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Roland Hoggard with the original clock on which the replica is modelled |
Saving time
At St Pancras’s lowest ebb in the 1970s, British Rail, hoping to liquidate some of the station’s assets, decided to sell off its still-beating heart – the great clock
Measuring 10 feet across the dial, worked from cast iron and finished with gold leaf, the timepiece had been built by the manufacturer of Big Ben’s mechanism, Dent Clocks.
From its lofty perch at the head of the concourse, it had cast a magisterial eye over the station’s goings on for 100 years, famously always set two minutes fast to hurry tardy travellers.
The sale was arranged with a US collector for the price of £250,000. But it was not to be. As workmen lowered the clock down – just a few feet from the floor – they dropped it, shattering both it and the deal to smithereens. They were stopped on the verge of dumping the remains by a retiring rail worker called Roland Hoggard who bought it for £25, bagged it up and sent it back to Nottinghamshire.
For 18 months Mr Hoggard worked tirelessly on restoring the clock, painstakingly putting the debris back together and then sticking it on the side of the barn in his garden in Thurgarton.
When the new owners, London and Continental Railways, began their renovation of St Pancras station, they found their intentions to remain faithful to the original details of the station stymied by the missing timepiece. There was too little information available to recreate it accurately, until they learnt of Mr Hoggard’s retirement project.
They visited Mr Hoggard, now 91, spending long hours in his garden, poring over the perfectly reconstructed industrial relic, which still keeps good time to this day.
It was deemed too delicate to move back to St Pancras, but its accuracy is such that it forms the template for the new replica clock, complete with Welsh slate numerals and cast-iron hands, which graces the revamped station.
Thanks to Mr Hoggard’s curiosity, the great station timepiece has risen from the ashes, to hurry more travellers along to their destinations for many years to come.
> Click here to buy your copy. |
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