Borough Market
Borough Market is a wholesale and retail food market in Southwark, England. It is one of the largest and oldest food markets in London, with a market on the site dating back to at least the 12th century; the present buildings were built in the 1850s, today the market sells speciality foods to the general public. The present market, located on Southwark Street and Borough High Street just south of Southwark Cathedral on the southern end of London Bridge, is a successor to one that adjoined the end of London Bridge, it was first mentioned in 1276, although the market itself claims to have existed since 1014 "and much earlier" and was subsequently moved south of St Margaret's church on the High Street. The City of London received a royal charter from Edward VI in 1550 to control all markets in Southwark, confirmed by Charles II in 1671. However, the market caused such traffic congestion that, in 1754, it was abolished by an Act of Parliament; the Act allowed for the local parishioners to set up another market on a new site, in 1756, it began again on a 4.5-acre site in Rochester Yard.
During the 19th century, it became one of London's most important food markets due to its strategic position near the riverside wharves of the Pool of London. The retail market operates on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The wholesale market operates on all weekday mornings from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m. Three attackers from the 2017 London Bridge attack ran to the area, where they stabbed and killed people with knives before they were shot dead by armed police; the market was closed for 11 days following the attack. The present buildings were designed in 1851, with additions in the 1860s and an entrance designed in the Art Deco style added on Southwark Street in 1932. A refurbishment began in 2001. Work to date includes the re-erection in 2004 of the South Portico from the Floral Hall at Covent Garden, dismantled when the Royal Opera House was reconstructed in the 1990s; the original Convent Garden building was listed and the resited portico was Grade II listed in 2008.
The present-day market sells speciality foods to the general public. However, in the 20th century, it was a wholesale market, selling produce in quantity to greengrocers, it was the main supplier, along with Covent Garden, of fruits and vegetables to retail greengrocers' shops. Amongst the notable businesses trading in the market were Vitacress, Lee Brothers, Manny Sugarman, AW Bourne and Eddy Robbins. JO Sims, the main importer for South African citrus fruit, were located in the market. Stallholders come to trade at the market from different parts of the UK, traditional European products are imported and sold. Amongst the produce on sale are fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, baked bread and pastries; the market is a charitable trust administered by a board of volunteer trustees, who have to live in the area. Borough Market and the surrounding streets have been used as a film location for such features as Bridget Jones's Diary, Lock and Two Smoking Barrels and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
More some scenes in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus were shot there. As reported by the London Evening Standard, the market is available to hire for private events. From 1860, the railway operating companies desired to extend services from London Bridge station into new stations at Cannon Street and Blackfriars in the City and link to the West End at Charing Cross Station; this required a viaduct, but it was impossible by the 1756 Borough Market Act for the Trustees to alienate their property. The compromise was that only a flying leasehold was given to the railway company for the permanent way, but only for as long as a railway operates on it; the Market continues to trade underneath the arches of the viaduct. Each time there is a railway expansion requiring widening of the viaduct, the Trustees receive a full compensation payment; the last major such expansion was the 1901 extended bridge widening. These windfalls have assisted in the finances of the market without any loss of amenity to it.
A new viaduct was erected above the market and a bridge across Borough High Street completed in 2014. As part of the Thameslink Programme, a large number of listed buildings in the Borough Market area have been altered or demolished, affecting the historic fabric of the area; this includes much of the area appearing in the aforementioned films. This was unpopular locally and became a contentious issue in the resulting public inquiry, which resulted in delays to the project; the inquiry inspector was satisfied with the plans to restore as much of the market and surrounding area as possible. The overriding need to remove a major bottleneck in the national rail network and improve transport options over a large portion of London meant that he accepted that some damage to the fabric of the market and surrounding area was unavoidable in order for the scheme to achieve its objectives. Disruption to the market activities was kept to a minimum; the market building on Bedale Street south-side has had its upper floors removed, as has the Wheatsheaf public house on Stoney Street, for the new railway bridge to cross over them.
