Gershom-Parkington clock collection gives staff at Moyse's Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds an extra challenge as the clocks go back

As we prepare for the clocks going back on Sunday, staff at Moyse’s Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds have a bigger challenge on their hands – winding back the museum’s 16 grandfather clocks.

Visitors to the Gershom-Parkington clock collection on the museum’s second floor are treated to staggered chiming playing into the room every hour – and in some cases every quarter of the hour.

Some clocks play the continuous one-toned pang, others play popular melodies of the centuries in which they were built and the rest have the Westminster chimes playing a tune all too familiar to Londoners and regulars to the capital.

And it’s all thanks to heritage officer Alex McWhirter and his colleagues, who wind up the clocks once a week on a Thursday and keep them ticking over for guests.

“It’s a difficult job to get absolutely right because these clocks are hundreds of years old and don’t run like, excuse the pun, clockwork,” said Alex.

“The result is that after about an hour of winding, although they’re all more or less right, there are some which still show different times and chime at different moments. But I think that’s quite nice for visitors to hear.”

The 16 longcase clocks are just the start of musician Frederic Gershom-Parkington’s vast collection of time pieces, which he left to Bury St Edmunds in
memory of his son John, who died during the Second World War.

Among the collection are also ornamental German Augsburg clocks and pieces created by esteemed clock makers such as Benjamin Vulliamy and John Pace.

Mr McWhirter added: “This is an important collection and mirrors national museums around the world with the variety of clocks and names that are associated with them.

“The clocks don’t always reflect technological skill but they are works of art in their own right.

“What I find particularly interesting is that every time piece tells a different story, not only about those who made and owned them but about the history and fashions of the time.”

And the clock-winding isn’t only confined to the building’s second floor.

Alex also has to go upstairs to the museum’s own clock tower every Tuesday to undertake the 20-minute turning of the town’s well-known time piece, dating back to the 1860s, which will see him wind the levers on both sides 106 times each in order to raise the bells’ weights.

Visit the collection from 10am until 5pm Monday to Saturday or 12pm until 4pm on Sunday.

• The clocks will go back by one hour at 2am on Sunday, October 28.