Pair-Cased Verge

The watch is built the English way, in two cases of sterling silver. The inner case holds the dial and movement and carries the pendant, bow and glass; the outer case is a plain, well-rounded shell that closes over it on a hinge and spring catch, its back left clean of any engraving. Both halves are struck with the London marks for 1846-47, the outer case to match the inner. At 57.8mm across the outer case it is a substantial watch in the hand, with the weight of two silver cases behind it.

The dial is white enamel, with bold black Roman numerals whose thin strokes and serifs are drawn in gold, set inside a gold minute track with small diamond markers at the quarters. It carries no seconds and no name: the face is left to the numerals and to the two gilt hands, a spade for the hour and a slender pointer for the minute. The enamel is clean and bright under a clear glass.

The watch is wound with a key through the inner back, and the hands are set from the front with the bezel raised. Opening the inner back shows the movement Windle signed. It is a full-plate verge with fusee and chain, gilded bright, its balance cock pierced and engraved with scrolls that turn around a flower head at the centre. STOCKTON is engraved in capitals across the plate with the number 83150 beneath it, and Windle's name runs in script beside the regulator, so the town and the man both sit where the watch's owner saw them each time it was wound.

The number on the plate is struck again inside the inner case, the movement and its case numbered together when they were made, and the London date letter inside each of the two cases belongs to the same year. Movement, inner case and outer case belong to one another, from the pendant to the plate.

The outer case still holds its watch paper, a disc cut to fit the back and written in ink for a Mr Illingworth in December 1846, within months of the hallmark year.

The marks, the movement and the condition are set out in the drawers below.