The remaining floors have been re-occupied. The old Market glazed roof on Stoney Street has been much improved. A significant loss was the Smirke Terrace, Nos 16-26 Borough High Street, demolished in 2010, it was a Grade II listed building designed by the classic
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are slaughtered, most to provide food for humans. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat, not intended to be eaten by humans are sometimes referred to as knacker's yards or knackeries; this is where animals are slaughtered that are not fit for human consumption or that can no longer work on a farm, such as retired work horses. Slaughtering animals on a large scale poses significant problems in terms of logistics, animal welfare, the environment, the process must meet public health requirements. Due to public aversion in many cultures, determining where to build slaughterhouses is a matter of some consideration. Groups representing animal welfare and rights raise concerns about the methods of transport to and from slaughterhouses, preparation prior to slaughter, animal herding, the killing itself; until modern times, the slaughter of animals took place in a haphazard and unregulated manner in diverse places.
Early maps of London show numerous stockyards in the periphery of the city, where slaughter occurred in the open air. A term for such open-air slaughterhouses was shambles, there are streets named "The Shambles" in some English and Irish towns which got their name from having been the site on which butchers killed and prepared animals for consumption. Fishamble Street, Dublin was a fish-shambles; the slaughterhouse emerged as a coherent institution in the nineteenth century. A combination of health and social concerns, exacerbated by the rapid urbanisation experienced during the Industrial Revolution, led social reformers to call for the isolation and regulation of animal slaughter; as well as the concerns raised regarding hygiene and disease, there were criticisms of the practice on the grounds that the effect that killing had, both on the butchers and the observers, "educate the men in the practice of violence and cruelty, so that they seem to have no restraint on the use of it." An additional motivation for eliminating private slaughter was to impose a careful system of regulation for the "morally dangerous" task of putting animals to death.
As a result of this tension, meat markets within the city were closed and abattoirs built outside city limits. An early framework for the establishment of public slaughterhouses was put in place in Paris in 1810, under the reign of the Emperor Napoleon. Five areas were set aside on the outskirts of the city and the feudal privileges of the guilds were curtailed; as the meat requirements of the growing number of residents in London expanded, the meat markets both within the city and beyond attracted increasing levels of public disapproval. Meat had been traded at Smithfield Market as early as the 10th century. By 1726, it was regarded as "by Daniel Defoe. By the middle of the 19th century, in the course of a single year 220,000 head of cattle and 1,500,000 sheep would be "violently forced into an area of five acres, in the heart of London, through its narrowest and most crowded thoroughfares". By the early 19th century, pamphlets were being circulated arguing in favour of the removal of the livestock market and its relocation outside of the city due to the poor hygienic conditions as well as the brutal treatment of the cattle.
In 1843, the Farmer's Magazine published a petition signed by bankers, aldermen and local residents against the expansion of the livestock market. An Act of Parliament was passed in 1852. Under its provisions, a new cattle-market was constructed in Islington; the new Metropolitan Cattle Market was opened in 1855, West Smithfield was left as waste ground for about a decade, until the construction of the new market began in the 1860s under the authority of the 1860 Metropolitan Meat and Poultry Market Act. The market was designed by architect Sir Horace Jones and was completed in 1868. A cut and cover railway tunnel was constructed beneath the market to create a triangular junction with the railway between Blackfriars and Kings Cross; this allowed animals to be transported into the slaughterhouse by train and the subsequent transfer of animal carcasses to the Cold Store building, or direct to the meat market via lifts. At the same time, the first large and centralized slaughterhouse in Paris was constructed in 1867 under the orders of Napoleon III at the Parc de la Villette and influenced the subsequent development of the institution throughout Europe.
