Clocks Worth Waiting For (15 Photos)

October 19, 2026

By Vidar

Split image: left, two white mechanical billy goats with golden horns facing off on a green platform on Poznań Town Hall; right, the Graz Glockenspiel gable with a blue clock above a carved couple in traditional dress in two arched windows

Public Clocks With a Show

Most clocks just tell the time. On these fifteen, carved, painted or metal figures move when the clock strikes, some every hour, some only at set times, and people in the street below stop and look up. The oldest has been at it since 1383, the youngest since 1991.

Ornate green and gold clock on the brick facade of Fortnum & Mason on Piccadilly, London, with the figures of Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason standing out on their balconies beside the dial

🎩 Fortnum & Mason Clock — By Berkeley Sutcliffe in London, UK 🇬🇧

Once an hour, four-foot figures of William Fortnum and Hugh Mason in 18th-century servants’ dress step out above the shop on Piccadilly. According to the store, they come out “to check that standards are being upkept.” The clock went up in 1964, and its 18 bells play a tune every 15 minutes, as London Remembers records.

💡 Bell Fact: The bells came from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, the same foundry that cast Big Ben.

📷 Photo: LondonHistoryatHome / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The gold, blue and black astronomical dial of the Prague Orloj on the Old Town Hall, with carved figures standing on each side, including a skeleton holding a bell rope

💀 Prague Astronomical Clock — By Mikuláš of Kadaň in Prague, Czech Republic 🇨🇿

Every hour through the day, the skeleton on the right pulls its rope, rings a bell and starts the walk of the apostles in two small windows above the dial. The clock was built in 1410 and still runs on the Old Town Hall in Old Town Square; Prague’s official tourism site has the full program. The figure next to Death shakes its head as he nods at it, which feels like the right reaction.

💡 Apostle Fact: The apostles you see today were carved by woodcarver Vojtěch Sucharda after the originals burned in the 1945 fire at the Old Town Hall.

📷 Photo: Andrew Shiva / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

A giant gold pocket watch hanging inside Melbourne Central with its marionette show lowered underneath: birds and two small figures on a little stage

⌚ Marionette Watch — By Seiko in Melbourne, Australia 🇦🇺

A giant fob watch hangs inside Melbourne Central, and on the hour a stage drops out of its base, the City of Melbourne’s guide confirms: galahs, cockatoos and two minstrels play Waltzing Matilda while koalas look on (WeekendNotes has the details). The design is credited to Seiko, and the watch was given to the city when the center opened in 1991, Atlas Obscura notes. Shoppers with bags in both hands still stop for it.

📷 Photo: Kevin Anslow / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

The green copper Glockenspiel bay on Munich’s New Town Hall tower with two levels of colorful painted figures: a royal wedding and joust above, the dancing coopers below

🤺 Rathaus-Glockenspiel — Munich, Germany 🇩🇪

Two floors of figures on the New Town Hall tower at Marienplatz: above, the 1568 wedding of Duke Wilhelm V and Renata of Lorraine, with a joust the Bavarian knight wins; below, the coopers’ dance. It plays every day at 11 am and noon, plus 5 pm from March to October, per the city’s official guide. 43 bells, and a square full of raised phones.

💡 Night Fact: At 9 pm a short night scene plays, with a night watchman, an angel and the Münchner Kindl, the child from the city’s coat of arms.

📷 Photo: Christoph Braun / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Five painted life-size clock figures with bells under an arch above Baker’s jewelers in Gloucester: winged Father Time in the middle with John Bull, a Scotsman in a kilt, a Welshwoman and an Irishwoman

⏳ Baker’s Clock — By Niehus Brothers in Gloucester, UK 🇬🇧

Father Time with his hourglass stands in the middle, with John Bull, a Scotsman, a Welshwoman and an Irishwoman around him. All five are life-size and strike their bells on the hours and the quarters above a jeweler’s shop on Southgate Street. The building and its clock date from 1904, its listing record says.

