Editing St John's College, Cambridge (section)

===New Court's clock tower===
[[File:St John's College New Court 1, Cambridge, UK - Diliff.jpg|thumb|right|New Court and blank clock tower face]]
New Court's central [[cupola]] has four blank clock faces. These are subject to various apocryphal explanations. One legend maintains that a statute limiting the number of chiming clocks in Cambridge rendered the addition of a mechanism illegal. No such limitation is known to exist. More likely explanations include Hutchinson's fear that the installation of a clockface would spoil the building's symmetry and that the college's financial situation in the early 19th century made completion impossible.

Other legends explaining the absence of clockfaces claim that St John's and its neighbour, Trinity were engaged in a race to build the final (or tallest) clocktower in Cambridge. Supposedly, whichever was finished first (or was tallest) would be permitted to house the 'final' chiming clock in Cambridge. Trinity's Tower was finished first (or, in another version of the same story, was made taller overnight by the addition of a wooden cupola), and its clock was allowed to remain. In truth, the completion of the New Court and Trinity's Clock (which is in King Edward's Tower) was separated by nearly two centuries. Trinity's famous double-striking clock was installed in the 17th century by its then-Master, [[Richard Bentley]], a former student of St John's, who dictated that the clock chime once for Trinity, and once for his alma mater, St John's.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Fletcher |first=Hilary |date=2023-03-24 |title=A brief history of time: a guide to Cambridge clocks |url=https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/brief-history-of-time |access-date=2024-01-18 |website=University of Cambridge |language=en}}</ref>