Fixing the Portobello Police Station Clock

A small team climbed into the nineteenth-century clock tower of Portobello’s recently community-acquired police station to figure out how to get its three-faced clock telling the right time. The building, begun in 1877 and later a library and police station, is being cleared of 1970s alterations by volunteers. Inside the tower they found the original-looking gear train driven by a small electric motor; each face has a minute-driven shaft and hour gearing with counterweights. Time was reset by lifting a pawl to disconnect the motor and turning the shaft directly, then confirming the faces from ground level. A momentary disorientation inside made them briefly think the clock ran backwards until they checked outside.

The chiming system proved more complex: a modern-ish control box (PIC 16F628 microcontroller, relay outputs, lead-acid battery charger) controls a mains chime motor and counts strikes via switches, while an hour-trigger switch tells it when to chime. The box contains no real clock, only a counter advanced by an “advance” button (hold for seconds to step an hour), a “reset” that cuts motor power, and a cryptic LED code left unexplained. They tested timekeeping, silenced the noisy chime by disconnecting its motor, and suggested future enhancements (schedulable chimes, remote triggers, event-only strikes, and decorative LED lighting) while celebrating in the pub afterward.