Hooglandse Kerk Clock

Inside of the Hooglandse Kerk (Highlands Church), a 15th century Gothic church located at the confluence of the Old Rhine and New Rhine in the Netherlands, you can find an old clock from 1609 that once was housed in one of the church’s towers.

The church had a specially designed room that allowed the clock’s 6.4-meter-long pendulum to move freely. For many of the years between 1609 and today, the sexton wound the clock twice a day—which was no small feat. To achieve this he had to climb the stairs for over 30 meters, walk past a narrow path on the outside of the roof and then go up a narrow ladder to the mechanism, after which he would have to go back down.