Sesquicentennial of the Cathedral clocks

By Richard Garcia

December 8 this year marks the sesquicentennial (or 150th anniversary) of the inauguration of the set of four clocks on the belfry of the Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned.

The cathedral – then the parish church of St Mary the Crowned – had acquired its first (single) clock many years earlier, in August 1749, on a different belfry. The Governor at the time was General Bland. He imposed a duty on wine and used the money for the upkeep of the Old Mole, opposite and to the south of Water Gardens. As money was left over, he bought Gibraltar’s first public clock and it was placed in the old belfry of St Mary the Crowned. This old belfry stood in the middle of Main Street and not in the location of the present belfry.

At the time of the Great Siege (1779-1783), the clock was removed from the bell tower in October 1789 and the belfry was lowered so that it would not serve as a landmark and assist the Spanish artillery trying to aim their guns at the centre of the city. The clock was reinstalled at a lower height in December that year. It was obviously useful.

During the siege, the church of St Mary the Crowned was badly hit by Spanish artillery and it burned for three days. The church lost most of its roof and was a ruin by the end of the siege. The Elders of the Catholic Church did not have the money to rebuild it all after the siege, and the western part of the church, the part facing Main Street, remained without a roof. A deal was eventually struck with General O’Hara, when he was Governor. The military would pay for the repairs to the church in exchange for the church authorities agreeing to shorten the building in order to link the street from Casemates and Commercial Square (now John Mackintosh Square) with the street from Southport Gate and The Convent. Thus, Main Street as we know it today was created. The work on the repair of the church was done by Portuguese craftsmen.

Part of the work was the building of the belfry that we know today. The old bells were hung in this belfry when it was completed in the early 1800s, and it was flat-topped. The belfry was in the classical architectural style adopted for the whole façade of the church, with triangular pediments.