Hidden Gem: Phillips' Clock Shop is About Time

It’s 3:30 pm Tuesday, Dec. 6.

Longtime clock and watch shop owner George Phillips stands behind his glass-topped counter and says people tell him a clock’s ticking soothes.

The 330 Essex St. shop is wall-to-wall clocks.

Carved grandfathers, gilded mantle pieces and gleaming ship’s bell clocks keep time with the hanging banjos.

It’s bright and quiet in here at Phillips' Clock Shop but for the ticking and staggered chimes. 

An occasional cuckoo pokes his head from a carved forest of dark wood to sing.

A Christmas tree’s white lights glimmer in the store-front window. A green wreath hangs above a comfortable couch.

George Phillips isn’t especially punctual but he likes the idea of traveling in time. If he could, he knows what he would do.

“I wish there was,” he says. “Cause I could buy all the old clocks that people threw out.”

He would rescue beautiful time pieces and pocket watches since melted for gold and silver value in eras when metal prices swung high.

He laments disrespect for fine craftsmanship and history.

“That’s the sad part,” he says. “It’s really a shame. They don’t care if God made them.”

He likes restoration work, fixing a clean old piece that has stopped ticking.

It’s one of his favorite things to do — work on a well-made clock that has been kicked around or sat dormant for 50 to 75 years.

“Bring it back to life,” he says.

Phillips speaks slow and measured.

Maybe all the time he has spent surrounded by clocks has rubbed off on him. Maybe he has always spoken that way.

Phillips’ life in time began after he got out of the US Marines in 1964.

His wife’s father collected clocks so he started to do the same.

He asked a local watchmaker how to fix the broken ones. “How to attempt to repair them,” he said.

He needed training to make the repairs happen consistently and went to clock and watch repair school in Boston from 1968 to 1970.

After that he got a job on Washington Street in Boston working as the assistant manager for the clock and watch repair department at Jordan Marsh.

The counter was long, longer than a street is wide.

In 1983 he opened a clock and watch shop in Salem and, in 1995, opened his Essex Street shop in Swampscott.

It’s located in a small pocket of commerce, and the store is somewhat hidden since it's not in a bustling commercial district.

Phillips’ oldest clocks are English and French, pre-1770. His newest clocks are brand new.

His prices span a wide range. At the high end are the Rolls Royce of ship’s bell clocks, made by Chelsea, the last American clockmaker.

The manufacturer is located in the city of Chelsea, MA, and they are still in business.

So is Phillips, even in this digital age.

For some, a clock is a soothing thing.

People who have nice clocks say they do not notice the ticking unless it stops. Then they notice.

Clocks are there to be seen, touched and heard, though grandfathers can be set up so as not to chime through the night, Phillips says.

“Clocks are for people who want to slow down a little bit and don’t want to be bombarded, ” he says.

For some it’s therapy, to sit amid the ticking and read or relax.

After all, he says, the clock of life only gets wound once.

Phillips' Clock Shop is open Tuesday through Saturday, 9:30 am to 6 pm.