’s still my grandfather’s old axe! In this case, the panelled dining room wasn’t my grandfather’s; it was where half a dozen of our greatest scientists, artists and entrepreneurs met.

Derek Latham, Chair: Derbyshire

Historic Buildings Trust