Bornholm Grandfather Clocks

The Bornholm grandfather clock is one of the two types of grandfather clocks. As its name would suggest, this clock came from Bornholm, a Danish island found in the Baltic Sea, situated east of Denmark, north of Poland, and south of Sweden.

The Bornholm grandfather clocks are pendulum-driven clocks, made from 1745 until 1900. Actually, before the creation of these clocks, Bornholm was not known for lock-making. In fact, the making of clocks only began when a Dutch ship traveling from England, ran aground on the Rønne coasts, in 1744. Incidentally, the ship contained five grandfather, then known as long-case, clocks.

Clocks back then were rare and important commodities, and the sailors opted to have the clocks saved. And so, they took them to Poul Ottesen Arboe, a famous turner in Rønne.

Rønne is one of the towns found on the island of Bornholm, a former municipality of Denmark. Of all the towns found in Bornholm, it is the largest and is the municipal seat of the island.

Arboe, along with the local craftsmen repaired and restored the English long-case clocks. Of course, before the estrangement of the English clocks, these craftsmen, most of them turners, did not know about long-case or grandfather clocks. And so, before they could go about repairing them, they had to study the clock mechanisms. During the time they spent repairing the clocks, they learned about the structure of the long-case enclosures. They also studied about the internal mechanisms and cast-iron weights.

In fact, the craftsmen learned so much that they set out to make clocks of their own. Thus, the famous Bornholm clocks were born.