The building at the corner of Baxter gate and French Gate had originally been constructed in the eighteenth century. In 1837 it was altered by architect William Hurst who rounded its corner, which by that time had become a traditional way of smartening up the town’s streets. The clock was added in 1838 and for most of the rest of the century, this was a prominent feature of Doncaster viewed by every traveller on the Great North Road.

By the 1890s the Corporation was becoming concerned about some of the narrow streets which impeded vehicles even before the dawn of the motor age. They decided to take action. Baxter Gate was to be widened and this meant that the old building on the corner had to go.

After the demolition of the old Clock Corner, this became the new corner building, owned by the widowed Mrs. E H Walker. As the site only had a very narrow frontage to French Gate she tried to buy some of the adjacent site in French Gate but the owners, the Corporation, refused to sell and Mrs. Walker had to rebuild on the restricted plot. By this time her son, James Greenhalgh Walker, one of the boys who had swung on the old clock’s pendulum as a child, had grown up to be an architect and it was he who designed the new Clock Corner. It is this building that we still see today.

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This marks the end of the tour. If you would like to know more in-depth information about Doncaster's History, visit the website on your desktop.

The Doncaster Civic Trust has been around for a long time – in 2016 we celebrated our 70th anniversary. Over the years we have often been influential in promoting good architecture and urban design and helping protect valuable historic buildings and townscape.

You can get a flavour of our history by visiting our archive section on our website. https://www.doncastercivictrust.org.uk/

We continue to be very active. At the moment, we are putting a lot of energy and resources into developing an education programme to help our young people in Doncaster better understand and value our rich architectural heritage.

For more information, please visit our website: https://www.doncastercivictrust.org.uk/