In the Register of Marriages, 1754-1812, there is an interesting note that, in 1785, the clock was “moved from the East to the South side” of the tower. Lambert’s drawing of the church in 1780 shows it in its earlier position on the southern corner of the East face of the tower, and the Sharpe drawing of 1802, shows it again, after removal to the much better position on the South face.
This clock appears to have survived until the restoration of the tower in 1886, when it was replaced by a new one. A brass on the North side of the tower arch gives the following particulars :—
To the Honour and Glory of God
And in pious remembrance of her Father and Mother
James and Harriett Ockenden of this Parish
A three dial Clock having quarter hour chimes together with
a recast bell were fixed in the restored Tower of this
Church in the year of Our Lord 1886 at a cost of £278
defrayed solely by Ann Joram Crouch Ockenden.
William Bull, John Underwood. Churchwardens.
W. H. Meade Buck, Vicar.
Gillett and Co. Clock Makers Croydon Surrey.
Miss Ockenden’s gift was acknowledged by an illuminated address from the town with which her family had been connected for over three hundred years, an Ockenden having served it as Bailiff in 1541.
In 1914, the Kingston Trust presented new faces to the clock on condition that the town should supply the illumination.
The Clock itself was electrified in 1964, thus alleviating the clock winder from having to ‘pull up the weights’.
The clock faces were refurbished in 1963, where Seaford Urban District Council made a contribution to the cost in ‘recognition of the clock as a public amenity’. The clock faces were refurbished again in 1989, when the cost of £7,000 was met in part by Lewes District Council. This prompted a reader of the local newspaper to send in a poem:-
