There are not many public clocks around Wellington these days. In times past, probably because not everyone was able to afford a watch, big public clocks were a prominent feature of Wellington and almost every other city and town in the world. The remaining ones in Wellington’s CBD include the Railway Station clock, the one on the Old Government Building (now the law school), the central fire station, the one in Mercer St by the corner with Willis St, the one above Sports Café on the Tory St corner with Courtenay Place, and the Courtenay Place clock, my favourite.
This clock sits on a green-painted, cast-iron pedestal on the island triangle by the long-closed (thank goodness) underground men’s toilets near the Taranaki St intersection. Its matching white faces and traditional black numbering and hands are big enough to be seen from quite a distance either side, but what has attracted my attention for some years now is that is has always been about three minutes fast. This has been the case whether we have been on daylight saving time or standard time, so whoever has been adjusting it has carefully made sure to set it three minutes fast each time. I have wondered if this is to help ensure people are not late for their bus, but I doubt it, as bus timetables are often a work of fiction and rarely to be relied on. I have therefore decided that the reason this clock is traditionally fast is one of those great Wellington mysteries, up there with why motorists honk in the Mt Victoria tunnel.
I looked through the main public resources for the history of this clock and found nothing, but Geoffrey Snedden of the city council’s urban design unit was able to help, for which I am most grateful. He believes the clock was originally installed in the 1920s, but on the west side of Taranaki St as part of the development of Pigeon Park (now Te Aro Park), and sat where the prow of the canoe sculpture is now. Though no council record exists of its construction, he says, it is considered to be a “tram clock.” Those were clocks that tram drivers used to check their timekeeping, the council being the operator of the city’s trams, which last ran in 1964. “The 1927 plan of Pigeon Park shows a tree in the location where the clock was put in,” he says. “We are not sure if the tree was in fact planted there.” The clock was moved to its present position on the triangle when Pigeon Park was upgraded to Te Aro Park between 1989 and 1992.
To my surprise, in recent days, the clock’s Taranaki St face has begun showing the correct time, while the Mt Vic face is exactly 30 minutes slow. Perhaps it has been let slip during the preparations for its imminent removal to a new position on the median strip of Courtenay Place, adjacent to its present site. If you’ve been through the area this week, you will have seen that the narrow slip road between the triangle and the shops where Civic Video and Burger Fuel are has been closed. The triangle and the slip road are being turned into the new Courtenay Place Park. Tom Beard at WellUrban has a good post on the project, with handy links to his previous posts about it and controversies about the plan. The city council also has an informative page on it. The working name for this new pocket park was Clock Park, so it seems the original intent was to leave the clock there, but at least it will still grace the same end of Courtenay Place. I just hope it doesn’t get knocked down by a runaway truck or bus, given the narrowness of the median there and the traffic volume, which has increased now traffic turning left from Courtenay Place into Taranaki St can no longer use the slip road.
2 Comments
January 18, 2008 at 11:14 am
Excellent post Poneke. Inspector Clouseau, eat your heart out!
January 18, 2008 at 5:18 pm
This series has reminded me what a quirky city Wellington is. I really should move back some day.