Clock Tower

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SW 64 SE 11/273

REDRUTH FORE STREET (south side) Clock Tower

GV II

Clock tower and lock-up. 1828, altered 1836, rebuilt and raised 1900. Granite ashlar. Square in plan. Now four stages; the ground floor has diagonal buttresses and a large two-centred arched doorway with chamfered surround and hoodmould; each succeeding stage is slightly set back above a weathered band; the second stage has a two-centred arched window with hoodmould; the third stage has coupled round-headed lancets under a hoodmould, and newer masonry beginning above this; the tall fourth stage has smaller coupled lancets under a hoodmould, a large clock face above this, and slightly over-sailing embattled parapet above a band; a weather vane is mounted on the roof. The lower half of the left-hand side and rear are covered by adjoining buildings, otherwise all other sides resemble the front.

HISTORY: built in 1828 to replace an earlier clock tower, altered 1836, raised in1900 by one storey and the original top placed above the new section. It is said that Trounson’s store, which had been built in 1869 and extended in 1890, had blocked the view of the clock for miners living in the East End part of the town; the raised clock tower meant that the miners could see the time. A lock-up existed under the clock from 1841-51. The open arches at ground level were closed-in for use as police cells in 1841, and this lock-up existed until 1851; the doorways beneath the clock tower are surviving but one is blocked. Pevsner observed that the clock tower ‘was like a Cornish version of Palazzo Vecchio tower’.

Listing NGR: SW6991542029