These slaughterhouses were regulated by law to ensure good standards of hygiene, the prevention of the spread of disease and the minimization of needless animal cruelty. The slaughterhouse had to be equipped with a specialized water supply system to clean the operating area of blood and offal. Veterinary scientists, notably George Fleming and John Gamgee, campaigned for stringent levels of inspection to ensure that epizootics such as rinderpest would not be able to spread. By 1874, three meat inspectors were appointed for the London area, the Public Health Act 1875 required local authorities to provide central slaughterhouses, yet the appointment of slaughterhouse inspectors and the establishment of centralised abattoirs took place much earlier in the British colonies, such as the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria. In Victoria, for example, the Melbourne Abattoirs Act 1850 "confined the slaughtering of animals to prescribed public abattoirs, while at the same t
Cattle
Cattle—colloquially cows—are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, are most classified collectively as Bos taurus. Cattle are raised as livestock for meat, for milk, for hides, which are used to make leather, they are used as riding animals and draft animals. Another product of cattle is dung, which can be used to create fuel. In some regions, such as parts of India, cattle have significant religious meaning. Cattle small breeds such as the Miniature Zebu, are kept as pets. Around 10,500 years ago, cattle were domesticated from as few as 80 progenitors in central Anatolia, the Levant and Western Iran. According to an estimate from 2011, there are 1.4 billion cattle in the world. In 2009, cattle became one of the first livestock animals to have a mapped genome; some consider cattle the oldest form of wealth, cattle raiding one of the earliest forms of theft. Cattle were identified as three separate species: Bos taurus, the European or "taurine" cattle.
The aurochs is ancestral to both taurine cattle. These have been reclassified as one species, Bos taurus, with three subspecies: Bos taurus primigenius, Bos taurus indicus, Bos taurus taurus. Complicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other related species. Hybrid individuals and breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and zebu, but between one or both of these and some other members of the genus Bos – yaks and gaur. Hybrids such as the beefalo breed can occur between taurine cattle and either species of bison, leading some authors to consider them part of the genus Bos, as well; the hybrid origin of some types may not be obvious – for example, genetic testing of the Dwarf Lulu breed, the only taurine-type cattle in Nepal, found them to be a mix of taurine cattle and yak. However, cattle cannot be hybridized with more distantly related bovines such as water buffalo or African buffalo; the aurochs ranged throughout Europe, North Africa, much of Asia. In historical times, its range became restricted to Europe, the last known individual died in Mazovia, Poland, in about 1627.
Breeders have attempted to recreate cattle of similar appearance to aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle, creating the Heck cattle breed. The noun cattle encompasses both sexes; the singular, technically means the female, the male being bull. The plural form cows is sometimes used colloquially to refer to both sexes collectively, as e.g. in a herd, but that usage can be misleading as the speaker's intent may indeed be just the females. The bovine species per se is dimorphic. Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals, it was borrowed from Anglo-Norman catel, itself from medieval Latin capitale'principal sum of money, capital', itself derived in turn from Latin caput'head'. Cattle meant movable personal property livestock of any kind, as opposed to real property; the word is a variant of chattel and related to capital in the economic sense. The term replaced earlier Old English feoh ` property', which survives today as fee; the word "cow" came via Anglo-Saxon cū, from Common Indo-European gʷōus = "a bovine animal", compare Persian: gâv, Sanskrit: go-, Welsh: buwch.
The plural cȳ became ki or kie in Middle English, an additional plural ending was added, giving kine, but kies and others. This is the origin of the now archaic English plural, "kine"; the Scots language singular is coo or cou, the plural is "kye". In older English sources such as the King James Version of the Bible, "cattle" refers to livestock, as opposed to "deer" which refers to wildlife. "Wild cattle" may refer to undomesticated species of the genus Bos. Today, when used without any other qualifier, the modern meaning of "cattle" is restricted to domesticated bovines. In general, the same words are used in different parts of the world, but with minor differences in the definitions; the terminology described here contrasts the differences in definition between the United Kingdom and other British-influenced parts of the world such as Canada, New Zealand and the United States. An "intact" adult male is called a bull. A wild, unmarked bull is known as a micky in Australia. An unbranded bovine of either sex is called a maverick in the Canada.
