Many Dover people view the bracket clock at the Maison Dieu (Dover Town Hall) as an old familiar friend. Projecting at right angles from the building, high above the High Street, its two large clock faces, which are illuminated at night, have displayed the time to generations of local residents since 1883.

It's even acquired a nickname - the old frying pan - due to its striking shape. In use for over a hundred years, this affectionate term is still used by some today.

However, few of those walking below will have stopped to think how this fine clock is repaired, cleaned, or indeed painted.

One person who can provide a fascinating insight and relate his story in a lively and entertaining way, is local resident John Fagg, who’s been associated with the building since he was a boy.

We met at the Maison Dieu on Saturday 19 March 2022 and enjoyed a long conversation about the building and his memories.

John is proud to have worked in the building trade for Dover Council for 34 years. More recently, he joined the parks department, where he’s a familiar and friendly face to footballers up at the Danes (the Danes Recreation Ground) and to visitors to Kearsney Abbey Gardens - a job he loves and has no thoughts of giving up, despite, as he says, being a year or two beyond the usual retirement age.

John started as an apprentice painter and decorator in January 1965, after turning up unannounced one snowy morning at the council’s Lime Kiln Street depot. He got the job straightaway, without showing any paperwork, after he promised he wasn’t in trouble with the police! His supervisor was Mr Roebuck and as part of his training he attended classes at the Folkestone School of Art and Folkestone Technical College.

Guess the most unusual place I’ve ever worked at the town hall said John playfully, setting me a near impossible challenge.

The Victorian prison cells or the medieval tower? I replied confidently.

Nearly Wrong! Go on! he replied with a mischievous twinkle.

The drains… the court room… the council chamber… the Mayor’s Parlour… the Connaught Hall roof space? I was running out of ideas, which were now being offered more in hope than expectation.

I once had to paint the inside of the Town Hall clock he interjected triumphantly.

John was working with a lovely man called John Farrier who asked him to climb a ladder from a small balcony below, crawl along the top of the cast-iron bracket high above the road and ease himself in through a tiny trap-hatch, so he could repaint the inside of the casing.

This was done without a harness. Health and Safety as we know it today, didn’t exist in the 1960s.

John, the smallest and youngest member of the team, followed his instructions without question and squeezed inside the tiny, cramped space. He was teased throughout by John Farrier, who remained on the ladder talking to me giving me the courage to keep painting.

John Farrier’s gallows humour was much in evidence…

It’s not that far down he said. Only about 50 feet. It’ll only take a second and you won’t feel a thing!

John Fagg recalled that he couldn’t quiet stand up inside, making it about five feet across.

Although the clock is now powered by electricity, the original, cob-web covered 1883 mechanism survives, inside a dusty purpose-built cabinet high up in the building. Built by E. Dent & Co, Clockmakers to the Queen, it is a small but beautifully formed example of Victorian engineering.

Dent’s were one of the top Victorian clockmakers. The clock in the Elizabeth Tower at the Palace of Westminster, more commonly known as Big Ben is one of theirs, as is the fine example in the Clocktower at Cardiff Castle.

A clock-winder had to ascend the tight spiral staircase to wind the 8-day mechanism once a week.

The Maison Dieu clocks are being renovated as part of the current Re-awakening the Maison Dieu National Lottery Heritage Fund project.

But John had another important story to tell, a startling confession that’s solved a mystery which members of the current Maison Dieu project team have been trying to get to the bottom of for years.

It relates to the impressive Neo-gothic ceiling of the Connaught Hall. Designed by Victorian architect and designer William Burges, the original painted ceiling was a riot of colour, gilding and medieval-inspired motifs, including flowers, foliage, animals and birds.

The hall opened in 1883, but its intricate and colourful ceiling was eventually painted over with layers of magnolia paint.

A crime, most would say today, though at the time the original paint scheme was almost certainly viewed as terribly old-fashioned, and it would have been much easier and cheaper to freshen up the room with a quick coat of magnolia.

When exactly this happened was a matter of conjecture and debate. Sometime between the 1930s and 1950s was the rather vague supposition. The problem was a lack of photographs from this period that showed the background decoration with any clarity.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I met Barrie Thompson, who 'jived under the balcony' in the Connaught Hall, as a teenager at the start of the Rock and Roll era in 1955. Under the balcony because the main dance floor was strictly reserved for proper ballroom dancing and there were policemen at the door in case of trouble! He clearly remembered the original colour scheme still being in place then.

Then, last Saturday, John Fagg confessed…

It was me. I painted over the walls and ceiling of the Connaught Hall.

It was about 1967, the same time the organ was cleaned, as I remember organ pipes, big and small, lying all over the floor.

It took a team of about 8 of us a month or two, working from a scaffold.

We used Hamilton’s perfection brushes. You can still get them. They have a flag at the end (pure bristles with split ends that hold more paint and produce fewer paint marks) and are the best.

I said, why are we painting over these designs? I could have copied them, but that’s what they wanted.

In reality, the paint layers added by John and his workmates over 50 years ago, and the several other layers added since, have protected William Burges’ original Neo-Gothic decorative scheme for future generations.

Revealed in over 200 small test patches by modern day conservation specialists from Hirst Conservation and Hare and Humphreys, Burges’ paint scheme for the Maison Dieu is now widely appreciated as an outstanding example of Victorian Neo-gothic design.

It is to be re-instated as part of the current Re-awakening the Maison Dieu National Lottery Heritage Fund project.

As for John, he is welcome back as a good friend of the Maison Dieu anytime… so long as he doesn’t have any more startling confessions to add!

Martin Crowther
Engagement Officer (Maison Dieu)
20 March 2022