Timekeeping and Abbey Bells

Religious house timekeeping was achieved through the tolling of the Division Bell (usually a tenor, but sometimes handheld and shaken in the ears of tardy canons), roughly at the following times:

• Matins – sometimes at 2am
• Prime (first Hour) - 6am
• Terce (pronounced terse-ee, third hour) – 9am
• Sext (sixth hour) - noon
• None (pronounced non-eh, ninth hour) – 3pm
• Vespers – sunset or 6pm
• Compline – 9pm before retiring

 

Proper, joined up timekeeping only came into the UK after the expansion of the railways in the nineteenth century (1840-46), using Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which was eventually formalised in 1880.