Instrument 07 / One civic day

Day dial

This is a 24-hour clock. Midnight is at the top, 06:00 at the right, noon at the bottom, and 18:00 at the left.

Why this clock exists

Installed at the Royal Observatory in 1852, the Shepherd Gate Clock displays Greenwich Mean Time on a 24-hour face, with noon at the bottom. This dial adopts that full-day geometry but colors the hours as lived periods: night, morning, afternoon, evening. Appointments disappear into one continuous circuit. The hand shows that a day can be understood as occupied space, not only as a list of separate obligations.

Royal Museums Greenwich on the Shepherd Gate Clock