An adult female that has had a calf is a cow. A young female before she has had a calf of her own and is under three years of age is called a heifer. A young female that has had only one calf is called a first-calf heifer. Young cattle of both sexes are called calves until they are weaned weaners until they are a year old in some areas. After that, they are referred to as stirks if between one and two years of age. A castrated male is called a steer in the United States.
Pig
A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the even-toed ungulate family Suidae. Pigs include the domestic pig and its ancestor, the common Eurasian wild boar, along with other species. Related creatures outside the genus include the peccary, the babirusa, the warthog. Pigs, like all suids, are native to the African continents. Juvenile pigs are known as piglets. Pigs are social and intelligent animals. With around 1 billion individuals alive at any time, the domestic pig is among the most populous large mammals in the world. Pigs can consume a wide range of food. Pigs are biologically similar to humans and are thus used for human medical research; the Online Etymology Dictionary provides anecdotal evidence as well as linguistic, saying that the term derives from Old English *picg, found in compounds, ultimate origin unknown. "young pig". Related to Low German bigge, Dutch big.... Another Old English word for "pig" was fearh, related to furh "furrow," from PIE *perk- "dig, furrow". "This reflects a widespread IE tendency to name animals from typical attributes or activities".
Synonyms grunter, oinker are from sailors' and fishermen's euphemistic avoidance of uttering the word pig at sea, a superstition based on the fate of the Gadarene swine, who drowned. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces the evolution of sow, the term for a female pig, through various historical languages: Old English sugu, su "female of the swine," from Proto-Germanic *su-, from PIE root *su- imitative of pig noise, it is likely that the word to call pigs, "soo-ie," is derived. An adjectival form is porcine. Another adjectival form is suine. A typical pig has a large head with a long snout, strengthened by a special prenasal bone and by a disk of cartilage at the tip; the snout is used to dig into the soil to find food and is a acute sense organ. There are four hoofed toes on each foot, with the two larger central toes bearing most of the weight, but the outer two being used in soft ground; the dental formula of adult pigs is 3.1.4.33.1.4.3. The rear teeth are adapted for crushing. In the male, the canine teeth form tusks, which grow continuously and are sharpened by being ground against each other.
Captive mother pigs may savage their own piglets if they become stressed. Some attacks on newborn piglets are non-fatal. Others may cause the death of the piglets and sometimes, the mother may eat the piglets, it is estimated that 50% of piglet fatalities are due to the mother attacking, or unintentionally crushing, the newborn pre-weaned animals. With around 1 billion individuals alive at any time, the domestic pig is one of the most numerous large mammals on the planet; the ancestor of the domestic pig is the wild boar, one of the most numerous and widespread large mammals. Its many subspecies are native to all but the harshest climates of continental Eurasia and its islands and Africa as well, from Ireland and India to Japan and north to Siberia. Long isolated from other pigs on the many islands of Indonesia and the Philippines, pigs have evolved into many different species, including wild boar, bearded pigs, warty pigs. Humans have introduced pigs into Australia and South America, numerous islands, either accidentally as escaped domestic pigs which have gone feral, or as wild boar.
The wild pig can take advantage of any forage resources. Therefore, it can live in any productive habitat that can provide enough water to sustain large mammals such as pigs. If there is increased foraging of wild pigs in certain areas, it can cause a nutritional shortage which can cause the pig population to decrease. If the nutritional state returns to normal, the pig population will most rise due to the pigs' increased reproduction rate. Pigs are omnivores, which means that they consume both animals. In the wild, they are foraging animals eating leaves, roots and flowers, in addition to some insects and fish; as livestock, pigs are fed corn and soybean meal with a mixture of vitamins and minerals added to the diet. Traditionally, they were raised on dairy farms and called "mortgage lifters", due to their ability to use the excess milk as well as whey from cheese and butter making combined with pasture. Older pigs will consume three to five gallons of water per day; when kept as pets, the optimal healthy diet consists of a balanced diet of raw vegetables, although some may give their pigs conventional mini pig pellet feed.
