Grand Arcade clock: Hidden history of a Leeds city centre landmark
‘Time and tide wait for no man’ reads the motto.
The Grand Arcade clock has thrilled generations of city centre visitors.
It was designed and made by renowned clockmakers Robert, James and Joseph Potts and dates from the end of the Victorian period, installed in 1898.
As the clock strikes the hour the figures emerge on a revolving stage. A guardsman salutes, the Scotsman wearing Highland dress bows, there is an Irishman with a Shillelagh, a Canadian and an Indian. As the figures rotate back into the clock a cockerel crows and flaps its wings from a position above the dial.
The original motto beneath the clock was changed from 'Come what may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day', a quotation from Macbeth by William Shakespeare in the late 1960s.
Enjoy this two minute video report on the history of the clock which continues to spark wonder and delight to this day.