A Brief Encounter With An Old Clock

Call me an old romantic if you like, but when I see an English dial clock hanging on the wall, I can’t help but think of that iconic film Brief Encounter. The film charts the very British affair of a mother and a doctor who meet on the railway platform under the station clock. The clock plays as much of a starring role as the principal leads – Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. Clearly I am not the only person to have their romantic fancy tickled by the film which is placed a number two in the British Film Industry top 100 films. The clock is question is a pretty unremarkable thing; of a type found in railway stations everywhere during the last century. It hangs aside the platform of the railway station at Carnforth, itself a pretty unremarkable Lancashire town. Yet this one clock is probably responsible for generating more sale for English antique clock dealers than any other source known to me. Every year, around that time that TV companies show old films, clock dealers up and down the land get a steady stream of enquiries for a station clock – just like the one they’ve seen in Brief Encounter.

What they really want, of course, is an English dial clock, but we all know what they mean. More of this type of clock was produced than any other single type to date. It was the huge prosperity of Victorian England that drove the large demand for dial clocks, and English dial clocks graced the walls of most public buildings up until relatively recent times. Nowadays, recycled from a railway station waiting room, or a Dickensian office, or nineteenth century banking hall, these basic instruments of time are simple to restore, and when given a new lease of life, no "Country Living" kitchen is complete without one hanging on the wall, and they do, of course, sit well against the subtle hues of Farrow & Ball.

The question of what to look for if you also want to follow the trend is quite simple. Early examples, up to around 1850 tend to have mahogany boxes and convex painted dials with cast brass surrounds. Later versions have oak or simulated walnut boxes and flat dials with thin, spun brass bezels surrounding them. The very earliest examples have silvered brass dials and are now quite rare. Look out for and beware of completely repainted or even replaced dials. All should have what is often referred to as a "fusee movement". The fusee was a clever device designed to even out the power of the mainspring and lead to better timekeeping qualities. Its construction is beyond the scope of this article but if you want to check if a clock has one, then have a glance through the doors on the side of the box – with the vendor’s kind permission of course – if you see a chain running from the mainspring barrel to a tapered barrel then you are in luck! Like so many antiques that were once unloved and of little status, this type of clock can now easily cost well into four figures for the most basic example, and if you are lucky enough to find one, several thousand pounds for the best and earliest pieces. But hey, what price is romance?

The railway clocks in particular are also collected by steam buffs, so may cost a little more than one from a public building, however, if your initials happen to be GWR, LNER or even BR, you might be able to kid the neighbours that yours is a family heirloom!

English dial clocks are widely available fully restored and ready to go from specialist clock dealers who should offer a meaningful guarantee and help with setting up. Auction rooms are another source but not really recommended in this context as they offer no guarantees and the cost of restoration – if you can find someone to do it – can cost as much as the clock is probably worth.

So what of the Brief Encounter clock and how did such an iconic and influential British film come to be made in Carnforth anyway. Well, when filming took place in 1945, the threat of air raids still hung over London. As filming would be at night with a huge lighting rig, this would not be possible in London. The director, David Lean, chose to move the crew north to Carnforth on the Lancashire side of the Cumbrian border. Carnforth station was transformed into the "Milford Junction Station" of the film. The critics originally slated the film which was based on a half-hour stage play written by Noel Coward called "Still Life" and one preview audience convulsed with laughter at the love scenes. I wonder what they would make of the film’s classic status today! The clock faired a little better and by the late 1970s was removed and sold. Only years later was it tracked down, and proving that the age of romance is not yet dead in 2000 it was refurbished and now once again proudly tells the time as a centre piece of the recently refurbished station. Carnforth station remains a place of pilgrimage for fan of the film….. and old romantics too.