Brighton Clock Tower

The clock tower is a nice central landmark of the city and adds that little finishing touch to things you expect a city to have (cough cough, yeah we really ‘do’ have a cathedral). It was nice to see the structure get restored to some of it’s former glory in the early 2000’s and also the random decision to leave a load of fairly lights permanently suspended form the clock tower to the surrounding buildings. When they are turned on during some nights you get the impression of a massive jellyfish in the sky.
The mosaic work is good around the column walls of the structure and it’s worth taking a brief pause from your journey to have a closer look.

Brighton’s Clock Tower is an orientation landmark for pretty much everyone I’ve met in Brighton. It’s big enough to be easy to find and obvious enough to wait by, and that’s all many of us will ever use it for, but it’s worth a look for its own sake.
Built in 1888 to commemorate Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, it is emblazoned with mosaics of the monarch, her late husband Albert, her son Edward and his wife Alexandria and built in intricate redbrick. Four corners denote the points of the compass and their corresponding areas of Brighton. The clock faces are five foot high, and there is a hydraulic mechanism on top designed by Magnus Volk (who was also responsible for the Electric Railway). The time ball, as it has become known, is a gilted copper ball that was designed to rise slowly throughout the hour and drop dramatically as the hour chimed. This didn’t last long as the vibrations reportedly began to destroy the structure, but in the course of the 2001 refurbishments the ball was repaired and now rises and falls again intermittently, although with little predictability. According to a group of enthusiasts on another website, the best place to go ball watching is not Revenge but the top floor of Waterstone’s.
Not the most immersed in history, or perhaps the most interesting landmark of them all, but worth a closer look if you haven’t already.