Welcome To Grandfatherclocks.co.uk

BHI ARMORIAL BEARINGS.

We are proud to be recognised as a Professional Member of the British Horological Institute. As Trade Associates of the BHI, membership number 21547, we are graded as adhering to exacting standards of clock case manufacturing and clock retail.

Today, the sole purpose of a clock is not one of functionality and decoration alone. We need clocks, not only to tell us the time or fill a space against a wall, but more importantly to root us in ritual and in history. Therefore a clock has to come with a story, lending character to its presence. A Holtzhausen clock will do this and more, it will import a sense of mystery, evoking wonder and dialogue.

All Holtzhausen clocks are limted to 50 editions. Each style is named after a mountain range or peak. We see "Clocks like mountains, as icons of beauty, witnessing the passage of time". Please feel free to share in this wonder.

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Herman Holtzhausen

THE ASTROLABE (see Products, Mantel Clocks, Hermle)The astrolabe is a historical astronomical instrument used by classical astronomers, navigators, and astrologers. Its many uses included locating and predicting the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets and stars; determining local time given local latitude and vice-versa; surveying; and triangulation.

At first mechanical astronomical clocks were influenced by the astrolabe; in many ways they could be seen as clockwork astrolabes designed to produce a continual display of the current position of the sun, stars, and planets. Ibn al-Shatir constructed the earliest astrolabic clock in the early 14th century. At around the same time, Richard of Wallingford's clock (c. 1330) consisted essentially of a star map rotating behind a fixed rete, similar to that of an astrolabe.

Many astronomical clocks, such as the famous clock at Prague, use an astrolabe-style display, adopting a stereographic projection of the ecliptic plane.
In 1985 Swiss watchmaker Dr. Ludwig Oechslin designed and built an astrolabe wristwatch in conjunction with Ulysse Nardin.

Hermle has produced a whole range of these clocks which reproduce the annual orbit of the earth around the sun, with the earth rotating around its own axis once in 24 hours. The moon, in turn, revolves around the earth in 29.5 days completing a full rotation around its axis. This allows the reproduction of the different moon phases as they are visible from earth. In the course of one year, the earth passes all 12 zodiac signs, months and individual days which are indicted on the flat disc. These astrolabes have reproductions of the sun, earth and moon, incorporating the day/month indicator.

Grandfather Clocks

A range of beautiful Grandfather clocks in a variety of readily available, exotic and rare hardwoods, as well as in contemporary wood finishes.