The Spanish hamlet that has been winding the church clock for 244 years: ‘We do it between 10 families’

“I, Miguel Lazaro de Garriz, Master Clockmaker, a resident of the City of Pamplona, state that on the 25th of November in the year 1780, I placed a Clock on the tower of the Parish Church of the town of Orrio, together with the gentlemen Councillors and residents of another town for the sum of 110 ducats.” So begins the sales contract of the clock tower of Orrio, a tiny town of 50 residents in the northern Spanish region of Navarre, an area rich in history that was once a powerful kingdom. The people of Orrio have kept the sound of the bells going all these years thanks to the collaborative work of a majority of the families who take turns to wind it up. “We do it between 10 families, from 10 houses out of the 17 that there are in Orrio,” says Maite Marañón, 50, a resident and member of the Council. “In some homes there are older people and they do not participate, but practically one person from each family has always been involved,” she adds.

Marañón, a native of Pamplona, arrived in the village a decade ago and discovered that the locals were regularly winding the clock. She told a watchmaker friend of hers, who came to see the mechanism for himself and confirmed its age: “A number of things, such as the fact that it had a horizontal sprocket wheel, told us that it had been built before 1800.” Specifically, it dates back to 1780 and “has been in operation for its 244 years of existence.” It is the village that has managed to make it “the oldest working clock in Navarre” and, probably, in all of Spain. They have no documents to prove it, but, for now, no one has been able to tell them otherwise.

For Marañón, the most important thing is that “people have continued to wind it for 244 years, even though they have had their own clocks for decades.” She stresses that the procedure is complicated: “Going up the tower is already an effort in itself. Then you also have to lift weights. It is a significant physical strain.” Just as they were about to abandon the centuries-old task, they found the sales contract inside one of the local houses.

“It was a job more closely linked to the sacristy,” says Marañón, alluding to the room inside Catholic churches used to store garments and other objects. The families, taking turns for a year, wound the clock, cleaned the church a little, placed flowers in it, and prepared it for religious services. “The change of family always took place at the end of November, but nobody knew why. When I was transcribing the sales contract, I realized that the clock was purchased on November 25, 1780,” she adds.

As time went by, the year-long shifts became too long, and other measures were considered. The first was to automate the mechanism in some way, but this requires an investment of around €8,000, half of the local council’s annual budget. Residents have asked the regional government of Navarre for help, but have yet to receive a reply.

Meanwhile, families take turns to wind it up every month. To restore it, they are relying on Yeregi Elkartea, a non-profit association that works to restore tower clocks. Its secretary is Xabier Yeregi, the descendant of a long line of clockmakers. He argues that it is essential to keep the clockwork in good working order because the sound of the bells keeps the villages alive.

This reflection is shared by Marañón, who says that the effort to save the mechanism has brought back old memories to the minds of the elderly residents. Memories like those of Bernito, 89, who still remembers that when he was a child, he was told by a clockmaker who came to repair it that the clock “was a human being, that it had organs and that its heart and liver were failing.” They have also discovered that decades ago “it was the children of each family who wound up the watch and then, at the end of the year, they would go round the houses and receive a small bonus as a reward.”

It is not just Orrio that is working to preserve their heritage. The nearby town of Aldaba (population 55), is home to some of the founders of the Association of Friends of the Tower Clocks of Navarre, which works to “protect, conserve and study the watchmaking heritage” of the region, says its spokesman, Josetxo Musquiz. Its members have already begun to make an inventory of all the tower clocks that exist in the territory, which they have estimated at between 400 and 600: “Many of them are being lost or have already been lost, and we want them to be preserved.” The task is not easy, because it requires funding, but also expert personnel, stresses Yeregi. “The risk is great, because we are playing with heritage machinery.”

So far, Yeregi Elkartea has recovered between 70 and 80 clocks from 1800 to 1850, more modern than the one in Orrio. This association’s work has a particularity: it is led by an expert in non-invasive restoration and carried out “in auzolan” (a concept in the Basque language that refers to group work). “The concept of auzolan is important, but non-invasiveness is even more important because it means that we are going to respect the original mechanism,” says Xabier Yeregi.

Another member of the Yeregi family, Francisco, “the first builder of the saga,” was the one who installed the clock in the tower of the town of Aldaba. This clock dates back to 1816-17, says Musquiz. Several residents decided to clean it and put it into operation: “It started to work very well. It struck the hours with astonishing punctuality, thanks above all to the efforts of my brother, who wound it every day.”

The bells had not been heard in Aldaba for a century, says Monica Prado, a local resident and secretary of the Council. And they are no longer heard: one of the neighbors lodged a complaint with the Archbishopric of Pamplona and Tudela, owner of the church in whose tower the clock is housed, and the ecclesiastical institution decided to stop its operation. Last April, the residents wrote to the bishops to try to get it working again and ensure “the town stays alive”, says Prado.

Musquiz adds that the case of Aldaba is unique. “In seven years, the 55 residents of Aldaba have invested more than €130,000 [almost €2,400 per person] to restore the church. It is a project in which €210,885 have been invested so far, between the contributions of the residents and the Archbishopric, which has also contributed a very significant amount [more than €80,000].” They are not afraid to incorporate elements that will reduce the volume of the bells, but they insist that they have to be heard.

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