Viva Lewes Issue #134 November 2017

BITS AND BOBS
CLOCKS OF LEWES #12:
SOUTHOVER CHURCH
Functional Health Clinic & Store,
Old Needlemakers
OPENING MONDAY 6 TH NOVEMBER!
Functional Nutrition Consultations
& Laboratory Testing
Boxset packages for hormone balance,
weight loss, & optimal digestive health
Superior nutritional supplements Wild
Nutrition, Designs for Health
& Innate Response.
With over 17 years experience in
bodywork, Emma offers a wide
range of massages & organic facials
Book any 60 min Massage for £60
& get a FREE 30 min Facial or
Reflexology Treatment worth £35
Gift vouchers available
www.tanyaborowski.com
Southover Church was associated with St
Pancras Priory, but survived the 16th century
dissolution. An earlier spire collapsed in 1698, so
by 1714 work began on a new tower. Today this
houses ten bells as well as the clock, with its two
faces on the north and west walls.
Fittingly for this issue's noir theme, the clock
faces are black. That's not entirely unusual, but
blue faces are more common for British church
clocks, like that of St Thomas in Cliffe. There
are various theories: Henry VIII may have
stipulated blue to echo a description of priestly
garments in Exodus; maybe it was because blue
pigments were costly and thus seen as being
special. The Southover clock, made by Lawson &
Son of Brighton, dates from 1890, long after the
Tudor stricture had loosened.
It's wound weekly by the bell ringers. The faces
keep slightly different time, with the western face
run via a long driveshaft with right-angle gearing,
whereas the north face is driven directly.
Under the clockfaces themselves are various
memorials, including the heavily weathered Ashdown
Stone, a legacy of the prior of the Priory
in the 1520s, the De Warenne arms and another
stone underneath that includes the date of the
tower's construction.
Daniel Etherington
Thanks to Dr David Ross.
Photo by Daniel Etherington