The Chesham Quare, Circa 1710 a walnut mean and solar time longcase timepiece

The Chesham Quare | Circa 1710
An extremely rare and important Queen Anne burr-walnut veneered, dual indication, mean and solar time, longcase timepiece.
Height: 10 feet 1 inch (3073 mm).
Case: The ogee-caddy top case with cross-grain walnut mouldings and burr walnut veneers. With pierced faux-sound frets to the shaped friezes above and below the main hood mouldings, set above brass-capped Doric columns and concave throat mouldings, the rectangular trunk door with gilt-metal spandrel mounts to the corners, the sides with ‘pouch’ extensions for the two pendula. The matching burr walnut panelled plinth raised on a single skirt with moulded block feet.
Dial: Specifically designed 15 by 161⁄2 inch (381 by 419 mm) gilt-brass dial with dual, interlocking chapter rings for mean and solar time, each with its own subsidiary seconds ring above, each flanking the central ring with twin hands for annual calendar (the date of month indicated in four quadrants) and equation of time indication below the swept- ogee arch top, signed Dan. / Quare on the interlocking silvered chapter rings and London on the dial plate immediately below, the sculpted hands of blued steel, the matted chapter-ring centres with ring-turned winding holes, the margin-spaces of the dial plate with applied gilt-metal masked spandrels of typical, but specially designed, Quare ornament.
Duration: One month.
Movement: The twin month movements, contained in a single large frame, the IX side pendulum beating mean solar time seconds, annual (Julian) calendar and equation of time (now 13 days out to the present Gregorian calendar); The III side pendulum beating sidereal seconds (0.99727 mean solar time seconds). Both pendula adjusted by calibrated rating nuts.
Escapement: Twin anchors with two, mean and solar seconds, pendula.
Provenance:
• Possibly commissioned by Prince George of Denmark (d. 1708), consort to Queen Anne, but completed after his death and sold elsewhere.
• Possibly thus acquired by William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire, who, on the evidence of the Glynne equinoctial ring dial he commissioned, was interested in high- end instruments and clocks; thence to his 3rd son.
• Lord Charles Cavendish (1704-83); thence to his elder son.
• The Hon. Henry Cavendish (1731-1810), FRS, noted scientist, the discoverer of hydrogen and known collector of precision clocks, whose residuary legatee was his cousin.
• Lord George Henry Cavendish (1754-1834), ennobled 1831 as 1st Earl of Burlington (second creation), by whom possibly bequeathed to his 4th son.
• The Hon. Charles Compton Cavendish (1793-1863), 1st Baron Chesham.
• Thence by descent through the Lords Chesham, until sold in 1997 by 6th Lord Chesham, through Charles Lee, for £350,000.
Exhibited:
• 2004, Huygens’ Legacy, Paleis Het Loo, Holland, exhibit no.90.
• 2018, Innovation & Collaboration, London, exhibit no.116.
Literature:
• Ernest Watkins, Apollo, May 1938, p.275-276 illus.
• HA Lloyd, Some Outstanding Clocks Over 700 Years, 1958, illus. pl.88a.
• J Betts, The Double Clocks by Daniel Quare, Antiquarian Horology, Spring 1998 p.30-35 illus.
• Harris, Letter, Antiquarian Horology, Summer 1998, giving the date of the Greenwich Hospital clock as 1716.
• Huygens’ Legacy, The Golden Age of the pendulum clock, 2004, p.262-267.
• Garnier & Hollis, Innovation & Collaboration, 2018, p.374-377 (illus).
Comparative Literature:
• Garnier & Carter, The Golden Age of English Horology, 2015, Quare chapter p.261-312.
This is one of only two complete double-timepiece solar/siderial longcases known by Quare; it has never before been on the open market and is the only one left in private hands, the other being The Greenwich Hospital Quare. There is also a movement and dial signed Quare & Horseman, no.148, with a later case, that sold in 1987 and was bought by the British Museum (Ref no.1987, 1104.1).
The present clock incorporates two independent movements within the same frame, thus having twin going trains (for solar time and mean or sidereal time) with twin escapements and pendula.
The setting out of the intersecting twin chapter rings is a masterwork of the engraver’s art and this clock (and its pair ar Greenwich) is at the pinnacle of English clockmakers’ achievement in the quest for accuracy, allowing the direct comparison within one clock of two differing methods of registering time, following the adoption of the pendulum.
It is not known for whom the present clock was made, but being a clock displaying two forms of time, Mean and Solar, it is of a type that would have interested Prince George of Denmark, consort of Queen Anne.
For further information about Dr John C Taylor, please visit his website at www.johnctaylo...