• The Character of Home
• Explore the Townhouse
  • The Fairfax Family
  • Building the Georgian Townhouse
  • John Carr of York: Architect
  • Eighteenth-century York
  • Secrets of the Stucco
  • Cinema Days: St Georges Hall
  • Memories of St George’s Hall and Cinema
  • Silver Screen 2017
  • The Restoration
• Explore the Collection
  • Noel Terry & his Collection
  • Furniture
  • Clocks
  • Silver
  • Artworks
  • Rare historic pieces reunited
  • What is a Candlestand or Torchère?
  • Candlepower

Clocks

With some of the rarest and earliest examples of English Georgian clocks and barometers, a visit to Fairfax House offers a fascinating trip through the history of time.

The collection includes an impressive assembly of thirteen early English clocks by some of the greatest clock makers of the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. The collection is of national significance and said to be unrivalled outside of larger public institutions.

This horology collection comprises both longcase and spring clocks, and includes works by leading masters such as Thomas Tompion, Edward East, George Graham and Daniel Quare. The collection also contains a spring clock by the exceptionally skilled and pioneering local clock-maker Henry Hindley of York, a piece with a particularly important connection to Fairfax House, given Hindley’s catholic faith and known production of two timepieces (a turret clock and year-going clock) for the Fairfaxes.

The clock collection is complemented by four barometers, one of which is an exceptionally rare portable ivory example by Daniel Quare.