The 1pm Siren in city centre

[crookesjoe 10]

If it’s one o’clock and there is a siren sounding, the chances are you are in the centre of Sheffield and close to HL Brown’s Barker’s Pool head office.

 

The signal – although not necessarily in the form of a siren - has been a feature of city life since at least 1874, when clocks and watches were less reliable than they are today and when the time they showed could vary by as much as 30 minutes across the country.

 

HL Brown’s time signal was linked directly to Greenwich, home to one of the first public time signals – originally intended for ships on the Thames.

 

The signal was relayed to HL Brown in Sheffield for the first time by the miracle of the telegraph, so that the company could ensure the clock it used to set customers’ timepieces by was set to Greenwich Mean Time and the people of Sheffield could set their watches.

 

The link to Greenwich is no longer necessary to keep the siren sounding as regular – or maybe more regular - as clockwork at 1pm.

 

from t'internet....

great post, interesting stuff

[Darkwitch14 0]

Where about.s does the siren actually get sounded from in the Centre . I know they used to sound it to remind people to go back to work , or am I wrong 

[RiffRaff 10]

H.L.Browns, jewellers.

If you use the forum search button, you'll find lots of earlier posts/thread about it.

 

[Darkwitch14 0]

RiffRaff , I thank you for that , will have a scour around being as am a Newbie 

[St Petre 85]

11 hours ago, Darkwitch14 said:

Where about.s does the siren actually get sounded from in the Centre . I know they used to sound it to remind people to go back to work , or am I wrong 

I think it was more to tell people it was 1 o'clock.

[FinBak 12]

On 05/07/2019 at 12:52, Darkwitch14 said:

Where about.s does the siren actually get sounded from in the Centre . I know they used to sound it to remind people to go back to work , or am I wrong 

There's a little old bloke... right on the top of H.L.Browns Roof...|Winds the handle...| Can't miss him..

[St Petre 85]

Quote

If this time signal is as 'ear splitting' and 'deafening' as people are making out, what is the farthest away from Barkers Pool its been heard ? Can it be picked up at such far flung places as Wincobank Hill, High Hazels Park, Norton Aerodrome or Lodge Moor. As for people suing for eardrum damage etc , I never heard owt as daft as that.

 

[Ontarian1981 10]

43 minutes ago, St Petre said:

 

Yeah I had to prove ar least 20 years working in the steel industry in Ontario to qualify for free hearing aids. Not that I  ever wear them . Trying to sue for hearing damage from a public clock is as daft as saying that carpal tunnel syndrome is caused by keyboarding, which has been tried a lot with the workers comp..

[St Petre 85]

9 minutes ago, Ontarian1981 said:

Yeah I had to prove ar least 20 years working in the steel industry in Ontario to qualify for free hearing aids. Not that I  ever wear them . Trying to sue for hearing damage from a public clock is as daft as saying that carpal tunnel syndrome is caused by keyboarding, which has been tried a lot with the workers comp..

Or seeking damages for supposed hearing impairment after standing on Liverpool's Kop for several seasons.

[AY1975 11]

On 10/12/2016 at 13:20, escort1 said:

On my way to work yesterday morning i asked 3 staff stood outside HL Browns about the time signal, they commented they had not noticed until i reminded them that it has not been heard recently and they did not know the reason why it is not sounding at the moment.

I'm fairly sure that it has restarted now.

 

Does anyone know if any other towns or cities in the UK have a time signal of some kind (other than a striking clock)? Offhand the only other one that I know of is Edinburgh which has the one o' clock gun. In fact, when I first saw the device on the wall outside HL Browns, with a sign next to it saying 1pm time signal, I presumed it was a one o' clock gun sound like the one in Edinburgh.

[Bilge 34]

18 hours ago, AY1975 said:

I'm fairly sure that it has restarted now.

 

Does anyone know if any other towns or cities in the UK have a time signal of some kind (other than a striking clock)? Offhand the only other one that I know of is Edinburgh which has the one o' clock gun. In fact, when I first saw the device on the wall outside HL Browns, with a sign next to it saying 1pm time signal, I presumed it was a one o' clock gun sound like the one in Edinburgh.

In Donny there used to be a siren that went off at 'The Plant' (the railway engineering workshops where they built Mallard, Flying Scotsman etc). I think that was 1pm (though might have been 3 or 4) and possibly signalled the end of a shift. You could hear it a couple of miles away.

[Jack Grey 1,602]

Its now a signal for the spice junkies to head down to the cathedral to buy their next fix