Domesticated pigs miniature breeds, are kept as pets. Domestic pigs are raised commercially as livestock; because of their foraging abilities and excellent sense of smell, they are used to find truffles in many European countries. Both wild and feral pigs are hunted; the short, coarse hairs of the pig are called brist
Columbia Road Flower Market
Columbia Road Flower Market is a street market in Bethnal Green in London, England. Columbia Road is a road of Victorian shops off Hackney Road in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets; the market is open on Sundays only. Columbia Market was built upon an area known as Nova Scotia Gardens; this had been a brick field, north-east of St Leonard's, the brick clay had been exhausted and the area begun to be filled in with waste. Cottages, came to be built here, but were undesirable as they remained below ground level, so were prone to flooding. London Burkers In July 1830, John Bishop and Thomas Williams rented no. 3 Nova Scotia Garden, from a Sarah Trueby. Together with Michael Shields, a Covent Garden porter, James May known as Jack Stirabout and Black Eyed Jack, they formed a notorious gang of Resurrection men, stealing freshly buried bodies for sale to anatomists. On 7 November 1831 the suspiciously fresh corpse of a 14-year-old boy was delivered, by these men, to the King's College School of Anatomy, in the Strand.
Joseph Sadler Thomas, a superintendent of police, searched the cottages at Nova Scotia Gardens, found items of clothing in a well in one of the gardens, in one of the privies, suggesting multiple murders. The Resurrection men were arrested, by an extraordinary arrangement, the police opened the premises for viewing, charging 5 shillings; the public carried away piece by piece, as souvenirs. Bishop and Williams were hanged at Newgate on 5 December 1831 for the murder; the police had tentatively identified the body as that of Carlo Ferrari, an Italian boy, from Piedmont, but at their trial Bishop and Williams admitted it to be that of a Lincolnshire cattle drover, on his way to Smithfield. By 1840, the area had degenerated into a notorious slum, it is for this reason that the philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts purchased the land, established Columbia Market. Origins of Columbia MarketAngela Burdett-Coutts established Columbia Market in 1869 as a covered food market with 400 stalls, her secretary and future husband William Burdett-Coutts came to own the market, built up a considerable fishing fleet in the North Sea.
He was involved in a planned railway line for the delivery of the fish to the market. The market closed after use as warehouses and small workshops. Prompted by Charles Dickens, Angela Burdett-Coutts built the separate U-shaped Columbia Dwellings, of several storeys, with a three-storey Gothic arch built into the brickwork of the central section; the building was demolished in 1958, although the remains of railings can be seen in front of the Nursery School. Sivill House and the Dorset Estate replaced the Coutts buildings; the Columbia Road flower market began as a Saturday trading market. It was moved to Sunday, by Act of Parliament, in order to accommodate the needs of local Jewish traders; this provided the opportunity for Covent Garden and Spitalfields traders to sell their stock left over from Saturday. The enduring interest and demand for cut flowers and plants were introduced to the East End by Huguenot immigrants, together with a fascination for caged song birds – the pub at the end of the market is called The Birdcage.
The market suffered in World War II from rules prioritising food production, went into a long decline. A large civilian shelter beneath the market suffered a direct hit by a 50 kg bomb on the night of Saturday, 7 September 1940, at the height of The Blitz. From the 1960s, new rules forced traders to attend and the market enjoyed a new resurgence with the increasing popularity of gardening programmes. Modern market The market is in operation every Sunday from 8 am to 2 pm. Traders arrive from 4 am to set up their stalls. A wide range of plants, bedding plants, shrubs and freshly cut flowers is available at competitive prices. Many of the traders are the third generation of their family to sell at the market; the market has shops selling bread and cheeses, garden accessories, unusual international edibles, soap and Buddhist artefacts. Much of Columbia Road is part of the Jesus Green Hospital Estate; the market is popular not only with plant and flower buyers but with photographers and television companies, who film there.
