Adventures with Local Turret Clocks N.O5
Putney High St, London SW15 1SN
Sunday 30th November 2025
Photo creds Wikipedia (above)
Today’s turret clock is one in a very important church in South West London.
St Mary’s Putney is a very historical church. Having medieval roots, there has been a church on this site by at least the 12th century.
The church is most likely most well known for being the location of the Putney Debates of 1647.
The Putney Debates were a series of meetings held during the English Civil War between the New Model Army and radicals about the nations political future.
One of the most famous figures involved in these debates was of course Oliver Cromwell.
Cromwell did not support the radical ideas being proposed and instead thought that England needed stability after years of civil war, and that change should be controlled and gradual.
And this all took place within St Mary’s, which we are visiting here in this blog!
Entering the church we were greeted by the Rector of the church, John, who had kindly agreed to take us up the church!
Travelling to the foot of the tower, we spied yet another… fairly small wooden door seated in the corner.
Opening that door revealed…. Yet another small spiral staircase! I have a feeling that I’m going to be getting used to climbing up these!
The first level of the tower was of course, the bell ringing room. The ringing room of St Mary’s is absolutely stunning, with a giant window to the right letting in all the natural light you could want! If I would want to ring anywhere, it would definitely be here!
After marvelling at the fantastic ringing room they have at St Mary’s, John, my father and myself then made the climb to the second part of the tower, just behind the clock dials.
There of course we were met with the familiar tick of a turret clock movement! After traversing past the ringing ropes, making sure we didn’t touch any (like we were dodging lasers in James Bond!), as they were up, we saw a very nice bright green clock movement by Gillet and Johnston.
The clock is a later movement by G&J and is of a flat bed construction with a very nice 3 legged gravity escapement (pictured below!).
It is in remarkable condition, even though it is a later mechanism. It is obviously very well kept and serviced regularly!
Gillett & Johnstons name on the movement
The church used to house a chiming mechanism before 1958. Whether this was a normal quarter striking/hour striking mechanism or a carillon I’m unsure.
The original mechanism used to be displayed inside the church, however in 1973 there was a devastating fire which (I presume) destroyed these. There seems to be a trend about churches being set on fire in the 1970s, and as mentioned in the St Leonard’s Streatham blog, that also suffered from an arson attack.
Finally climbing up to the final floor, we peeked in through the door to see the bells. The bells had been raised up, for the next ring, however I did manage to get (admittedly not a very good) photo! I again blame it on my camera!
There are 8 bells at St Mary’s, in which the tenor is in F sharp.
After taking a look at the bells through the door, we then began our descent back down the tower, in which we noticed a wonderful plaque above the entrance to the main hall of the church, talking about the Putney Debates!!
Thank you very much to St Mary’s for giving us a tour up the tower! It was incredibly interesting, and amazing to see a church with so much history!
On to the next one!!!
Automatically wound weight
Clockman's Adventures! 