Clerkenwell Clock Repair Shop: Motionwork Weekdays 9 to 5

Motionwork, at 1-5 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1M 5PA, is a clock repair workshop that will only take mechanical clocks: its clocks page states plainly that it does not repair battery-operated ones. It is open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, with occasional Saturdays by enquiry, and visitors are welcome during office hours, its nearest Tube station, ten minutes away.

Matthew Hopkinson MBHI runs the workshop. He studied the British Horological Institute course at Birmingham Polytechnic from 1983, passed the final exam with merit after three years and was awarded the BHI Bronze medal for the highest results of his year. He then worked for William Galbraith in London, where many important clocks passed through the bench. When Galbraith retired in 1998, Hopkinson set up Motionwork, and it has occupied the same secure, alarmed workshop ever since.

Today the team is three full-time clock restorers plus one full-time art and metalwork restorer. The site makes a point of place: Clerkenwell was once the home of English clockmaking, and in the late 18th century the district employed clockmakers, silversmiths, jewellers, casters, engravers, chasers and gilders side by side. Clocks made in that era now come back to the same streets for restoration, more than 200 years later.

The clocks page lists the core work as mantel, bracket, longcase or grandfather, carriage and wall clocks. Jobs run from a clean and service to full restorations, including making missing or broken parts from scratch. Motionwork works for private collectors in the UK and overseas, and it says it works closely with and is recommended by the London auction houses Sotheby's, Christie's and Bonhams. That is the network that sends a lot of its clients through the door.

That auction-house link is useful if you are about to sell. The workshop offers restoration quotes and independent appraisals before a sale, so you can decide whether a service will add more than it costs. It also maintains clocks in London offices and public buildings, assessing condition on site and setting up a maintenance programme, which matters if your firm has a lobby regulator nobody has wound in years.

Motionwork calls itself a recognised specialist in automaton clocks and complicated musical movements. The automata page shows work on pieces by Henry Borrell and on the Elephant Clock by Peter Torckler, circa 1790. Most London repairers will turn away a clock whose figures no longer move or whose musical cylinder has stopped mid-tune, so this is the workshop to try first when a clock does more than tell time.

The fourth restorer handles ormolu, bronze and metalwork. Antique ormolu is mercury-gilded brass or copper, and because firing gold with mercury is now too toxic to use, the team cleans and conserves original gilding where it can, re-gilds by electroplating where it cannot, and uses gold leaf for water- or oil-gilded surfaces. The ormolu page also offers a light clean only, removing marks like paint or candle wax, for owners who do not want their antiques to look new.

This is a workshop, not a shopfront with a sales counter, so the telephone call matters. Describe the clock, say whether it strikes or chimes, and mention any previous repairs. If you are bringing a longcase, ask whether they need the whole clock or only the movement, weights and pendulum, which is what most workshops prefer. Take the pendulum off before moving any clock, and pack it separately.

Work on your clock happens on site rather than being sent out: every repair and restoration is carried out in the secure, fully alarmed Clerkenwell workshop. The range runs from simple clocks whose value is mostly sentimental to complicated musical clocks owned by international museums, and the about page is clear that both get the same care. Clients include auction houses, prominent antique dealers and private owners, so expect a queue of serious pieces ahead of yours rather than a same-day turnaround.

Skip Motionwork for a quartz wall clock or a kitchen clock with a battery; Motionwork will not take the job, and its site says it can recommend a separate restoration company that specialises in electric clocks. For a published price list on mechanical work, Harris Horology in Brixton lists its rates online, while Motionwork quotes each restoration individually after seeing the piece.

The workshop sits at the eastern start of Clerkenwell Road, close to the Goswell Road junction, so it is an easy walk from Barbican or from Farringdon, where the Elizabeth line now stops. Between the two stations you pass Charterhouse Square, where the Charterhouse, a former Carthusian monastery and almshouse, runs a free museum and guided tours of its buildings.

Head west along Clerkenwell Road and turn up St John's Lane to reach St John's Gate, the Tudor gatehouse of the Priory of the Order of St John, which houses the Museum of the Order of St John. From there the streets around Clerkenwell Green and St James's Church are a reminder of the old watch and clock trade the workshop refers to. It makes a good half-hour loop before you pick up a restored clock.

If you are collecting a large clock, plan transport before you set out. Clerkenwell Road is a busy bus route with limited stopping, so a black cab or a pre-booked car to the door is more practical than carrying a bracket clock to the Tube. Smaller carriage clocks travel best in their original leather travelling case if it survives, or wrapped in a towel inside a sturdy box, carried upright so the platform escapement is never knocked.

Motionwork Ltd, 1-5 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1M 5PA. Hours: Monday to Friday 9am till 5pm, with occasional Saturdays by enquiry. Visitors are welcome to the workshop during normal office hours, but telephone before any planned visit. Nearest Tube: Barbican, 10 minutes on foot.

Services: cleaning, servicing and restoration of antique mechanical mantel, bracket, longcase, carriage and wall clocks, automaton and musical clocks, making missing parts, ormolu, bronze and metalwork restoration, appraisals and quotes before sale, and maintenance of clocks in offices and public buildings. Battery clocks are not accepted. Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP for a lunch spot near Charterhouse Square.