This is an unusual clock.

It’s got four hands. There are two hour hands, one red, one black. It will be particularly useful if you often need to know the time in two different parts of the world – perhaps the time in another office, or of a friend who lives abroad.

You can buy this 24 hour clock from Franklin Clocks.

It wouldn’t be as easy to do this with a 12 hour clock face. If, for example, the black hand was pointing to 8 on a 12 hour face, and the red hand pointed to 2, you couldn’t tell whether the red hand was 6 hours earlier than the black one or ahead of it.

There are interesting parallels between this clock and a few clocks that were built in the 19th century during the early days of the railway network’s rapid expansion. At Bristol Corn Exchange, for example, a clock with two minute hands was installed during the 1840s.

One hand indicated the time in London, the time that Brunel’s Great Western Railway kept. The other minute hand showed local time, 11 minutes slower, as kept by Bristolians.

Then, the concern was with the time kept in another town. Now, we’re interested in the time on the other side of the world.

Arlene emailed me with details of a clock that she bought at an auction many years ago.

The box contained a carved wooden clock face and some parts. From the remaining parts, it appears to have been a weight driven wall clock. It has a 24 hour face with 12 at top and bottom and all numbers in Arabic numerals. A slim bodied bird (now minus its wings) on a wire appeared to have sat on top of the clock and may have been turned by some part of the mechanism. It was not however, a ‘cuckoo’ clock – the bird was large compared to the clock and did not leap out of the clock. The auctioneer said that the clock was a model of a European tower clock but did not remember which country or tower.

This is the clock before Arlene made some repairs.

Here it is running, after some repairs. If you’ve seen this type of clock before, or know anything about them, please let us know!