SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

,There's also a big microphone inside the workings of the clock, this is for a piece of 'live art' just inside the Art gallery. If you stand + listen you can hear the ticking of a clock. This is the Town Hall clock actually ticking.The other piece of 'live art' you can hear is the sound of 'babbling water'. This is from the microphone placed under the 'Dark Arches' at the Granary Wharf,     Post    

wsmith wrote: The whole thing about the Infirmary is just a cover. Noise doesn't stop them putting gigs on on the Square, does it?A good friend of mine tells me that the staff at the Town Hall stopped the clock striking midnight decades and decades ago, because whenever it did, the ghost of a girl called Mary Blythe, who threw herself in grief from the top of the Clocktower in 1867, walks the steps once again. There is an old song about it which ends;! No it's because if the clock strikes midnight the lions will wake up and go around Leeds terrorising the population - at least that's what I was told when I was a kid.

I lived opposite the Town Hall from 1961-68 (my parents were live-in caretakers for a firm of estate agents) and can confirm that the clock didn't chime from 11pm to 6am inclusive, thankfully! I never saw the lions move either!

MsJ2uk wrote: ,There's also a big microphone inside the workings of the clock, this is for a piece of 'live art' just inside the Art gallery. If you stand + listen you can hear the ticking of a clock. This is the Town Hall clock actually ticking.The other piece of 'live art' you can hear is the sound of 'babbling water'. This is from the microphone placed under the 'Dark Arches' at the Granary Wharf,     Post     Yeah i got the microphone on one of my shots.. I think it's switched off now though.. My Other clock tower pictures are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/phill_dvsn ... 48/detail/    

I seem to remember hearing a story from a mate who went up on a tour of the tower a couple of years ago when the mic was still on, and there was a lot of chatting around and some expleteives "king hell what a tiny mechanism for sucha big clock". Though nothing of it... when they got to the bottom, someone from the Art Gallery came running over to the town hall going mad that members of the public had complained that the tranquility in the gallery was being disturbed, and children asking what the strange words meant!!!

Lee you should have heard my mates expletives when he was photographing the clock mechanism,, Before the bell strikes, the cogs & levers start to rev up in an alarming fashion. It started buzzing louder. boy did he come flying down them stairs. It reminded me of the dads army episode when the German parachutist got stuck on the town hall clock. Remember that one folks? Jonesy got prodded up the backside by the Grim Reaper.. I DON'T LIKE IT MR MANWARING!! DON'T PANIC     

MsJ2uk wrote: ,There's also a big microphone inside the workings of the clock, this is for a piece of 'live art' just inside the Art gallery. If you stand + listen you can hear the ticking of a clock. This is the Town Hall clock actually ticking.The other piece of 'live art' you can hear is the sound of 'babbling water'. This is from the microphone placed under the 'Dark Arches' at the Granary Wharf,     Post     No chance mate,the Aire under the dark arches is no babbling brook,its a torrent.Go to the dark arches ,or better still have a walk down whitehall riverside in the direction of the train station.That tgranquil river changes in an instant to a much stronger force of nature when it hits the supporting arches of the station.The question you have to ask is,how did they build this in the first place?

Phill_d wrote: Lee you should have heard my mates expletives when he was photographing the clock mechanism,, Before the bell strikes, the cogs & levers start to rev up in an alarming fashion. It started buzzing louder. boy did he come flying down them stairs. It reminded me of the dads army episode when the German parachutist got stuck on the town hall clock. Remember that one folks? Jonesy got prodded up the backside by the Grim Reaper.. I DON'T LIKE IT MR MANWARING!! DON'T PANIC      I seem to remember a big physical and aural" Thud" prior to the sound of the bell.I pantsed it any way (is pantsed a word?)

I did think the bell would be a lot louder than it is though. We were stood under it, and Munki did warn us that it was striking, but not a case of having to put my hands over my ears...THEY DON'T LIKE IT UP 'EM!

LS1 wrote: I did think the bell would be a lot louder than it is though. We were stood under it, and Munki did warn us that it was striking, but not a case of having to put my hands over my ears...THEY DON'T LIKE IT UP 'EM! Around the midnight hour and every other hour as well at the moment - our grand old Town Hall clock has been asleep for a while now as those in town must have noticed.Seems, according to the Evening Post, that the winding mechanism is deceased and awaits new parts being custom made. Let's hope it's back with us soon.In the same article, the YEP tells us that the makers, Dents of London also constructed the clock on the Houses of Parliament which seemingly has moved to a tower called, 'Big Ben'!