Local History News - York discovery turns back time

Seal of Robert the clockmaker, York

Researchers from York Archaeological Trust have identified a remarkable object which shows that at the beginning of the 14th century York was at the forefront of science and engineering. The object, a small circular copper-alloy disc dating back to around AD 1300, discovered during excavations on the site of the former York College for Girls in Low Petergate, has been cleaned to reveal an abbreviated Latin inscription around its edge — SIGNUM ROBERTI HOROLOGIARII — which translates as ‘The seal of Robert the clockmaker’.

What makes the discovery exciting is the fact that early historical records indicate that the first clocks appeared in a number of major English churches only a few years before the seal was made, with York previously notable for its absence from this list.

An itinerant horologiarius is mentioned in the account books of Beaulieu Cistercian Abbey, Hampshire, in 1269-70, and there are records of a clock made by the Augustinian Canons of Dunstable Priory, Bedfordshire, in 1283. In the following few years there are records of other clocks at major English churches — Exeter Cathedral in 1284, St Paul’s, London in 1286, Merton College, Oxford and Norwich Cathedral before 1290, Ely Abbey 1291, Canterbury Cathedral 1292, and Salisbury Cathedral before 1306.

The earliest medieval clocks did not necessarily have dials; their main purpose was to strike the hours. Some were developed to show solar and lunar data; in 1322–5 a large astronomical clock with automata was installed in Norwich cathedral, and in 1327–1336 the noted mathematician and astronomer Richard of Wallingford, Abbot of St Alban’s Benedictine Abbey, designed an enormous astronomical clock that stood in the south transept there. This tradition of astronomical clocks was maintained in York after World War II, when one was installed in York Minster as a memorial to airmen killed in the war. The oldest surviving medieval clocks in England are those with very similar mechanisms at Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire, first mentioned in 1386, and at Wells Cathedral in Somerset, made at some time in the period 1344–1392.

Dr Richard Hall, Director of Archaeology at York Archaeological Trust, said: ‘This is one of the most interesting single objects that we have found for some time. We are still trying to find out more about it — for example, we haven’t yet managed to read the last part of the inscription, which should tell us where Robert came from. It opens up a new insight into the sounds and wonders of medieval York’. More information can be found on York Archaeological Trust’s website.