Clock Tower and Art Gallery
The Vadnagar Clock Tower stands at the heart of the town’s old bazaar, reflecting Vadnagar’s continuing role as a lively centre of commerce and community life.
Follow the main bazaar road towards Sharmishtha lake till you reach the Clock Tower.
This clock tower stands in Vadnagar’s main market area, close to Sharmishtha Lake. Historically, clock towers were built in town centres and served as visual anchors for everyday life. It told the time, it was a meeting place and it was a prominent landmark.
While it may seem like it belongs to Vadnagar’s distant past, this clock tower is actually quite recent. This site once housed a library building that also had a clock tower. At some point that building was demolished. Later, a new structure was built here as part of a redevelopment project. Today, it houses an art gallery and museum that presents the town’s history through audio-visual displays, interactive panels, 3D projections and even VR experiences.
On the clock face, you’ll notice that the numerals are written in Gujarati. The Gujarati script is closely related to Devanagari script, which is used to write Hindi. Both Gujarati and Devnagari trace their origins back to a much older writing system, the Brahmi script.
Over time, Gujarati evolved into a distinct script, especially suited to mercantile use. One visible difference is that Gujarati does not use the headline, or shirorekha, that runs above the letters in Devanagari.
