Clock Tower, Sialkot
| Clock Tower, Sialkot | |
|---|---|
گھنٹہ گھر | |
Interactive map of the Clock Tower, Sialkot area | |
| Alternative names | Ghanta Ghar |
| General information | |
| Type | Clock tower |
| Location | Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan, Pakistan |
| Coordinates | 32°30′58″N 74°33′23″E / 32.516128°N 74.556312°E |
| Completed | 1922 |
| Owner | Sialkot Cantonment |
The Clock Tower, Sialkot (Urdu: سیالکوٹ گھنٹہ گھر), commonly called Ghanta Ghar, is a five-storey brick clock tower that dominates Iqbal Square in Sialkot Cantonment, Punjab, Pakistan.[1] Completed late in the period of British India, the tower remains the city's most recognisable civic landmark and a fixed point around which commercial life in the adjoining Saddar Bazaar revolves.[2]
History
It was built in 1922.[3][4] Local philanthropists Sheikh Ghulam Qadir and Seth Rai Bahadur laid the foundation stone of the tower.[1]
After the partition, the tower served both as a ceremonial flag-raising site and as a navigational marker for trade convoys bound for the city’s sporting-goods factories.[2]
Architecture
The tower rises in five receding brick stages capped by a castellated parapet.[1] Each elevation carries a cast-iron dial with Roman numerals, enabling time to be read from every axis of the square.[1] Blind arches, chamfered cornices and brick pilasters lend the exterior a restrained vertical emphasis, while the unpainted brickwork harmonises with neighbouring late-Victorian storefronts.[2] A narrow wrought-iron stair ascends to the machinery room where the original weight-driven escapement, now assisted by the 2012 quartz module, still powers an hourly chime audible across the cantonment.[5]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d "سیالکوٹ جنوبی ایشیا کے امیرترین شہروں میں سے ایک". Express.pk (in Urdu). 19 January 2020. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
- ^ a b c "Sialkot exudes a particular romance. I set out to explore it". Dawn. 4 October 2018. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
- ^ Description and history of City of Sialkot with picture of its Clock Tower in center of town on Encyclopedia Britannica website, Retrieved 10 August 2017
- ^ Clock Tower, Sialkot, Published 30 June 2013, Retrieved 10 August 2017
- ^ "Rado restores Sialkot clock tower". The Nation. 31 August 2012. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
External links