St Dunstan-in-the-West (Gog & Magog) - Fleet Street, London, UK
N 51° 30.846 W 000° 06.609
30U E 700511 N 5710956
St Dunstan-in-the-West stands on the north side of Fleet Street. As well as having clock faces on its tower it has a further clock with automatons striking bells.
Waymark Code: WMEMZK
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 06/16/2012
Views: 7
This church has two bell towers of which this is the
smaller and more entertaining. The bells can be seen from the street and the
bells are struck on the hour and quarter hours by two figures: Gog and Magog.
The St Dunstan-in-the-West website (visit
link) has a section about these two bells:
"The Clock and Giants
St Dunstan-in-the-West was a well-known landmark in
previous centuries because of its magnificent clock. This dates from 1671, and
was the first public clock in London to have a minute hand. The figures of the
two giants strike the hours and quarters, and turn their heads. There are
numerous literary references to the clock, including in Tom Brown’s Schooldays,
the Vicar of Wakefield and a poem by William Cowper (1782):
When labour and when dullness, club in
hand,
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan’s stand,
Beating alternately in measured time
The clockwork tintinnabulum of rhyme,
Exact and regular the sounds will be,
But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me.