The Care and Conservation of Longcase Clocks

The Victorians are notable for their desecration of both clock movements and cases, sometimes in pursuit of "improved" design and performance, sometimes to meet changes in fashion but also through sheer ignorance and poor craftsmanship. It was in the latter part of the 19th century when "antique collecting" became a serious hobby and business, that the trade of "antique furniture restorer" was born. This trade has burgeoned ever since, particularly in times of inflated valuations of antiques, with an accompanying proliferation of unsympathetic and downright bad restoration work and little or no regard for conservation which is a comparatively modern post World War 2 development. Clockcases, and particularly country clockcases, seem to have borne the brunt of bad workmanship and it is principally in such clocks that we find the worst evidence. Finer quality clocks too have not been exempt from poor treatment but their usually obvious superior quality has perhaps afforded them some degree of protection.

Many clock repairers/restorers do not profess to cater for clockcase conservation and restoration, much in the same way as not every clockmaker made their own cases. Casework has always tended to be a separate trade and is nowadays definitely the preserve of the furniture conservator/restorer.

Major Alterations to Clock Cases

Before embarking on examples of typical damage found in longcase locks, it is worth looking briefly at some history. The revolutionary pendulum clock pioneered in Britain by Ashasuerus Fromanteel in about 1650, with technology imported from Holland, was a breakthrough in time keeping which certainly in the lantern clocks of earlier years was more an approximation than a science ! Only very wealthy people could afford to commission clocks and this was often clearly done as a statement of status. Consequently clocks were highly valued and the owners, or chosen henchmen, were the only ones allowed to wind or otherwise attend to the clock. To make this a reality great lengths were pursued to ensure security of the clock. Hoods were generally of the rising type, sliding vertically on the backboard engaged in grooves in the hood carcase sides. A spoon catch enabled the hood to be secured by shutting the trunk door, which was locked and presumably openable only by the keyholder.

The hinged opening hood door came later, probably as a result of generally lower house ceiling heights demanded by economics and perhaps fashion. In houses with lowered ceilings, hoods could not be lifted, since they required at least 2 feet of free air above the clock. The answer for these clocks was therefore to cut off the front of the hood, making an instant door which might be secured either by a separate door lock (either a cut-cupboard or staple lock), no lock at all or a neat spring loaded catch operated by a cord hanging down inside the trunk, thus maintaining the single point access of the rising hood clock. Often the saw marks of the hood cutting were left untrimmed and the grooves in the hood sides left unfilled and, hopefully the mechanism for holding the hood both up and open and lastly the spoon catch have not been removed. Few fully complete examples remain but certainly some evidence of the rising hood usually remains intact. Those interested in the history of such clocks can usually find the evidence, or parts of it, and may detect such desecrations as filling in or otherwise disguising the sliding grooves and covering up the saw marks of hood-cutting with veneer, since planing would probably render the door frame too thin.

The next and probably the most horrible alteration to longcases of all vintages and origins is that of shortening them to fit into a particular room. However, because of the status of the clock as a piece of family furniture which may have passed through several generations, it is easy to see why some people will go to such lengths to get their heirloom clock into a room with low ceilings. The advice that they might either sell the clock and buy a shorter one or even move house will generally not be appreciated! A tall city-made clock will stand at about 7ft to 7ft 6ins which can be some 12 to 18 inches more than a cottage's or say millhouse ceiling height at little over 6 feet. This is a lot to lose and will certainly not be achieved by just removing the brass finials, balls etc from the hood top or even lopping off the bottom of the plinth. It is not uncommon to see holes cut in ceilings and floors to accomodate a particularly precious clock but it is an option which will not appeal to everyone, although it does preserve the clock's integrity.

Also, sinking a clock into the floor, which may be damp, can have serious effects on the welfare of the plinth. Lowering the plinth height will almost certainly destroy the proportions of the clock and make it look stunted, and if it is a marquetry case, much of the picture on the plinth will be lost. However, shortened plinths are relatively easy to restore to their proper height but will be expensive if new marquetry has to be designed and cut. It is essential that the restorer knows enough about clockcase design and does not embark on what may be a serious alteration quite unrelated to the original design of the clock; there are many such examples.