The nearest stations are Shoreditch High Street. Bethnal Green and Bethnal Green and Cambridge Heath mainline stations are within walking distance. Bus routes 26, 48 and 55 serve Hackney Road, 8, 388 and D3 serve Bethnal Green Road. Parking restrictions and eager traffic wardens make parking near the market difficult. One solution is to park free of charge on the Hackney side of Hackney Road where traffic wardens do not operate on a Sunday. List of markets in London Market Retail Helen MacDonald - Legal Bodies: Dissecting Murderers at the Royal College of Surgeons, London 1800-1832 - in Traffic: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Journal, No.2, 2003 pp.9-32 ISSN 1447-2538 Sarah Wise - The Italian Boy: A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London ISBN 0805075372 Image of the'Burker' cottages, at City of London library www.columbiaroad.info - Columbia Road Main Site
Surrey Street Market
Surrey Street Market is a street market located in Surrey Street, south London. Records of a market on the site date back to the 13th century, it operates six days a week, Monday to Saturday, sells fruit and vegetables. A market may have existed in Croydon as early as the Anglo-Saxon period, but the earliest certain record is from 1236–7, when an isolated account roll refers to stallage fees. A market charter was granted to the town by Robert Kilwardby, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1276; the medieval marketplace laid out in 1276, occupied the triangle of land now defined by the High Street, Surrey Street, Crown Hill. To take advantage of the slope of the ground, it seems that the higher and well-drained east side came to be used for corn-trading, the lower-lying west side for trading in livestock and hides. By the Middle Ages, the open marketplace was becoming infilled with buildings. A building on the east side was bought for use as a market house in 1566, was succeeded by another cornmarket nearby in 1609.
The older market house was taken over as a general provisions market, was rebuilt for that purpose in 1708. It continued to be used until 1874; the charter of 1276 had authorised a weekly market to be held on Wednesdays. The earliest mention of markets being held on Saturday dates from 1595, market day remained Saturday until the middle of the 19th century. In 1861, the cornmarket was moved to Thursday, was held on that day until corn-trading ended in 1907. A minority of traders, mistrusting the change, continued to hold a rival Saturday cornmarket until 1892; the general provisions market continued to be held on Saturdays until 1874, when the Butter Market building closed. Although much of the old marketplace triangle was built up by the 19th century, a small open space remained in Market Street behind the Butter Market building, this became the main focus of street trading. However, in 1893 the entire triangle was comprehensively cleared and redeveloped by Croydon Corporation; this development pushed all street trading activities into Surrey Street.
In 1922, the street market was taken over by Croydon Corporation, relaunched as a 6-day market, which it remains. Saturday continues to be the busiest trading day. In November 1994 the market received a royal visit from H. R. H. Charles, Prince of Wales. Surrey Street is located behind the Croydon Grants cinema; the market stretches the whole length of the road. In 2013 there were 75 stalls in the street, as well as shops including Iceland and KFC; the market is used as a location for television and advertising. Since 1997 Croydon Council has run an annual "Good Stall Award" to encourage stall holders to maintain good trading practices. St George's Walk Croydon Harris, Oliver; the Archbishops' Town: the making of medieval Croydon. Croydon: Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society. ISBN 0-906047-20-X. Lovett, Vivien. Surrey Street, Croydon: a stall story: 100 years of market trading. Coulsdon: Frosted Earth. ISBN 0-9516710-5-7. "Surrey Street Market". Discover Old Town. Archived from the original on 1 April 2015.
