You’ve heard the song about the grandfather’s clock that was too large for the shelf – but how about one that won’t even fit through the door?
Hidden on a Thorp Street back section is a three-metre-tall clock designed and engineered by Rod MacMahon, who moved to Motueka from Auckland with his wife Rosemary three years ago.
Rod is a former electrical engineer, “and here am I, since retirement, playing with mechanical things,” he quips. He designed the mechanism and had the pieces made before assembling the clock himself.
The titanic timepiece has four faces, displaying Arabic and Roman numerals, Te Reo script and runes respectively, the latter a nod to Lord of the Rings, he says. The clock can be rotated on a central axis, and the huge disks click over one notch every five minutes to keep the time.
“It keeps me off the golf course, anyway,” Rod grins.
It is the third such masterpiece that he has built, although the others were of a completely different design and a slightly more moderate size.
“And then I thought, why don’t I build a bigger one?”
His original concept was even more ambitious, with clock faces measuring six metres in diameter, before a friend pointed out that would put it in the realm of Big Ben.
As with many unique creations, Rod says he has not yet decided what to do with it. He would like to see it displayed publicly, but despite its size, it is too fragile to leave unattended.
Perhaps it will end up in a sculpture garden or private collection, but in the meantime, he’s happy to enjoy it as a spectacular lawn ornament.
