The present regulator has a host of unusual and highly individual refinements. The inverted train means that the deadbeat pallets are at the base of the movement and the seconds and hours rings are reversed. Two makers, both of great repute; John Ellicott and George Margetts, were known to have made a regulator with an inverted train, possibly in a bid to achieve greater duration. The two unusual pierced brass bridges on the backplate, holding the escape wheel and pallets, are a unique and flamboyant method of showing the escapement off to its best effect. The front bracket securing the movement to the seatboard is stamped HOLMDEN 1579. George John Holmden of Clerkenwell was a specialist precision clockmaker. He is known to have supplied movements to a number of leading clockmakers including Benjamin Vulliamy and Thomas Earnshaw.
The method of temperature compensation employed on the present lot is most unusual. The brass rod running down the backboard terminates with a cornelian, or hard agate block; when the rod expands the cornelian block ensures the rod is pushed up, the top of the rod raises the pendulum which itself is conversely expanding, thus the two expansions are designed to cancel each other out.
The brass block at the top of the backplate is adjusted from side to side by means of a fine threaded screw - it is an ultra-fine method of beat adjustment.