Brixton Clock Repair Shop: Harris Horology Prices From £65

Harris Horology publishes its clock repair prices, which is rarer than it should be: a quartz clock movement replacement starts at £65, a time-only mechanical clock service at £585, an hour-striking clock at £885, and quarter-chiming, longcase and regulator clocks at £1285. The studio sits at Unit 5, Viaduct Business Centre, 360A Coldharbour Lane, London SW9 8PL, between Brixton and Loughborough Junction, and every visit is by appointment.

James Harris founded the business in 2017 after training at the Birmingham School of Jewellery and working for Tag Heuer, Omega and Christopher Ward. He later went back to Birmingham as a lecturer, was awarded Fellowship of the British Horological Institute in 2023, examines for the BHI, and sits on the Clockmakers' Company collections and education committees. The firm is also a member of the British Watch and Clockmakers Guild.

The clock side leans on Takumi Hamano, who trained at Hiko Mizuno College of Jewellery in Tokyo, worked as a watchmaker in Japan, then took a Foundation Degree in clockmaking at West Dean College, where he won an AHS award. Before joining he restored a Normalzeit electrical controlling clock and rebuilt a Gent tank movement at The Clockworks museum. Cases go to furniture restorer Arthur Peters and enamel dials to conservator Tiago Oliveira, both West Dean graduates.

Every mechanical clock is taken down to its individual components and cleaned before anything else happens. That strip-down lets the bench carry out routine work such as pivot polishing and bushing worn holes as part of the service, and if they find major wear or damage, they quote for it separately before going on. Case cleaning and waxing are included where appropriate, while movement parts can be charged on top. Exact pricing only comes after a full workshop inspection.

On longcase clocks the team replaces the gut lines that carry the weights with a strong synthetic reproduction that still looks right, and the website is blunt about it: no steel wire. The studio says it works with recoil, deadbeat and verge escapements, striking and chiming trains, repeat work and alarms. Serviced clocks carry a 24-month warranty, which is longer than most London workshops put in writing.

For a longcase clock, the workshop normally needs only the movement, the weights and the pendulum, so the case can stay in your hall unless it needs restoration too. Because these movements have to be set up again on site, Harris recommends that the team collects the clock and then delivers and sets it up once the work is finished. The cost of that depends on how far you are from the Brixton studio, so give your postcode when you ask for a quote.

When parts are missing, the workshop makes them. The longcase page lists gathering pallets, count wheels and racks made in-house, and hands shaped, polished and heat-blued to replace broken ones or poor later substitutes. One Google review quoted on the site describes a longcase clock that had seen no attention for at least 40 years being brought back to work, including its dial and lost parts.

The honest take: if your clock is a cheap battery wall clock, £65 for a new quartz movement will be more than the clock cost, and buying a replacement makes more sense. The published prices make most sense for heirloom mechanical clocks, which the studio says make up a large share of its work: a 19th-century French striking mantel clock, a four-glass regulator or a carriage clock that has stopped striking. The team's stated approach is the appropriate level of intervention, with no over-polished cases.

Postal repairs are possible, mainly for watches and small clocks. Return postage after a completed repair is £10, and an item returned without being repaired costs £25. Royal Mail Next Day Guaranteed is used, insurable up to £2500, and you can arrange your own courier or book an in-person drop-off instead. For anything with a pendulum, in-person handover is the safer route.

Harris has a dedicated page for Portescap and Secticon clocks, the Swiss mid-century electric designs that many general repairers refuse, and the team's background at The Clockworks gives it unusual depth in electric timekeeping. Carriage clocks and English bracket clocks each have their own service pages too. If you are not sure what you own, send photographs of the dial, the back plate and any maker's stamp, plus details of the last service, which is what the contact form asks for.

If the diary is full and you are in central London, Motionwork on Clerkenwell Road is another workshop that handles mechanical mantel, bracket and longcase clocks, though it does not take battery clocks. For a quartz clock alone, almost any high-street repairer will swap the movement, and Harris would be overqualified for the job.

Coldharbour Lane runs east from Brixton town centre towards Camberwell, and the studio is on the stretch near Loughborough Junction, whose station has Thameslink trains. From Brixton Underground station on the Victoria line, it is a walk along Coldharbour Lane past the railway bridges. Go early and walk through Brixton Village and Market Row, the covered arcades by the station, where you can get coffee before your appointment.

After a drop-off, Electric Avenue and the street market around it are a few minutes from the station end of Coldharbour Lane, and Brockwell Park is a longer walk south if you want green space. Do not plan a long walk carrying a bracket clock. Book the appointment for the end of your outing, not the start.

Harris Horology Ltd, Unit 5, Viaduct Business Centre, 360A Coldharbour Lane, London SW9 8PL. Email: hello@harrishorology.com. Visits by appointment only; the studio asks you to contact it first for an initial discussion. Clock prices: quartz movement replacement from £65, time-only mechanical from £585, hour striking from £885, quarter chiming from £1285, longcase and regulator from £1285. Case and dial restoration is quoted individually.

Warranty: 24 months on serviced items. Return postage £10. Items returned unrepaired £25. The workshop also services watches. Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP where to eat in Brixton Village after your appointment.