📷 Photo: Philip Halling / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Two white mechanical billy goats with curled golden horns out on a green platform on Poznań Town Hall, facing off

🐐 Town Hall Goats — Poznań, Poland 🇵🇱

At noon two little doors open above the clock on Poznań Town Hall and two metal goats come out and butt heads 12 times. Clockmaker Bartłomiej Wolff installed the first goat clock in September 1551, and the National Museum in Poznań notes they now come out at 3 pm as well. The pair you see today dates from 1993.

💡 Legend Fact: The city tells the legend of the feast for the new clock: the cook burned the meat, tried to roast two goats instead, and they escaped up the town hall tower. The guests saw them butting heads on the cornice, and the voivode ordered goats for the clock.

📷 Photo and cover crop: Radomil / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The carved stone niche beside the Zytglogge clock in Bern, packed with painted figures: a jester with two bells at the top, a seated bearded Chronos in the middle and a ring of small bears below

🐻 Zytglogge — By Kaspar Brunner in Bern, Switzerland 🇨🇭

Four minutes before the hour a rooster crows, a jester rings his bells, a parade of little bears circles and Chronos turns his hourglass in this niche beside the dial of the Zytglogge, in the order Switzerland Tourism lists. Kaspar Brunner renewed the clockwork in 1527–1530, and it still runs without major changes, per the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland. Bears, of course: it is Bern.

💡 Clockwork Fact: The same 16th-century movement drives the hands, the astronomical dial, the striking and the whole figure play.

📷 Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Art Nouveau Anker Clock on a bridge between two buildings at Hoher Markt in Vienna, with a gilded sun, a round dial and a historical figure passing in front of it

⚓ Ankeruhr — By Franz Matsch in Vienna, Austria 🇦🇹

This clock is also a bridge between the two halves of the Anker-Hof on Hoher Markt. Over 12 hours, 12 figures or pairs from Vienna’s history cross the dial one at a time, and at noon they all parade together to music. Art Nouveau painter Franz Matsch designed it in 1911–1914 for the Anker insurance company.

💡 Advent Fact: During Advent it plays Christmas songs every day at 5 pm.

📷 Photo: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Jacquemart bell tower in Dijon against a pale sky: green metal figures of Jacquemart and Jacqueline with hammers on each side of the bells, two small child figures between them, and a gold-numbered blue dial below

🔨 Jacquemart — Dijon, France 🇫🇷

Jacquemart has struck the hours with his hammer on top of Notre-Dame de Dijon since 1383. He was war loot: the figure and the big bell were brought from Kortrijk in Flanders after Philip the Bold’s armies sacked the town in 1382, according to this history of the church. Not every war trophy ends up with a steady job.

💡 Family Fact: Dijon gave him a wife, Jacqueline, in 1651, then a son, Jacquelinet, around 1714 and a daughter, Jacquelinette, in 1884. The couple strike the hours; the children ring the small bells in between.

📷 Photo: François de Dijon / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Glockenspiel gable in Graz with a blue clock face above two arched windows, where a carved woman in a dirndl and a man in lederhosen come out to turn

💃 Glockenspiel — By Gottfried Maurer in Graz, Austria 🇦🇹

At 11 am, 3 pm and 6 pm a wooden couple in traditional dress comes out of the gable windows on Glockenspielplatz and turns to the sound of 24 bells, and a golden rooster crows at the end (Styria Tourism). Gottfried Maurer installed it on his own house in 1905. The square was named after it three years later.

💡 War Fact: The original bells were melted down during World War II, and the show stayed silent until new bells arrived in 1956.

📷 Photo and cover crop: Palickap / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Two green-patinated bronze figures in sheepskins standing on either side of the great bell on the roof terrace of the Clock Tower in Venice, long hammers in hand, against a blue sky

🔔 Torre dell’Orologio — Venice, Italy 🇮🇹

High above Piazza San Marco, two bronze giants bend at the waist and swing their hammers at the great bell to strike the hours. One is old and one is young, to show time passing (Wikipedia). Venetians call them the Moors because of the dark patina on the metal, and the Clock Tower museum says they were cast in 1497 by Ambrogio della Ancore, the same year as the bell. The tower stands over the arch into the Merceria, the city’s old main street.

