Qualla: Wellington Clock Tower

Wellington Clock Tower: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robin Webster, CC BY-SA 2.0. It is the only Wellington memorial that London threw out. Built in 1854 at the southern end of London Bridge to commemorate the Duke of Wellington, the Perpendicular Gothic tower was completed without its statue because the public subscription ran short. The clock inside, made for the Great Exhibition of 1851, rattled itself unreliable under the vibration of passing carts. Within ten years the Metropolitan Police had declared it a traffic obstruction, and in 1867 the workmen pulled it down. It would almost certainly have ended in a builder's yard, except that a Swanage quarryman happened to be in London with empty ships heading home.

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Image: Robin Webster | CC BY-SA 2.0

Wellington Clock Tower: A Memorial Half-Built

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, died in 1852, and the Commissioners for Lighting the West Division of Southwark organised a memorial to stand at the southern end of London Bridge. Funds came from public subscription and contributions from the railway companies whose new...

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Image: N Chadwick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Wellington Clock Tower: An Unreliable Clock

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Even unfinished, the structure had a working role. The clock had been built for the Great Exhibition of 1851 by Bennett of Blackheath, the celebrated London watchmaker, who promised to maintain it for the rest of his life. The lower room of the tower was leased to the new electri...

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Image: Public domain

Wellington Clock Tower: Shipped to Swanage

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eugene Birchall, CC BY-SA 2.0. George Burt, the Swanage stonemason and contractor who had made a fortune supplying Purbeck and Portland limestone to London builders, was in the right place at the right time. Burt was already shipping building materials between Swanage and the capital. He bought the dismantled ...

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Image: Eugene Birchall | CC BY-SA 2.0

Wellington Clock Tower: Without the Spire

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Faherty, CC BY-SA 2.0. The tower as rebuilt in Swanage still carried Ashpitel's original spire, the crocketed Gothic finial that had pointed at the London sky. In 1904 a later owner removed it, possibly for stability, possibly for taste, leaving the truncated structure that visitors see today. The cloc...

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Image: Mike Faherty | CC BY-SA 2.0

Wellington Clock Tower: Twice Repurposed, Still Standing

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chin tin tin, CC BY 3.0. Few buildings have had quite such a strange biography. Conceived as a memorial that never received its statue, it spent thirteen years failing in central London. It survived only because a Dorset quarryman saw the cost of the stones rather than the futility of the project. It has...

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Image: Chin tin tin | CC BY 3.0