please empty your brain below
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Thanks dg.
(Totally laying the blame at Wikipedia ...) doesn't the Shell Mes House also have a clock face on the other side facing away from the river - ie due North West, making the number of faces 2?
TonyO | 29.10.23 - 3:30 a.m. | #
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I found images of both sides of the Shell Mex clock face in Apple Maps 3D view.
Is the other side visible at all from the street? Doesn’t seem like a great location for a clock
Chris | 29.10.23 - 7:15 a.m. | #
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I've checked my photos taken from the roof of the Post Building on New Oxford Street...
...and yes, the Shell Mex clock has a second face facing north.
Very hard to see from ground level, I'd have thought (and means that Wikipedia's list is incorrect). I've updated the post, thanks.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 29.10.23 - 7:36 a.m. | #
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I used to see it from ground level ... junction of William IV Street and Charring Cross Road (looking down William IV Street)
TonyO | 29.10.23 - 8:13 a.m. | #
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Yay, I guessed number one correctly! I have seen all on the list except for the one in Birmingham, and probably have bad photos of them all as well.
I do like a photo with a plane in it up in the clouds.
Greg | 29.10.23 - 8:25 a.m. | #
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Notwithstanding the reliable source that is Wikipedia, could I please make a bid for the station clock *inside* St Pancras station to appear at number 4, with a diameter reported by its makers as 18 feet or therefore nearly 5½ metres?
Radinden | 29.10.23 - 10:05 a.m. | #
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I was surprised that the Dent clock inside St Pancras station didn't feature on this list. Led me to wonder whether it appears larger because it's the one that you can stand closest to.
Frank F | 29.10.23 - 10:39 a.m. | #
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The St Pancras website suggests the clock’s diameter is 16ft 9ins (5.15m), which’d put it 5th.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 29.10.23 - 10:44 a.m. | #
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From memory, I think there’s a scene shot on the riverside balcony immediately below the Shell Mex clock in the Ian McKellen/Richard Loncraine film of “Richard III” which gives a sense of the scale. (And the film’s worth seeing anyway for its imaginative use and clever reimagining of London buildings from St Pancras to Bankside and Battersea power stations as Shakespearean locations).
Labourer | 29.10.23 - 11:46 a.m. | #
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I guessed Shell-Mex House only because my father worked there for many years and he made us aware that it was the biggest clock face in the country.
SMBP was not the result of a merger between Shell and BP, but only of each group's UK marketing companies. That joint venture ended some years ago, and occupancy of SMH reverted to Shell UK (Shell Centre on the South Bank being Shell International).
Richard Thomas | 29.10.23 - 11:54 a.m. | #
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Wikipedia is the truth, that St Pancras clock story is a conspiracy theory.
Still Anon | 29.10.23 - 11:58 a.m. | #
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The Elizabeth Tower has recently opened for guided tours and you can climb up and walk round inside the clock faces and up to the belfry itself. My tip is to book the 11 o'clock tour because that's timed so you can hear (and see) Big Ben strike 12 times. Unlike me, who booked the 12 o'clock tour and so only heard it once. Earplugs are provided.
kewman | 29.10.23 - 12:28 p.m. | #
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Crystal Palace had a clock 40ft (12.2m) in diameter, meaning that if it had survived to today it would take the #1 spot.
TW | 29.10.23 - 1:03 p.m. | #
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Kewman, three of us went up the Tower of Pisa sometime in the 2000s. As we stepped out at the top the midday carillion and the 12 o'clock bells sounded. We had to buy tickets to visits on the way down to Rome for a motorcyle rally and return to go up the tower a week later.
Mike | 29.10.23 - 7:33 p.m. | #
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Could have included the Fleet Street Heritage Sundial as the largest vertical sundial in the UK.
And you might have to be quick to see one of Europe's largest sundials in Sutton-in-Ashfield as there's plans to demolish it.
Putters | 30.10.23 - 7:49 a.m. | #
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The Wikipedia 'List of largest clock faces' has now been updated to show that Shell-Mex House has two.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 01.11.23 - 8:18 a.m. | #
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