Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
It’s about time
Award brought back and honors Winship's clock business
LANSDALE » After two years on hold due to COVID-19, one of Lansdale’s high honors is back.
“This is the first Business of the Month we are presenting since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. So it is a bit of a symbolic, poignant moment for us all,” said councilman Mark Ladley.
“Tonight, I am thrilled to present the business of the month to Winship’s Pieces of Time,” he said.
Located at 3 W. Main Street, just west of its intersection with Broad, Winship’s takes any customer back centuries, to an era when high technology meant gears and chimes instead of smartphones and computers, Ladley told council on Wednesday night, showing slides of a recent visit as Keith and Bryan Winship repaired and restored clocks and timepieces of all ages and styles.
“Resting in the windows and tucked into corners were clocks of all different sizes and designs. They transported me back to days of romanticism,” Ladley said.
“Knowing that at one time each piece sat on a mantel or stood tall in a room of an owner decades or hundreds of years before, I couldn’t help but feel a connection to the past,” he said.
The two brothers initially learned the skill from their grandfather, who repaired clocks as a hobby, and the two professional horologists — those who work with timepieces — opened their business in a shop in Hatboro in 2001. In 2018 the duo moved to Main Street in Lansdale, and have left a lasting impression on towns around the area.
“Some may know Keith and Bryan for their work on the Lukens Clock in Hatboro, which towers over that community. The clock had unfortunately come into disrepair until a man by the name of Roche approached the municipality about its restoration,” Ladley said.
“Over the course of two years, the Winships disassembled each piece, cleaning them, restoring them, and putting them back together with care. Today that clock
is beautifully restored and admired by people across the township,” he said.
Throughout their Main Street storefront, “the exposed parts, gears, coils, and all sorts of mechanisms were pieces of art in themselves. Some were even in operation,” Ladley said. Nearly all of the devices they repair work without plugs or batteries, “masterpieces that made me breathless at the genius of their creators.”
Since moving into the borough, Winship’s has drawn visitors from far and wide, even across the country, to do everything from replace a battery on a wristwatch to restoring standing clocks that are centuries old.
“What’s more: they’ve championed Lansdale itself. Should they have a customer come in from out of town, some driving a hundred miles or more, the brothers are always quick to point them to a local eatery or the shops downtown so that customers can fill the time as they wait,” Ladley said.
Among their past projects have been clocks dating as far back as the 1600s, up to a modern one once owned by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and the brothers use 21st century technology too, posting updates on major projects on the company’s Facebook page.
“They can restore clocks with wooden gears that date back to the early American period, and even make pieces to replace mechanisms whose production has been lost to the passage of time,” Ladley said.
“Why do they do this? Why are they passionate
about their craft? It’s simple, really. It was pointed out to me that clocks are like people. They have specific parts inside, each interdependent on one another, each with such an important purpose.”
One particularly moving story the brothers shared: an elderly lady once brought in a clock she had bought in Paris with a boyfriend decades before, but had stopped working shortly after.
“It was one of her deepest desires for it to work again; and once repaired, hearing that clock again transported her back to those youthful days on the cobbled streets of France,” he said.
In addition to clock repair and restoration, the shop also offers glass and pottery, paper and cards, and auction items, with online ordering available and an “In search of “list on their website, so you can find that perfect piece of the past.
“Clocks can be more than heirlooms. They can be an emotional connection and a metaphorical door to our history. They are something that are difficult to give up for those who have time pieces passed from generation to generation — sole treasures to be adored through years, decades, and centuries,” Ladley said.
“We sincerely thank them for being a part of our community, and I am proud to celebrate them — especially as this is the first presentation since the start of the pandemic — as our business of the month.”
Winship’s Pieces of Time is located at 3 W. Main Street in Lansdale and is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p .m. Tuesdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays. For more information call (215) 442-0321, search for “Winships’ Pieces of Time” on Facebook or visit www.grandclocks.com.