Time stops in Victoria – Iconic clock tower in Seychelles needing repair

The clock tower was inaugurated by the British colonial government in memory of the late Queen Victoria in 1903. (Gerard Larose)

(Seychelles News Agency) - The clock tower in the capital Victoria has stopped chiming and is in need of repair, said the Seychelles National Institute for Culture, Heritage and the Arts (SNICHA) on Monday.

The Victoria clock tower, made out of cast iron, is a national monument and a historical icon that sits in the heart of the capital and keeps visitors and locals up to date with the time.

It encountered problems a little less than a week ago and, according to a local technician, the microchip is no longer working inside the clock.

SNICHA said the process of ordering the new part is already underway and if all goes well, the parts should arrive in a week.

This is not the first time in recent years that the clock tower - now 118 years old - has to undergo repairs.

In 2019, two experts from the UK-based company Gillett & Johnston flew to Seychelles, an archipelago in the western Indian Ocean, to get the clock tower up and running again after the main circuit was blown.

An interesting fact about the clock tower is that it chimed for the first time in 1999, which was 96 years since it was erected. This came when after the first major reparation work was done on the tower, its spring mechanism was replaced by an electronic one.

When the clock tower was inaugurated in 1903, it cost around $468 -- about $13,000 in today's US dollars – and is made of cast iron by Gillet & Johnson, a clockmaker and bell foundry based in Croydon, England.

The parts to fix the tower's latest issues are being ordered from the same company.

The clock tower was inaugurated by the British colonial government in memory of the late Queen Victoria in 1903 and is an exact replica of one which was placed at the entrance of the Victoria Station on Vauxhall Bridge Road in London in 1892 to commemorate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee.