Switching the clocks back an hour can be an effortless task, with most electronic devices making the time change automatically. However, for the Clockmakers’ Museum, where 90 “complex and delicate” clocks are housed, the process is much more involved. The majority of the clocks need to be manually wound back, a job that can take up to three hours and is usually done in the evening after closing time. Curator Anna Rolls says that “the handles of the clocks get damaged” if they are moved backwards, and so they have to be turned forwards 23 hours, which can be a “challenging” job if it’s not done correctly. Sometimes the clocks are too large to be changed by hand.
For staff at King’s Cross railway station, this was their reality until the station’s clock was refurbished in 2012. Before then, at 11 pm, staff would turn off the clock’s power for an hour and then turn it back on, a method which “sometimes confused customers,” claims Jon Burden, who has worked at the station for 25 years.
The clocks will fall back on 29 October at 2 am, this is when British Summer Time or Daylight Saving Time comes to an end, to be replaced by Greenwich Mean Time. This changing of the clocks dates back to World War One when many European governments, including Germany and the UK, turned the clocks forward as a means of conserving energy.
For some clocks, no time change is required. The Shepherd Gate Clock, located at the Greenwich Royal Observatory, was the first clock ever to show GMT directly to the public and it is kept at Greenwich Mean Time all year round, offering visitors a more authentic experience of the story of time. The UK will remain in the GMT time zone until 31 March 2024
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