Retrieved 16 April 2015. "Surrey Street Market". LondonTown.com. Retrieved 4 April 2017. Croydon Council Markets site
Clock tower
Clock towers are a specific type of building which houses a turret clock and has one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can adjoin or be located on top of another building. Clock towers are a common sight in many parts of the world with some being iconic buildings. One example is the Elizabeth Tower in London. There are many structures which may have clocks or clock faces attached to them and some structures have had clocks added to an existing structure. According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat a building is defined as a building if at least fifty percent of its height is made up of floor plates containing habitable floor area. Structures that do not meet this criterion, are defined as towers. A clock tower fits this definition of a tower and therefore can be defined as any tower built with one or more clock faces and that can be either freestanding or part of a church or municipal building such as a town hall.
Not all clocks on buildings therefore make the building into a clock tower. The mechanism inside the tower is known as a turret clock, it marks the hour by sounding large bells or chimes, sometimes playing simple musical phrases or tunes. Although clock towers are today admired for their aesthetics, they once served an important purpose. Before the middle of the twentieth century, most people did not have watches, prior to the 18th century home clocks were rare; the first clocks didn't have faces, but were striking clocks, which sounded bells to call the surrounding community to work or to prayer. They were therefore placed in towers. Clock towers were placed near the centres of towns and were the tallest structures there; as clock towers became more common, the designers realized that a dial on the outside of the tower would allow the townspeople to read the time whenever they wanted. The use of clock towers dates back to the antiquity; the earliest clock tower was the Tower of the Winds in Athens.
In its interior, there was a water clock, driven by water coming down from the Acropolis. In Song China, an astronomical clock tower was designed by Su Song and erected at Kaifeng in 1088, featuring a liquid escapement mechanism. In England, a clock was put up in a clock tower, the medieval precursor to Big Ben, at Westminster, in 1288; the oldest surviving turret clock part of a clock tower in Europe is the Salisbury cathedral clock, completed in 1306. Al-Jazari constructed an elaborate clock and described it in his Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206, it was about 3.3 metres high, had multiple functions alongside timekeeping. It included a display of the zodiac and the solar and lunar paths, a pointer in the shape of the crescent moon which travelled across the top of a gateway, moved by a hidden cart and causing automatic doors to open, each revealing a mannequin, every hour, it was possible to re-program the length of day and night daily in order to account for the changing lengths of day and night throughout the year, it featured five robotic musicians who automatically play music when moved by levers operated by a hidden camshaft attached to a water wheel.
Other components of the castle clock included a main reservoir with a float, a float chamber and flow regulator and valve trough, two pulleys, crescent disc displaying the zodiac, two falcon automata dropping balls into vases. Line synchronous tower clocks were introduced in the United States in the 1920s; some clock towers have become famous landmarks. Prominent examples include Elizabeth Tower built in 1859, which houses the Great Bell in London, the tower of Philadelphia City Hall, the Rajabai Tower in Mumbai, the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin, the Torre dell'Orologio in the Piazza San Marco in Venice and the Zytglogge clock tower in the Old City of Bern, Switzerland; the tallest freestanding clock tower in the world is the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, United Kingdom. The tower stands at 100 metres tall and was completed in 1908; the clock tower of Philadelphia City Hall was part of the tallest building in the world from 1894, when the tower was topped out and the building occupied, until 1908.
Taller buildings have had clock faces added to their existing structure such as the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, with a clock added in 2000. The building has a roof height of 187.68 m, an antenna height of 237 m. The NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building in Tokyo, with a clock added in 2002, has a roof height of 240 m, an antenna height of 272 m; the Abraj Al Bait, a hotel complex in Mecca constructed in 2012, has the largest and highest clock face on a building in the world, with its Makkah Royal Clock Tower having an occupied height of 494.4 m, a tip height of 601 m. The tower has four clock faces. List of clock towers Bell tower Minaret Street clock Thirteenth stroke of the clock Towerclocks.org - Tower clocks database Railway Station Clock Towers Architecture of time
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