The circular engraved astronomical dial with silvered chapter rings below a subsidiary seconds dial with ten-second intervals, within an arched case with columns at the corners surmounted by finials, and with octagonal lantern and faceted dome surmounted by Fame; on a double-stepped arched plinth; the eight-day locking-plate mechanism with fusee movement and verge escapement, striking on one bell.

This magnificent and large-scale clock was probably originally fitted with a musical mechanism, now lost. The pierced side panels and corresponding panels in the domed upper part were perhaps intended to allow sound to emerge. John Pyke was a clockmaker who enjoyed complex mechanisms combined with music-playing machinery. He was responsible for the completion of Charles Clay's musical clock, The Temple of the Four Grand Monarchies of the World (RCIN 1418), at Kensington Palace, but now lacking its mechanisms. Pyke was apprenticed in 1710 and admitted to the Freedom of the Clockmakers' Company in 1720 and died in 1762. His son, George, was also a clockmaker with an interest in musical and automaton clocks.

The surface of the clock is decorated in a particular fashion which loosely imitates the lacquered creations of the far east that were popular in Britain in the late seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century. The panels of fruit and flowers were pre-painted onto paper and cut to size before application to the clock-case surface. However, the gilded trellis panels were decorated directly onto the clock's surface. Today the clock has a dark green surface but was originally a dark blue, which has discoloured due to the many layers of varnish not all of which could be removed during conservation as the original gilding was applied over the varnish.

Text adapted from The First Georgians; Art and Monarchy 1714 - 1760, London, 2014