2018
TL4458 : Trumpington Street, Cambridge
taken 6 years ago, near to Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
Trumpington Street, Cambridge
This timepiece, mounted on the external wall of Corpus Christi College's library opposite King’s College, is extremely popular with visitors. It is a mechanical clock designed and paid for by a Dr John Taylor, an honorary Corpus Christi fellow. The clock is powered by a pendulum and driven by a giant grasshopper-shaped mechanism called a “chronophage” (the time eater) that sits above the 12.00 position. This creature was sculpted by Matthew Lane Sanderson and the whole timepiece was put together by Huxley Bertram Engineering. It was officially unveiled in September 2008 by Professor Stephen Hawking. Instead of hands or numerals it has a series of slits cut into the face and a series of blue LED lights arranged behind the slits. The pendulum slows down, speeds up and even stops, with the time shown by lights racing around the face. The time is exactly correct every fifth minute to one hundredth of a second. The lights move rapidly round in concentric circles behind the slits, pausing at the correct hour, minute, and second. Its massive round face was engineered from a single sheet of stainless steel and is gold-plated.
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