Clock House

Clock House

This house was constructed in 1828 for Thomas Osmond, a local Clockmaker who made the church clock at Tisbury. It is possibly attributable to his son William Osmond, a Mason and Sculptor appointed to Salisbury Cathedral in 1818. The building is constructed of randomly coursed, finely jointed local Upper Portland limestone ashlar beneath a hipped Welsh slate roof, with hand-made brick chimney shafts.

The exterior comprises five bays arranged as two single-storey flanking wings or pavilions set slightly back, with a central range of three bays rising to two storeys. The left-hand wing, with a slightly raised ridge, retains a single late Victorian sash window of two-pane sashes; the right-hand wing has a corresponding blind opening. The central range contains three windows at first-floor level, with two windows and a central door on the ground floor. All windows and external doors save one are now uPVC. The central door is surmounted by an attractive canopied porch comprising a deep open pediment on carved stone brackets, each bracket bearing a boss—one inscribed with the monogramme 'T.O.', the other with the date 1828. Above the porch sits a small inset lunette with 'Clock House' painted within. The door itself has a pretty stained-glass fanlight. The secondary elevations are very plain, finished throughout in finely jointed randomly coursed limestone ashlar. Chimney shafts are axially located on the return elevations; the left-hand one retains a Portland stone coping with moulded detail.

The interior of the left-hand wing is very plain. The right-hand wing is fitted out as a stable with hand-worked timber stalling and panelling, all finished in limewash. The main range comprises two polite front rooms with service rooms to the rear, arranged around a central open-string stair with stick balusters, turned newels and moulded hardwood handrail. Much early 19th-century joinery survives, including window linings, architraves, panelled doors with architraves, and picture and dado rails in the front rooms and hall. The right-hand front room contains a pair of part-glazed recessed cupboards with recessed panelled doors and a chimney piece, possibly of later 19th-century date, with a grate incorporating glazed tiles. First-floor rooms are very plain but retain early 19th-century two-panelled doors with architraves and a dado rail to the stair landing.

Thomas Osmond was a noted local craftsman and one of a dynasty of clockmakers. His son William Osmond was one of Pugin's craftsmen who worked at Salisbury Cathedral, where he proved a prolific sculptor and mason, carving a series of tablets in churches throughout the county and various pieces within the Cathedral itself. William built the house for his father in 1828 and furnished his headstone upon Thomas Osmond's death in 1833. This distinctive memorial, gothic in style and incorporating a clock, remains in the churchyard at Tisbury.