Plungė manor clock tower and greenhouse

1846 is the year that still can be seen in the foundation stone.  That year the brick tower with a clock was built. The tower is the oldest building of Plungė Manor that has remained intact to this day. The clock is visible from all four sides of the tower and is the reason why the townsfolk have named the building ‘dziegorine’, which is the ancient local term for clocktower.

The Zubov family who owned Plungė Manor at that time took Palazzo Vecchio as an example of the 12-meter-high tower. It turned out as a largely reduced copy of the Pallazo Vecchio as the latter had a 94-meter-high tower and was built in 1314. Presently, Palazzo Vecchio houses the town hall and the building itself is one of three mostly visited objects in Florence. The middle of the 19th century is famous for promoting romanticism of the middle ages. The Zubovs as the owners of Plungė Manor decided to keep hand in hand with the European trends. Much later, in the times of Count Michał Ogiński, the tower was used by the gardener who worked in the nearby greenhouse. The second floor of the building belonged to the clockmaker who managed the clock tower. It is interesting that the clock has an anchor escapement, which is a rare type of escapement developed by the French clockmaker J. L. Amant in 1741. Following the renovation in 2012, it started serving as the premise for Plungė District Public Library.