Eleven clowns from Somerset walk into an observatory

‘Predictions? None of us have a clue what’s happening’

Dear readers — once upon a time, you could set your watch by her. The Bidston Observatory, that is. According to Historic England, one of the functions of the observatory — perched on a hill overlooking Park Wood and Bidston Village — was to set the time. Up until 1969, every day at 1pm precisely, “the River Mersey One O'Clock Gun would be fired electrically from the Observatory.” Ships would set their chronometers (a sort of nautical timepiece) by this shot. 

The Bidston Observatory has lived many lives before and after this point: you could make meteorological observations with her help, she was where scientists went to research tides and she made dependable predictions of international tides possible. These days, she’s living out a radically different third act: housing BOARC, an artistic research centre. We sent writer Ophira Gottlieb to explore how musicians like Holy Other and Benjamin D. Duvall have been inspired by one of this area’s greatest buildings.

But before this, a new bl…