The state of the City

Central London brings a mass of sights for the horologist but fewer now than of old. It was great to have the chance to try some long exposure night time photography in the City. Thank you @grantcsmith for the tuition. However it is sad that the eastern City has all but got rid of its public clocks. Modern commercial office towers somehow don't have the room for a clock dial, and in any case the current generation of office workers are so busy looking at their phones that they wouldn't notice anyway.

Given this preoccupation they are unlikely to notice that the quality of the architecture is, well, suspect too. Richard Roger's Lloyds building, whether one likes it or not, is at least a coherent architectural statement, as is Foster's Gherkin and indeed the attractive curves of the Willis building opposite Lloyds. However, substituting glass and curtain walling for concrete, the almost brutalist style of the Shard, the Scalpel and of course those that don't have nicknames, but are just bland boxes that are a bit sharp, has transformed the City for the worse. And they don't have clocks.

So it was a particular pleasure, and irony, to spot the 15th Century church and church tower at St Andrew Undershaft in St Mary Axe. Irony because it is over-shadowed, massively, by Foster's Swiss Re building, the Gherkin. This glorious little church survived the great fire of London and the Blitz and is still standing proud against the architectural incoherence around it, even if it is overshadowed.

Standing proud does not unfortunately apply to the magnificent clock at the parish church of St Magnus the Martyr in Lower Thames Street. Proudly dated 1709, this clock, standing at the end of London Bridge, would once have been visible to anybody walking across from the south bank. Now it is hidden unless you know exactly where to look, caught up in a maze of horrid bland office blocks that obscure its visibility to all but the dedicated clock watcher; and in this case, seeker.

It really is one of London's horological gems and deserves far far better.