Glossary

The dial is where time is displayed. An arched dial is square with a semicircle, or arch, on top. Like the bonnet, the arch was originally meant to conceal the clock’s bell, but later was used regardless of whether there was a bell. After about 1840, arched dials were the only style used by Mennonite clockmakers.

A bonnet, as the name suggests, is a hat-like decoration affixed to the top of a round clock face. At first they were designed to conceal the clock’s bell; later their purpose was ornamental. Bonnets are most often found on Mennonite clocks made before 1840. They were likely phased out because arched dials were easier to cut.

The ring on the clock dial is where the hours are displayed. Often, clockmakers hammered out the chapter ring on the dial to make it stronger, hence the ‘raised chapter ring’ in many instances. The name has a religious derivation. The first clocks were in monasteries where monks convened at regular hours for readings of chapters of the Bible.

The dial, or the face, is where the time is displayed.

A mechanism that chimes the hour or minute at the press of a button. They originated before widespread artificial illumination so that people could tell time in the dark. Depending on the clock design, the repeater struck the time to the last hour, quarter-hour, or minute passed.

A triangular space, usually found in one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently filled with decorative elements.

Pertaining to clocks, a train is the mechanism that performs a function. A bell train, for instance, comprises all the gears that make the bells work. Likewise, a calendar train comprises all the gears that make the calendar work.

A graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings. Used in architecture and Christian symbolism, the term is also applied to other symbols of three-fold shape.

This term is used for clocks either made in the ‘Werder’– in the Vistula Delta, the area between the Vistula and Nogat rivers, in what is now Poland – or in the style of clocks made in the Werder, typically ones with a round dial and decorative bonnet.