Make sure your volume is on
Show transcript
This isn't the original building, it had two predecessors, both built in the shape of a pagoda, but unfortunately both of them got washed away in a storm. So this more substantial building was built in 1902. This is on top of the only hill we have in Fleetwood and this originally a sand hill, and it was from this Sandhill that the town was designed and developed. The story goes that when Decimus Burton, the eminent London architect was asked to design Fleetwood by his friend, sir, Peter Hesketh Fleetwood that he used this hill as a starting point. The streets were marked out with a plough in the shape of a wheel from this point.
The clock was donated to the town in memory of the men who lost their lives in the first world war and thinking about it, from today's perspective, it was a very appropriate gift for the town. A very well thought out gift because in those days, of course not everybody had a watch and the clock could be seen from all over the town and heard every quarter of an hour day and night from all over the town. So it was well appreciated.
There has been a weather station up here from the late 1800s and information from here used to go off to the meteorological office on a regular basis and was used in the formation of weather forecasting for the country before everything was computerised.
There was an anemometer on the top of the building. So wind speed was measured. It measured wind speed, air pressure, rain, and also there was a globe that measured the sunshine, the hours of sunshine in a day. So even in the late 1800s, we had the hours of sunshine, the wind speed, the rainfall and the air pressure, all measured from up.
