Clock corner as its known to Doncaster locals is an iconic piece of History and a prominent landmark within Doncaster Town Center. It is situated on The junction of Baxtergate, Frenchgate, St Sepulchre gate and High street. There has been a clock there since 1731 but the present clock you see was erected in 1895. The clock was often a landmark for travelers coming into Doncaster from the old Great North Road and would probably be a sight signalling the end of a long journey. It plays a Westminster chime on the hour and every quarter from 8am to 10pm. In addition, for the ten days running up until Christmas the clock plays the Christmas carol ‘Silent Night,’ and on New Year’s Eve it plays ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
The building you see at the bottom of the clock was originally constructed in the eighteenth century. In
1837 it was altered by architect William Hurst who rounded the buildings corner, it was thought it was a way of smartening up the towns streets. The building below the clock was rented out for many years to Edward Hawksby Walker, a chemist who dispensed pills and potions in the shop beneath the clock. When his family were young they lived above the shop, and the pendulum of the clock used to swing in the nursery. One of the Children, James Greenhalgh Walker later recalled how he and his brother Jospeh used to ride it to and fro.
By the 1890’s the towns Corporations who owned the buildings was concerned about some of the narrow streets which impeded vehicles even before the dawn of the motor age. They decided that Baxtergate had to be widened and this meant that the old building on the corner had to go. After the demolition of the old Clock Corner the new building was to be owned by the widowed Mrs E H Walker. As the site had only a narrow frontage to Frenchgate she tried to buy some the the adjacent site in Frenchgate but the owners refused, meaning Mrs Walker had to rebuild on the restricted plot. By this time her son James Greenhalgh Walker, one of the boys who had swung on the old clock‘s pendulum as a child had grown up to be an architect and it was he who designed the new Clock Corner. This is the building we still see today.