THE CLOCK MAKERS GALLERY

London Science Museum

The Clock Makers Gallery was opened by HRH Princess Anne on Thursday 22nd of October 2015.

Ceremonies were conducted by Lady Archer.

Sir George White of the clock makers was there to show her around and explain about the exhibition.

This gallery was originally erected by Meyvaert in 2002, at the Guild hall in London, following a great deal of discussion last year a decision was taken to move from this location to the science museum , but before this could go ahead, we had to see if indeed the cases could be moved.

We completed a trial with one typical case which was dismantled and then moved to a storage area at the science museum in autumn 2014. Erwin our senior technician installed this museum originally and then took it down and has now rebuilt it again.

The remainder of the cases were dismantled and moved in January, rebuilding of the cases in the new gallery started in June 2015 and finished in September, along with 6 new cases. The original cases were also refurbished, and modified to match the new layout and to display more objects.

The new gallery is larger than the original and sited on the second floor has an open wall onto the balcony. This creates a nice feeling of space and encourages visitors to come and explore the gallery.

Our team was important because we had to use the same men that took the cases apart to rebuild them, this gave them familiarity and a great understanding of the task. The cases were cleaned up and prepared well during dismantling, also, labelled and protected well during storage. We had the

unusual luxury of having images of each case fully built and installed with objects before we started to rebuild, this proved to be very helpful.

The Clock Makers Gallery.

The objects are amazing and the new space allows them to be so much more accessible

The opening event was very well attended and the response that was most pleasing is that nobody realised most of these cases were 15 years old!

A great challenge for us was the floor, originally the cases had stood on concrete, here the wooden floor is move flexible and additional measures were taken to make the cases more stable with additional support around the perimeter.

This case on the right had to be bolted back to the wall.

This case had a new base plinth made, the original was shorter and it was hanging on the wall.

The new cases.

Case 24

The high value objects meant that some of the new cases had to use high security glass at 14mm thick with acrylic in the centre, known as sentry glass. The door perimeters also needed steel security profiles.

The old cases had and kept a traditional black mesh to the top but the new ones were just grey and they looked very smart.

Case 23,

The security profiles laying on the floor were being fitted to the existing cases, they believed that the risk will be much higher in the science museum which has 3.5million visitors a year!

An old case number 17, you can see the black mesh in the top.

This new case 14 was built between 2 opposing set works walls.

Because of the noise from the public in the museum the BBC conducted the interview with Sir George about the gallery inside case 14. Which was remarkably sound proof.

This case is actually 2 old ones bolted back to back with a special frame between them. It also needed additional steel front and back which we fixed to the floor to increase stability.

New Case 22 houses and presents some new objects in a very natural way, the table is the Arnold family table and upon it are many objects recently donated to the clock makers. including Arnolds flint lock pistols. When he received them, much to Sir Georges surprise , the pistols were still loaded !!! He had a nervous walk through London to the police station to make them safe.

All round this has been a very successful enterprise for the Clockmakers and for Meyvaert.

Unfortunately Sir George had set all the clocks up so that they chimed perfectly at 8pm on the opening night, only to have to adjust every clock for the change to winter time the very next weekend.

There is a utube video regarding changing the clocks here at.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/exhibitions/clockmakers-museum

It was also rather important for one not to be late at a royal opening when surrounded by so many clocks.

Project team

Wauter new case design

Erwin, Nico, Nick, Matthias, Jereon. Top installation team.

Dismantling also assisted by Steve Rajczyk.

Compiled by Steve Pearse