Clock room

After the last restoration of the Tower, public access to this room is made possible, where the clock mechanism originally stood and where there are still traces of the vicissitudes that the tower has suffered: the fire, the extension of the Tower, the Lisbon earthquake and the measures taken so that this tower continued to exist.

Room located inside the primitive tower built in the medieval period. It is located above the Vault Room and below the level that corresponds to the Bell Room.

The highest of the medieval levels of the tower is the so-called Clock Room, which acquires its name because the old machinery was located on this level, which after recent restorations has happily returned to the place for which it was created.

The room maintains the perimeter walls of the initial construction of the thirteenth century, with the large bricked up windows.

In the 16th century, under the guidance of Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón, a star-shaped rib vault was launched, starting from ornate corbels located in the four corners of the enclosure.

In 1705 there was a terrifying fire that destroyed the entire body of the top of the tower.

After the fire, the master Pantaleón Portón Setién added the baroque finish that forms the upper body of the tower, with the bell room, ochavo, dome, lantern, dome, pinnacle, cross and weather vane.

The great overweight of the tall body, which rests on the medieval shaft, was the cause of the ruin of the tower, whose cracks and collapses described the teachers called for consultations.

The Cabildo accepted the repair proposal raised in 1766 by Baltasar Devretón. The repairs basically consisted in the placement of iron girdles on the outer perimeter of the old Romanesque shaft; wooden braces in the interior rooms, embedded in the setting of the gaps in the blinded windows; and by increasing the thickness of the old shaft by means of a smooth ashlar lining with a sloping profile that, from a new foundation, reaches the cornice line at the start of the upper finish. To avoid the thrusts, the vault that covered the Clock Room was dismantled.

Once the vault has been eliminated, to form the ceiling of the Clock Room, which in turn is the floor of the level of the Room of the Bells, a horizontal wooden slab was placed that, in the recent restoration works, has been renovated, leaving a hole in its center for the entrance of light and the vision of the high interior of the tower.