Santa Cruz: the clock of the Market Tower

The City Council of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, specifically the area in charge of protecting historical heritage, has carried out restoration work on the old clock of the Nuestra Señora de África Market, which is displayed to the public in the central courtyard of the Recova.

The repairs were carried out by Avelino Moreno, restorer of the Historical Clocks Unit of the CICOP, and took place over seven months at the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts.

The Military Archive of the Canary Islands contributed to the restoration work by providing documentation related to this type of clock.

The clock of the Market was built around 1940 at the Viuda de Murua factory in Vitoria. It has a brass dial, Arabic numbers, and industrially manufactured machinery.

It has a weight-driven motor system that lasts a day, and a bell that chimes every hour and half hour, with a bell and a spiral wheel system.

The mechanism, which was removed from the tower, was kept in a local market. The restoration was divided into three phases.

First, it was completely disassembled to treat the individual pieces, removing dirt, rust, and dried lubricants. Subsequently, all parts were examined to check for possible deterioration, deformation, breakage, or missing pieces. Finally, the pictorial hood was restored, and then the reassembly, lubrication, and fine-tuning of the mechanism were carried out, before finally starting the clock.