💡 Magi Fact: Only twice a year, at Epiphany and on Ascension Day, the three kings and an angel come out of a door below and parade past the Virgin and Child.

📷 Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)

Painted automata in the Gothic niches of the Strasbourg astronomical clock: a skeleton figure of Death holding a bone between two bells, figures from the Ages of Man beside him, and a red-robed Christ with an apostle in the arched gallery above

🐓 Astronomical Clock — By Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué in Strasbourg, France 🇫🇷

Every day at 12:30 pm, the figures inside Strasbourg Cathedral come out for their daily show. A child, a teenager, an adult and an old man parade past Death, the apostles file past Christ higher up, and a large rooster beats its wings and crows, as Visit Strasbourg describes. Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué started building this clock in 1838, and it was inaugurated on December 31, 1842. Death is still on duty.

💡 Rooster Fact: The cathedral’s first clock had a mechanical gilded rooster as its centerpiece, believed to be the oldest automaton in the world.

📷 Photo: Tangopaso / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The red and gold clock face on the white facade of the Ratstrinkstube in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, with a date dial above and two windows open beside it: General Tilly in a broad hat on the left, Mayor Nusch raising his tankard on the right

🍺 Meistertrunk Clock — Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany 🇩🇪

On the hour from 10 am to 10 pm, two windows open beside the clock on the old council tavern on the Marktplatz. On one side stands General Tilly, whose troops took the town in the Thirty Years’ War. On the other, the old mayor Nusch lifts a giant tankard and keeps it at his lips while the clock chimes, as Atlas Obscura describes. The pair have played the scene since 1910, under a clock from 1683.

💡 Legend Fact: Nusch is said to have emptied 3¼ liters in one go, impressing the general enough to spare the town. Rothenburg still replays the story every Pentecost weekend in the festival play Der Meistertrunk.

📷 Photo: Avi1111 dr. avishai teicher / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

A carved and painted wooden panel in the brick tower of the Glockenspiel House in Bremen, showing Charles Lindbergh’s gilded face beneath an airplane, with LINDBERGH lettered in gold on its base

✈️ Glockenspiel — By Bernhard Hoetger in Bremen, Germany 🇩🇪

When the 30 Meissen porcelain bells between the gables of the Glockenspiel House on Böttcherstraße start to play, a tower beside them turns and shows 10 carved wooden panels, most of them seafarers and aviators, from Christopher Columbus to Charles Lindbergh and Count Zeppelin. Bernhard Hoetger designed the panels, and the bells were added in 1934 (Wikipedia). From April to December it plays every hour from noon to 6 pm, and from January to March at noon, 3 pm and 6 pm, per Bremen’s official tourism site.

💡 Frost Fact: There is no show when it freezes: the delicate Meissen porcelain bells are not made for frosty weather.

📷 Photo: Z thomas / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The gilded Gothic gallery of the astronomical clock in Lund Cathedral: the Virgin Mary enthroned with the Christ Child in the center, between two small arched doors, with a white-clad herald holding a gold trumpet in the outer niche on each side

⚔️ Astronomical Clock — Lund, Sweden 🇸🇪

At the very top of this clock in Lund Cathedral, two knights strike their swords together to mark the hours. Twice a day (noon and 3 pm, Sundays 1 pm and 3 pm), the two heralds on either side of Mary raise their trumpets, the cathedral’s smallest organ, hidden inside the clock, plays the medieval hymn In Dulci Jubilo, and a door opens beside Mary: the three wise men and their servants walk in procession past her and the Christ Child, per the cathedral’s own page. The clock was inaugurated around 1425, taken down in 1837 and rebuilt in 1923.

💡 Calendar Fact: The calendar dial runs from 1923 to 2123. After that, someone has to make a new one.

📷 Photo: Dguendel / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

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