The next shortening option, where the trunk length is altered, is worse still and usually signals the end of the clock case as a collectable item. The trunk of a 17th Century walnut marquetry clock (by Robertus Wilkins, London 1670) was cut by some 3 to 4 inches which further entailed shortening the door. The result is that the proportions of the whole case have been ruined, the boxwood lines on the trunk sides now disappear into the plinth, instead of being squared off, the cross grained moulding round the door has been replaced by long grain wood and mahogany at that ! This was once a collector's piece, a clock of some importance perhaps worth £25,000 or more today which, in its present and I am afraid unalterable state, is now worth practically nothing.

Although this is quite the worst option for shortening, it could be better done by telescoping the trunk into the plinth, which would make the operation reversible. In another case the "excess length" of the trunk was cut off. The work required to restore this clock back to its original height would be very expensive and the clock would sadly not be worth anything like the cost involved. To continue with this marquetry clock, evidently the amputation of the trunk was not enough and the hood was attacked. It is likely that the original hood was little if any higher than the ballustraded hat that has been attached, probably in the 19th Century, so one wonders whether this was done either out of ignorance of the most likely design of a normal moulded (cross grain) and perhaps missing original pediment or in an attempt to "improve" the look of the clock. Anyway the result is dreadful and would require a complete rebuild to restore the hood to anything like its original form and the ebonised pillars would need to be replaced with spiral twists (note the quarter section twists at the back which are original). Again this would be unlikely to a cost-effective exercise.

The last point about this poor clock is the shape and position of the lenticle. The lenticle is filled with either plain or pot glass and the pendulum bob should be directly behind it, flashing through the glass as it swings. Since the pendulum is of set length, so must the lenticle be in a set position. This one is in line with the pendulum bob but it is decidedly off-centre in the layout of the door's marquetry which suggests that either the door started its life without a lenticle (unusual in such a clock) or that the cutting of the trunk was done with little regard for the final position of the pendulum bob in relation to the trunk door. Lastly, the quality of the lenticle frame is absurdly amateur, so perhaps the whole sequence of operations was done by an enthusiastic amateur or, possibly, the door came from another clock, because there is no evidence of either hinges or lock having been moved, but there is very little space between the top and bottom edges of the marquetry and the door moulding, so perhaps the door has been cut both ends.

Typical Damage to Clock Cases and Some Ideas on Conservation and Restoration

Doors

The shape of the trunk door varies hugely in clock design. The earlier clocks were somewhat austere and had oblong doors with square corners and often applied decoration either of veneer or marquetry or, of course, lacquer. Invariably the walnut cases had cross grained mouldings or banding to the door edges or surrounds. The cross-grain moulding warps delightfully with age and is, as on all walnut furniture of the 17th and early 18th Centuries, generally a tell-tale mark of authenticity. I say "generally" because walnut is one of the easiest woods to "fake" and much excellent "reproduction work" was done by skilled cabinetmakers in the 19th century and one can be easily fooled ! In passing, this is a factor which deters many Antique Dealers from stocking walnut pieces.

What does not fool anyone is the replacement of cross grain with long grain and you can easily find examples of this. Few clock cases had handles on the doors, this was to come in the 20th Century. Most doors are entirely opened by their keys and there will be either a flush brass escutcheon lining the keyhole or a brass plate escutcheon nailed (not screwed) on the surface. Doors usually have applied edge-mouldings or lip mouldings and have to have special cranked hinges to allow the moulding to 'clear' the carcase when the door is opened. Such hinges may be of iron or brass and the former is usual in 17th and early 18th Century and country cases. The iron hinges of the 17th century were nailed and later brass hinges were more usually secured with iron screws. It should be said here that this is about the only place in which screws would have been used in a clock case. Nails were of the forged flathead clout variety for securing hinges etc. Elsewhere iron 'cut' nails and sprigs would have been used, especially in securing the backboard.

Single board doors which are common to country clocks may be cleated top and bottom as in to counteract warping but it is as common to see uncleated doors which are often warped. The heart side of the one-piece door is generally to the outside so that the door warps towards the inside of the clock trunk (away from the heart). This fault is better than having the door sides warp outwards, known as "Smiling"). Veneered and marquetry doors and especially lacquered doors, were generally cleated and quite often this shows through the applied surface where the substrates have moved. This is a difficult fault to restore and indeed, because it has happened through the natural movement of the wood, there is a strong argument for doing nothing. Whilst on this subject, the principle of minimum intervention is a basic rule of conservation which all good conservator-restorers should observe quite religiously. Before we leave "Doors", the 20th century flat-head key looks inappropriate on all antique furniture and particularly in clock doors where it is very obvious. A flat-head key can easily be filed into a nice replica old fashioned key bow and I believe it worth doing; it certainly does not degrade the clockcase or its integrity.

