The clock installed in the original parish church was one of the oldest clocks in Lancashire, installed in St. Peter’s Church in Bolton during 1671. Sadly this historical clock was lost when the church was demolished to build the new Parish Church in 1866.
The Parish Church under demolition as John Lyons clock is dismantled.
John Lyon of Warrington who built the Parish Church Clock was, not only the first clockmaker to work in Warrington, but he was in fact the first to work in the entire county of Lancashire – and he is the oldest by whom any work survives.
The Parish Church was a 15th century Church, which replaced a Norman church on the same site. Artefacts have ben found linking the site to the 11th 12th and 13th Centuries.
Bolton St. Peters Church, showing the original clock face from the clock of John Lyon.
Records exist of a Robert Harpur being paid to wind the clock in the 1670’s – Robert Harpur was vicar after Richard Goodwin.
Robert Harpur: Entries made in November 1671/2 ‘that Robert Harpur clerk undertake to make the clock go’ and again in June 1675/6 ‘that Robert Harpur clerke undertake to make the clock goe orderly’.
PBO/2/1 Churchwarden Accounts for Great Bolton 1655-1680.
He was the clerk by this time and no longer the Vicar.
The page detailing a Mystery Clock, explores a possible candidate for the remains of this early clock that was found abandoned in the cellar of Hall i’ th’ Wood in the 1970’s