Welcome to York!
Discover all there is to know about time, and the ways it has been measured and recorded over the centuries.
Saturday 14 June 2025
St Olave's Church,
Marygate York, YO30 7DR
About Time York!
St Olave's Church
The Day
Get ready to immerse yourself in a day of fun, learning and inspiration.
Explore the world of time, from sundials to the most accurate clock in the known universe.
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Contemplate the Philosophy of Time and the Theology of Time.
Find out if Time exits, or is a creation in our imagination?
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Drop in for as many sessions as you have time for....
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No charge, but a donation of £10 to cover expenses welcomed
Programme
Topics and Speakers
A little more information on what we can expect to hear about, and the special people who are coming to celebrate Time with us.
Kerry Langsdale PhD
Kerry’s work is at the intersection of philosophy and contemporary art. Her journey began by fusing philosophical inquiry and creative expression, culminating in a series of artworks and projects that invite viewers to contemplate the nature of time! Grounded in research gained during her PhD on the philosophy of time, Kerry’s interdisciplinary artistic projects are accessible portals to complex ideas of time.
Dedicated to community engagement, Kerry has organised and delivered numerous public events and educational initiatives, fostering dialogue and enriching understanding of philosophy through art. Her collaborative and solo projects alike explore diverse perspectives on time, transcending traditional boundaries and inviting audiences to ponder its significance.
Beyond academia, Langsdale is committed to democratising philosophical discourse and creating inclusive educational opportunities for artists and enthusiasts. By bridging theory and lived experience, she strives to make philosophical inquiry relevant and accessible to all!.
Keith Scobie-Youngs
Company Director. Cumbria Clock Co
FBHI (Fellow of the British Horological Institute)
ACR (Accredited Conservator Restorer)
Coffee will be available at the back of the church
Dr Matt Bothwell
Over the past century, our understanding of time has been entirely re-written. For most of human history, time has been seen as a constant, reliable backdrop to the Universe. But at the start of the 20th Century, Einstein turned our understanding of time upside down. Time is flexible, can bend and stretch, and no two observers can agree on when any given event occurred! Join Dr Matt Bothwell, Public Astronomer, at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, as we try to sort out this confusion and grapple with the true nature of time
Darlah Thomas
Darlah and Steve are 'amateur horologists'! They began researching clocks and clockmaking after purchasing their first longcase clock in 1978 and have now published numerous books.
One project was researching the history and clocks of Thomas Cooke & Sons of York. We attempted to photograph every Cooke clock we could trace. Our book The Turret Clocks of T. Cooke & Sons of York. A historical perspective 1807 – 1897 – copies are available!
Mark Ockelton MA BD
Unlike most people who earn their living my making public pronouncements, Mark is not one for self-promotion. Come and hear why he is looking forward to lunch time....
Lunch time
Bring a picnic to enjoy in our delightful churchyard. Cold drinks will be on sale
Peter Ransom MBE, The British Sundial Society
Peter will start with a general ramble about time and its history, and then move on to the theory of sundials, and why our clocks don’t always agree with the local solar time. Peter will cover most of the types of dials we are likely to come across, with the emphasis on local dials.
There will be an opportunity to handle some of the dials he will bring and questions are welcome at any time.
Dr Rebecca Struthers
Rebecca Struthers is a watchmaker and historian from Birmingham.
She co-founded her workshop, Struthers Watchmakers, in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter in 2012. Rebecca and her watchmaker husband, Craig, use heritage equipment and traditional artisan techniques to restore antiquarian pieces and craft bespoke watches.
They are among the last handful of watchmakers in the UK making watches from scratch. In 2017 Rebecca became the first watchmaker in British history to earn a PhD in horology.
She lives in Staffordshire with Craig, her dog Archie, cats Isla and Alabama and Morrissey the mouse.
The Revd. Nicky Gladstone
Nicky is an assistant curate at St Olave's and also a prison chaplain
The most accurate clocks in the known universe, and other measurements -
Atomic Timekeeping - Big Impact and Marvels in Measurement!
This exciting talk and interactive exhibition – good for all ages - explains the impact of atomic timekeeping and how it relates to metrology (the science of measurement), celebrating NPL’s 125th anniversary, 150 years since the signing of the metre convention and the year of quantum.
It’s not just a talk, but a fun interactive showcase with an opportunity to talk about atomic clocks, and more.
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The picture is the ion trap and vacuum chamber of an optical atomic clock, developed at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL).
Andrew Hanson, MBE BSc (Hons) CPhys
Outreach Manager, National Physical Laboratory
After graduating as an applied physicist, Andrew joined the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) to build a device to trace colour measurements of visual displays to the UK’s national radiometric scale. He built other instruments, ran calibration services and talked increasingly about his work in what developed into a second career in science communication. His work in the latter role – bringing the wonder of measurement science to the masses – earned him an MBE.
Louise Gibbons
Outreach Specialist, National Physical Laboratory
Having studied for a master's in biomedical engineering at university, Louise discovered her passion for working with young people and inspiring the next generation into STEM. This landed her perfectly as the Outreach Specialist at NPL, where she gets to talk about the importance of measurement and run engaging STEM activities.
The Revd Stephen Griffiths
In a ministry of fifty years, Stephen Griffith served as a parish priest, a school and university chaplain and teacher, in Wales, England, Russia and Jordan, as well as representing the Archbishop of Canterbury to the heads of the churches in Syria and Lebanon, Armenia and Georgia, and reporting on the oppression of the Christian minority in southeast Turkey, becoming an expert in Eastern and Oriental Christianity. His approach to time stems from this very different experience of worship and life among eastern Christians
Free for all, come and have your say About Time!
Background reading
The York Philosophical Society observatory in the Museum Gardens
Why About Time York!?
Close by St Olave's Church, in the Museum Gardens, is the Observatory built by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1832/33. This was used to determine the time, and York was one of the first places outside London where everybody kept to the same time, (roughly 4 minutes later than London).
It is widely believed that 'Railway Time' which informally preceded 'Greenwich Mean Time' was introduced because, unless you were due north or south of London, your time was different.
We claim this us untrue! The reason Railway Time had to be introduced was that in most large towns and cities there was no agreed time - every public clock would be set by its winder or minder to an approximate time that they determined using a simple sundial. As a result, 'local time' would vary my many minutes from clock to clock. When transport was by horse or boat this didn't matter.
Trains needed to know the time to within a minute or so, and the rest is chronological history......
Children's Clock Trail around York - with prizes!
Check back nearer the time for details.
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