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The Northern Section meetings offer a variety of formal lectures and club nights at their meeting hall together with staging exhibitions at local museums, demonstrations of horological conservation and visits to horological places of interest.

The Club Nights and Lectures usually alternate each month with a guest lecturer being invited to give a presentation to the meeting, often with visual aids and exhibits. For the club night a theme is chosen, and members are encouraged to bring items for display, and possibly to say a few words about them.

The meetings are friendly, relaxed and give the opportunity to meet new friends with similar interests, exchange views, ideas, and get help with solving your horological problems. As well as this you relax with refreshments whist your discussions take place.

Our meetings are held on the second Friday of each month at 7:30 for 8:00 pm and carry on until everyone leaves, usually between 10:30 and 11:00 pm. The venue is in The Village Methodist Church (formerly Sale Moor Methodist Church), located at 303 Northernden Road, Sale, Manchester M33 2PP. Parking in front of the church and surrounding streets is available. The church is located on the south side of Manchester within a mile of Sale Railway station and close to the M60 junctions 6 and 7.

Visitors and new members are always most welcome.

Northern Section

To be held at our CURRENT VENUE of The Village Methodist Church, 303 Northernden Road, Sale, Cheshire, M33 2PP at 7.30pm for 8.00pm, unless otherwise stated

Friday 13 June 2025

Club Night: Horology from the Netherlands
(Please note: This will be the last meeting held at the Northernden Road venue)

Friday 11 July 2025

Club Night: Carriage Clocks
(Please note: This, and future meetings, will be held at our NEW VENUE - The Countryside Suite, Winwick Leisure Centre, Myddleton Lane, Winwick, Warrington, Cheshire, WA2 8LQ)

Friday 8 August 2025

Club Night: Lancashire Clocks & Watches

Friday 12 September 2025

Lecture: Manchester Town Hall Clock Conservation, by Mark Crangle

Full Programme for 2025 (PDF download, updated 18 May)

Recent Meetings

Reports of previous meetings 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017

Electrical Horology (April 2025)

The theme for the April meeting was Electrical Horology. All of the items brought for discussion were clocks, a selection of which are illustrated here.

Apr 25 - 1 Lalique by bulle
One of the earliest battery powered clocks shown was made by Bulle with a glass case by Lalique. This clock has a coil on the pendulum compared to clocks by competing firm, Ato, who used a magnetic iron bar to impulse the pendulum. The booklet by John Locke, entitled Ato Battery Clocks, features inside an apparently similar clock in a Lalique case which was dated 1928.
Apr 25 - 2 Eurocil
The Eurocil Company of Switzerland made an experimental quartz clock with a Marin chip c. 1979. Its tick was too noisy to be successful in the market place but this example has been used as a workshop regulator where its loud tick is beneficial when regulating clocks and watches.
Apr 25 - 3 Synchronome set up
A Synchronome digital master system. The brass mounted master clock, stamped Synchronome Electric had readouts showing hours and minutes in black numerals and seconds in red. The controlled clock was impulsed every five seconds and had a seconds hand which could be hand-set. Its silent movement made it ideal for an air traffic control-room.
Apr 25 - 4 Secticon
The Italian designer and architect Angelo Mangiarotti designed Secticon, a range of clocks with plastic cases. Their movements by Portescap had a dry cell battery which ran a small motor at 1000rpm. The remontoire lever escapements were unusual.
Apr 25 - 5 Lepaute
An electric wall clock by Lepaute Electrique. It has a rectangular wooden case with a very heavy, separate marble backboard. It has been bought recently at a local auction house. It appeared to be complete but had not yet been unpacked and tested. Removal of the clock case, left, enables the parts to be seen more clearly.

Clock and watch escapements (March 2025)

Jim’s talk opened with a chronology of significant innovations in escapement design from those of Thomas Mudge, John Arnold, Abraham-Louis Breguet, John Gottlieb Ulrich, Thomas Earnshaw, Edward John Dent, Sigmund Reifler, William George Schoof, George Daniels to Derek Pratt, all illustrated by videos or animations.

He then went on to describe his own four clocks which illustrate the different escapements he has designed and made.

Mar 25 - Clock 1
The first was a skeleton clock. It has an inertially detached three-legged gravity escapement and train remontoire which gives a constant force to the escapement. Jim closely observes its timekeeping which is within one minute a year.
Mar 25 - Clock 2
The next was the well-known weight driven triple pendulum clock which stands in Upton Hall. This has another version of Jim’s completely detached gravity escapement which was specially designed for the location’s springy floor which could cause clocks with standard escapements to stop. The clock was made by a team of clockmakers to celebrate the BHI’s 150th anniversary.
Mar 25 - Clock 3
Jim’s quest for ever more precise timekeeping led to this mantle clock. It follows on from the ideas of Huygens and the clocks of Janvier and Breguet. This has two hollow pendulums swinging in resonance each containing a magnet. Its timekeeping is regularly checked and achieves a rate better than a minute a year.
Mar 25 - Clock 4
The final clock is Jim’s current project. This also has two pendulums, in this case controlled by a detached gravity impulsed falling ball escapement. It is enclosed within a vacuum tank to exclude atmospheric factors which would influence its running. Jim expects this to become his very best timekeeper.

Bring & Discuss - Letter 'A' (February 2025)

This meeting began with the AGM which was postponed last month owing to bad weather. Once the formal proceedings were over, the meeting went on to the evening’s topic: Horological items relating to letter ‘A’. Some of the items shown are illustrated below.

Feb 25 - 1 Kens watches
Top left and right : A member’s first pocket watch was of special significance as it showed his family name. It had a standard London verge movement and was hallmarked 1812. Bottom left: An anonymous movement with Chinese duplex escapement, the parts of which were fully engraved with fine detail. Bottom right: A movement signed Arnold & Frodsham, 84 Strand, London, number 4227. This had an English lever movement with bi-metallic balance.
Feb 25 - 2 Whistling tramp
A carved wood and ivory automaton figure of a whistling tramp was made by the Griesbaum family in the Black Forest in the early twentieth century. Its head, hands, buttons, rosette, big toe and stick are ivory. When activated, he turns, nods and whistles, making a sound similar to a whistling bird.
Feb 25 - 3 Peters watch
A gold wristwatch of small size, signed Harwood was shown. After returning from WW1, John Harwood settled in the Isle of Man where he resolved to develop a way of winding wristwatches without a keyhole. This led to the first automatic wristwatch. Harwood patented a centrally pivoted weight which swings between spring buffers while the watch is worn. Hands were set by rotating the bezel. His invention was first patented in Switzerland on 1 September 1924, number 106583. mprovements in Clocks, described thus: ‘Application of keyless watch winding gear to clocks, regulators and all large time indicators.’
Feb 25 - 4 Stewarts alarm clock
This early example of a small domestic alarm clock was gifted to one of our members when he was five years old. It is many years older than he is and dates back to WW1. The text on the dial reads: Gilbert Wake Up which indicates its manufacture by the American company Gilbert.
Feb 25 - 5 Ward 1
We were shown details of this clock as it was too fragile to transport safely. It is a George lll musical automaton table clock by London maker Benjamin Ward.
Feb 25 - 5 Ward 2
The three train clock has a silvered dial and below it, a riverside automaton scene of people and swans crossing a river. It has nine bells, eight for the tunes and one for the strike.
Feb 25 - 6 France longcase
The dial and movement of a longcase clock which has undergone significant alterations during its life. The dial is signed ‘France, Warrington.’ This was Richard France who was active during the first half of the eighteenth century. It has been converted from 30-hour to eight-day duration at some time in its history in a very unsympathetic manner.