We don’t have a cuckoo clock in our luxury chalet in Zermatt!

Originally from Southern Germany

Often regarded as quintessentially Swiss, the origins of the cuckoo clock are to be found in southern Germany and in particular, the Black Forest where the basic concept of a time piece with an automaton bird calling the hours has been under development since the eighteenth century.

Sightings as early as the second century BC

It seems however that the earliest record of something resembling a cuckoo clock goes back to the second century BC when the Greek mathematician, Ctesibius of Alexandria used a water powered mechanism to power a moving model owl accompanied by a whistle.

Luxury chalet cuckoo clocks made in Switzerland

It wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that the clever Swiss started manufacturing cuckoo clocks in the form of a chalet and whilst models based on a clockwork mechanism with a small bellows to produce the sound are still produced, quartz movements with digitally generated bird-song are now common place.

Why not come to Zermatt this winter to gaze at the Matterhorn and buy a cuckoo clock?

 

Article by Ed Mannix, owner of www.matterhornchalets.com