Fellow Shadow Watchers,
Having just returned safely from the NASS Annual
Conference in Hartford and overcome the first effects of a 19 hour,
3-stage flight schedule home I'd like to express my thanks to all of the
NASS members for providing such a friendly, stimulating and useful
experience. If ever anyone else is tempted to attend in future - don't
hesitate! You'd be an odd dial(l)ist indeed not to enjoy it immensely.
My meanderings uncovered other places in Massachusetts and Connecticut
which could be of interest to like-minded visitors to the area in between
actual sundial hunting.
1. The Charles River Museum of Industry at Waltham on Highway 20 out of
Boston is a rich but informal collection beginning with silk textile
making and then car production and finally the Waltham Watch company. It
was hard to discern where the museum workshop ended and the collection
began with most items available for touching and trying. Octogenarian
Edward Mann, a museum volunteer, was a delightful guide to the collection
with which he personally identified.
One minus point however, the museum is not well signed and I drove round
the block twice before finding the access route from a public car park
and across a footbridge.
2. The American Clock Museum at Bristol, just off highway 6 west of
Hartford, is a delight. For me its chief attraction was its 'touchy
feely' philosophy with tower clocks waiting to have their pendulums swung
etc. and large exhibits open for close inspection. Every kind of
American clock and watch large and small is there to see together with
the equipment that made them. Being in a small town, rather than a city
centre, access is easy.
3. By contrast the Lock Museum in Terryville a few miles further west
has a fine collection but all behind glass, not open until 1.30 and
rather disinterested staffing on the occasion I visited. If you want to
see what can be achieved in finely-cast bronze you could hardly do better
than visit here. Such things as the original door furniture samples for
the Waldorf-Astoria hotel are well displayed alongside the cruder early
products of country blacksmiths.
4. For other family members and children the Carousel Museum in Bristol
is a joyous experience with many fairground horses in their original
state, in process of renovation and beautifully restored in a riot of
colour and 24 carat gold leaf. The carvers must have lived closely
alongside horses to understand and reproduce their anatomy so well. One
thing I learned was that if a carousel horse on sale as an antique is
equally decorated on both sides it is almost certainly a modern fake.
They only spent time and money on the visible side!
With apologies for the off-topic aspects of this posting although I'm
sure they will be of use to others in the future.
Best Wishes
Tony Moss
