Shipley Clock Tower

Many years ago, when I was at college, I had a room on the 6th floor of the tower block with an awesome view over the city. In the evening, sitting at my desk chewing on the end of a pencil, I would gaze out over the lights and spot the landmarks. There were two visible sets of 'changing' lights. One was a road traffic light - red, to red and amber, to green, to amber, to red - and the other was a signal on the railway line - red, double amber, green, red.

The scene below is taken from near the top of Wrose Hill, above Shipley in West Yorkshire. The landmarks here are mostly unfamiliar to me, but my friend pointed out one changing light.

It's over there. On the right. The green one!

No, no, sorry... try turquoise...

...or should that be blue?

I did also snap it at purple, red and orange, but it was cold and I was shivvvvverage and the camera was at full zoom and bluuuuuur!

The 'light' in question is the Shipley Clock Tower, which dates back to the 1950s and contained a metal man who would appear to strike the hour on the bell, hung high on the clock tower face. For years, the tower was in disrepair, its clocks (so the quip went) showing the time in four different time zones. Then, in July 2009, Bradford Council's clock section manager, Nathan Darlington, made the necessary repairs to restart the clock. The metal man even comes out, once more, to sound the chimes and the LEDs were added to the tower in order to light up the clock at night (and proclaim to the world that the work had finally been done!).
For a picture of the clock tower up close and personal, click here. Typical of its era!