Grouped & filterable
Clock Types Encyclopedia
Every clock type record uses the same structure — definition, movement and mechanism, typical makers, regions, identification, terminology, variations and collecting notes — so domestic, public and specialist clocks can be compared directly.
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Domestic · c. 1660 – presentLongcase (Grandfather) ClocksTall, freestanding weight-driven clocks with a long trunk enclosing the pendulum and weights, standardised in England after the introduction of the anchor escapement.4 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1750 – presentMantel ClocksA broad category of small spring-driven clocks intended to sit on a mantelshelf or side table, spanning French pendules, American shelf clocks and later mass-produced work.4 recorded variations
Portable · c. 1800 – presentCarriage ClocksSmall portable spring-driven clocks in glazed brass cases with a carrying handle, regulated by a platform lever or platform balance escapement rather than a pendulum.4 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1660 – c. 1900Bracket ClocksEnglish-tradition spring-driven domestic clocks, originally designed to sit on a wall bracket, typically case in ebonised or veneered wood with a carrying handle and glazed door.4 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1600 – presentWall ClocksClocks designed to be mounted directly on a wall rather than standing or sitting on furniture, encompassing lantern, Vienna regulator, Comtoise, banjo and later factory-made forms.5 recorded variations
Public & tower · c. 1280s – presentTower ClocksLarge public timekeepers, usually installed in a church, civic or institutional tower, driving one or more external dials and often a striking or chiming bell mechanism.3 recorded variations
Public & tower · c. 1800 – presentTurret ClocksA more specific, largely British nineteenth-century usage of 'tower clock', denoting purpose-engineered public clock movements — most famously those using the double three-legged gravity escapement.3 recorded variations
Precision · c. 1350 – presentAstronomical ClocksClocks that display, in addition to time of day, astronomical information such as the position of the sun and moon, zodiacal signs, or calendrical data, ranging from great public installations to fine domestic examples.3 recorded variations
Precision · c. 1700 – c. 1950Regulator ClocksPrecision pendulum clocks built to keep the most accurate time practically achievable, used by clockmakers, observatories and institutions as a timekeeping standard rather than for domestic display.3 recorded variationsPrecision · c. 1780 – c. 1920Vienna RegulatorsA refined Austrian and later German tradition of wall-mounted precision regulator clocks, characterised by light, elegant movements and cases combining accuracy with domestic display.3 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1730s – presentCuckoo ClocksWeight-driven wall clocks, traditionally from the Black Forest region of Germany, that sound the hour (and often the half-hour) with a mechanical bird call imitating a cuckoo, usually accompanied by a moving carved bird.3 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1600 – c. 1700Lantern ClocksEarly English brass-framed weight-driven wall clocks, originally regulated by a balance wheel and verge escapement and later commonly converted to pendulum regulation.3 recorded variationsDomestic · c. 1680 – c. 1930Comtoise Clocks (Pendulum Wall Clocks)Weight-driven French wall or shelf clocks originating in the Franche-Comté region, characterised by a distinctive visible pendulum bob (often brass and ornately shaped) and a repeating strike.3 recorded variations
Specialist · c. 1500 – presentSpring-Driven ClocksA mechanism category, rather than a single clock form, describing any clock powered by a coiled mainspring instead of a falling weight — enabling portability at the cost of a less constant driving force.2 recorded variations
Specialist · c. 1280s – presentWeight-Driven ClocksA mechanism category describing clocks powered by one or more falling weights acting through a cord, chain or rope, delivering an essentially constant driving force for as long as the weight has room to fall.2 recorded variations
Specialist · c. 1820 – presentSkeleton ClocksClocks with the front (and often rear) plates cut away and pierced so that the wheel train, escapement and striking work are visible, typically displayed under a glass dome.3 recorded variations
Specialist · c. 1600 – c. 1900Musical and Automaton ClocksClocks combining timekeeping with a musical mechanism (playing bells, organ pipes or a pinned barrel) and/or moving figures (automata) animated at the hour or on demand.3 recorded variations
Specialist · c. 1840s – presentMystery ClocksClocks designed so the drive to the hands (or a pendulum) is deliberately concealed, creating the visual illusion that a hand or pendulum moves without any connecting mechanism.2 recorded variations
Specialist · c. 1880 – presentAnniversary / 400-Day (Torsion) ClocksClocks regulated by a rotating torsion pendulum (typically a disc with three or four ornamental balls) suspended on a thin, twisting suspension spring, allowing an unusually long running time — nominally about 400 days — from one winding.3 recorded variations
Precision · c. 1760 – presentMarine ChronometersHigh-precision timekeepers, historically housed in a gimballed wooden box, developed to keep sufficiently accurate time at sea to determine longitude by comparison with a known reference meridian.3 recorded variationsPrecision · c. 1850 – presentShip's Bell ClocksRobust shipboard clocks, distinct from marine chronometers, that strike the traditional nautical watch system of bells (up to eight strikes marking a four-hour watch) rather than a conventional hour count.2 recorded variations
