A burr walnut cased eight-day longcase clock The movement and dial by George Burgess, London, circa 1697, the case later The five finned and latched pillar inside countwheel bell striking movement with anchor escapement regulated by seconds pendulum and 11 inch square brass dial incorporating subsidiary seconds dial, ringed winding holes and 'triple-crown' foliate scroll border engraved calendar aperture to the matted centre, within applied silvered Roman numeral chapter ring with stylised sword-hilt half hour markers, Arabic five minutes to outer track and signed Geo: Burgess, London to lower margin, with scroll pierced blued steel hands and winged cherub mask and scroll cast spandrels to angles with foliate engraved infill to margins between, now in a burr walnut veneered case executed with selected figured veneers and cross-grain mouldings, the hood with shallow dome caddy upstand over ogee cornice and scroll-pierced frieze fret to entablature, the hood door with Solomonic twist turned three-quarter columns flanking the glazed dial aperture and the sides incorporating rectangular openings with conforming quarter columns set against bargeboards at the rear, the trunk with convex throat mouldings and 41 inch rectangular door veneered with four pairs of book-matched burr panels and centred with a lenticle within half-round moulded border, the sides with twin triple-line strung panels within crossbanded borders, on conforming quarter-veneered plinth base further crossbanded and with ogee top moulding over bun feet, 208cm (82ins) high. A George Burgis is recorded in Loomes, Brian Clockmakers of Britain 1286-1700 as the son of a plumber from Thetford in Norfolk who was apprenticed through the Blacksmiths' Company to John Higginson in 1683. Loomes notes that he appears not have gained his freedom and cites christening of children (with wife Mary) at St. Giles Cripplegate in 1721 and 1728. His will was proved on 15th July 1739 in which he was described as a watchmaker of the Parish of St. Martin in the Fields.The engraved 'triple crown' motif to calendar aperture is believed to represent the unification of the British Isles under William III and is thought to coincide with the signing of the Clockmaker's Oath of Allegiance to the Crown in 1697.