Hoods

The door frames are either half-lap jointed or, in the best work, they are tenoned. Often veneer or marquetry covers the joints. The hingeing of the hood door is either on iron pins top and bottom, often located in the ends of a door pillar or, because a door with pillars attached must swing well clear of the hood carcase, special swan neck hinge plates are used to enable the door to move well out of the way of the hood sides and avoid a collision. The twists of the pillars, if fitted, may be handed (right and left) on some hoods and it is a nice feature which is surprisingly obvious to the viewer. More commonly the twists are both of one hand, usually right-handed. The pillars, of whatever design are usually repeated at the back of the hood with quarter or half-sections of the same design and hand as those at the front.

The glass in the door must not be modern float glass and certainly not the non-reflective picture glass! Old handmade glass is becoming more difficult to find and, to my mind the replica material of today is not that convincing. The restorer must go out and buy some old 19th or early 20th Century pictures in the local market to build up a stock of old glass. Modern float glass shouts at you and, I believe ruins the look of an old clock. The glass is almost always puttied into the rebates of the door-frame and given a coat of varnish or shellac. Lastly, the construction of hood sides is interesting but not obvious to everyone. In hoods with rectangular side windows, the sides are generally made of three pieces which quite neatly provides the window. In oak and mahogany clocks the grain of the three pieces of wood is usually vertical, whilst in walnut examples the centre section is turned on its side with the grain running horizontally, sandwiched between two vertical neighbours. This latter construction facilitates the making of the small integral mouldings round the window which will all be cut along the grain, which in turn defies the general practice in walnut furniture of producing mouldings across the grain ! The best examples however, will probably have small cross-grain mouldings applied to each of the four sides of the windows.

Seat Boards

These are the boards which carry the movement and to which the movement is usually bolted by two hooks with screwed shanks which hook over the two bottom movement pillars. It is always very obvious when a seat board has been renewed and is a practice which should be avoided where possible. The seat board usually rests on the tops of the two side members of the trunk which extend into the hood space above the collar. These side members are often of thin section and become damaged to an extent when the seat board and hence the movement are neither safe nor stable. It is important for the running of the clock that the seatboard should be firm and carry the weight of the movement with the weights and pendulum as well as supporting the extra stress caused during winding, however carefully done.

The most sympathetic way to restore badly damaged side members is to make replacement extensions which are jointed inside the collar moulding on which the hood rests. It is important that no thickening pieces are placed inside which may interfere with the lines carrying the weights or the movement of the pendulum. The seatboard rests on the side pieces and is held there by the weight of the whole movement; screws and nails are not required and neither are they appropriate. Finishes and Decoration Cracked marquetry on an unstable substrate is common and over-restoration is also common. Part of the joy of old marquetry is the roughness of surface which develops naturally as veneers move and begin to curl at the edges, albeit very minutely. Loose and missing marquetry should be restored, but beware of those who would try to resurface it and damage or even entirely remove that special "unflat patination" so typical of old marquetry work.

Damaged lacquerwork or japanning (paintwork) is not as easily ignored because it is often very unattractive, showing the white gesso coats underneath. Restoration and conservation of these finishes is achievable without seriously altering the object's integrity and it is arguable that a properly restored lacquer or japanned finish, albeit involving major work, achieves more in the preservation of integrity than leaving it merely stabilized but seriously degraded in its appearance. This is an area in which the conservation and restoration arguments are fiercest! Restoration of lacquerwork is a very specialist area and involves serious artistic skill. It should not be confused with western japanned work. Good lacquerwork is valuable and should be treated really carefully by a person who specializes in the skill - not many do ! Finally, not all furniture conservator-restorers will necessarily have detailed knowledge of clock case design and history. It is as well to satisfy yourself that the person you choose to look after your clock case has the necessary experience. It is usual, anyway in BAFRA, for members with particular experience and skills, to advertise the fact.