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These photographs compare the clock face at the Hay Street end of London Court in Perth with Le Gros Horloge, or the Great Clock, at Rouen in Normandy, France, on which it is based. An article in The West Australian newspaper in 1937, and repeated on the official London Court website, claims that the London Court clock face designed by H. Hope-Jones is a ‘replica’ of the one at Rouen. Yet a comparison of the photographs shows that this is not the case. Although the layout is the same the materials are different and the central sun on the Rouen clock is much larger. Le Gros Horloge also only has a single hand, to indicate the hour, whereas the London Court clock has the conventional modern two hands.
The Rouen clock mechanism was installed in the early fifteenth century, whilst the clock face was added a century later. The clock includes figures associated with the day of the week appearing at noon on the appropriate day and, above the clock, a globe depicting the phase of the moon.
For London Court see www.londoncourt.com.au. For the newspaper article ‘Two New Clocks’ see http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article41438038.