ladynyoblog

this a mid Georgian tallcase clock we bought about 4 years ago. Samuel Harley, 1780. English.

we paid twice as much as it was worth but that is ok. It is rare and though the pediment is broken on one side, we can fix that. Or Fred can. We bought the proper weights recently, and it is a two weight clock, not a three weight clock. Harley was a goldsmith in Severen England and a noted clockmaker. It has a painted scene from the area and it helps dating the clock.

Georgian (early and middle) style is my favorite. It is 93 inches high which is taller than most tallcase clocks and probably made for a rich merchant farmer. It is not fancy but a good oak/walnut/mahogany clock. It has a perfect place in our 130 year old Georgian house in Atlanta. At the bottom of the staircase.

Our house was built in the late 1890’s by the Ragsdale family, farmers from England. They opened “West End Horse and Mule” company in 1860’s Atlanta. This was the family’s earliest house. It was smaller when I bought it in 1973, but Fred (husband) added 5 rooms. it is now 11 rooms and way too big for two aging people. The history of the house I know and it was rolled on logs from the back of the property to the front in 1922 to use the new sewer system of Atlanta. There were outbuildings but only the foundations left. We love the property and have been here for decades. It is hard to consider moving but who needs 11 rooms? It has been good as we love antiques and our travels in Europe allowed us to study the Georgian period. Fred built a great room with a 24 foot ceiling and the woodstove sits on a beautiful lavender thick flagstone hearth. He laid the hearth himself around 1996.

When we took off the front porch around 1996 we discovered the true Georgian character of the house. Beautiful. It flowed well and Fred built the overdoor surround and raised the floors with new construction. The brick work was done by English friends years ago and had two Oxford graduates doing the cement work. I designed the curved brick surround then. Last year we had the whole house repainted in the blue I wanted and was historically correct. The trim is more a cream, not white. The gate is 9 feet tall and Victorian. The prices in our neighborhood have soared over the years thanks to gentrification and we have planted many fruit trees and berry bushes. We also took down a huge maple and a pin oak and the fuji apples are doing much better with all the sun. This year we should get fruit.