Public & tower · c. 1840 – c. 1970Master/Slave Electric Clock SystemsSystems in which a single precision 'master' clock (often a pendulum regulator with electrical contacts) periodically transmits electrical impulses to synchronise multiple simpler 'slave' dials, widely used in railway stations, factories and institutions before radio and network time synchronisation.3 recorded variations
Specialist · c. 1840 – c. 1970Electric-Mechanical ClocksClocks in which an electrical element (typically a battery-driven electromagnet and contact) replaces the mainspring or weight as the source of motive power, while the going train, escapement and hands remain conventionally mechanical.3 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1797 – c. 1800s (production continued later as a decorative style)Tavern (Act of Parliament) ClocksLarge wall-mounted dial clocks with a very short or absent trunk, traditionally associated with the brief period of the British 1797 clock and watch tax, when innkeepers displayed a large public clock for travellers who could no longer justify paying tax on a personal timepiece.3 recorded variationsDomestic · c. 1800 – presentBanjo Clocks (American Shelf Clocks)American wall clocks with a distinctive banjo-shaped case — a round dial head, narrowing waist, and rectangular base — deriving from designs patented by Simon Willard in the early nineteenth century.3 recorded variations
Specialist · c. 1656 – presentPendulum ClocksA mechanism category describing any clock regulated by a swinging pendulum rather than a balance wheel or foliot, following Christiaan Huygens's 1656 application of the pendulum to clockwork, which brought a dramatic improvement in accuracy over earlier verge-and-foliot timekeepers.3 recorded variations
Specialist · c. 1500s – presentAutomaton ClocksClocks incorporating moving figures or scenes — striking jacks, processions, animated animals or tableaux — driven from the movement's power source in addition to its timekeeping function, distinct from clocks whose sole added feature is music.3 recorded variations
Specialist · c. 1600s – presentMusical ClocksClocks that play a tune, chime sequence or air on bells, a comb (as in a musical box mechanism), or organ-type pipes, at the hour or on demand, as distinct from automaton clocks whose principal feature is moving figures rather than sound.3 recorded variationsDomestic · c. 1815 – c. 1914American Shelf and Ogee ClocksMass-produced American domestic clocks intended to sit on a shelf or mantel, produced in vast quantities by Connecticut and other New England factories from the early nineteenth century, of which the ogee-cased form is the most familiar type.4 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1730 – presentBlack Forest ClocksClocks produced in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) region of southwest Germany, historically a major centre of rural clock manufacture and the origin of the cuckoo clock, ranging from simple wooden-movement wall clocks to elaborate carved cases.4 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1710 – c. 1830 (with later revivals)Cartel ClocksOrnate French wall clocks with an asymmetrical or scrolling gilt-bronze (ormolu) case, closely associated with the Rococo and later Louis XVI decorative styles, intended as a decorative counterpart to a matching mantel clock or garniture.3 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1680 – c. 1900 (with later revivals)Boulle ClocksClocks (typically bracket, mantel or longcase) decorated with boulle marquetry — an inlay technique combining brass and tortoiseshell (or later imitative materials) named after the French cabinetmaker André-Charles Boulle — rather than a mechanically distinct type in its own right.3 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1680 – c. 1850Bracket Alarm ClocksEnglish-tradition bracket clocks fitted with an alarm mechanism in addition to timekeeping (and often striking), allowing the owner to set a bell to sound at a chosen hour, continuing a domestic-clock alarm tradition that predates the wristwatch alarm by more than two centuries.2 recorded variationsSpecialist · c. 1660s – c. 1800Night Clocks (Lantern-Lit Timepieces)Clocks designed to show the time in darkness without striking, typically by illuminating a pierced dial from behind with a lamp or candle, allowing the hour to be read at a glance by someone waking in the night without disturbing a household with a strike.2 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1550 – c. 1650Tabernacle ClocksEarly German and Continental table clocks with an architectural, tower- or shrine-like gilt-brass case (resembling a small tabernacle or reliquary), among the earliest surviving forms of spring-driven domestic timepiece.2 recorded variations
Specialist · c. 1880s – presentPicture-Frame ClocksClocks whose dial is set within, or disguised as, a decorative picture or mirror frame, so the timepiece reads at a glance as a framed picture, print or looking-glass rather than an overt clock.3 recorded variations
Domestic · c. 1920s – presentGrandmother ClocksA smaller-scale, freestanding pendulum clock built on the same longcase principle as a grandfather clock but reduced in height (commonly under about 1.8 metres), a largely twentieth-century furniture-trade development rather than an antique form in its own right.3 recorded variations