When do the clocks change in the uk

Royal Observatory. Plan your visit. Top things to do. Discover gifts from the home of time Keep track of time with Royal Observatory Greenwich watches, and our famous Shepherd Gate clock, reproduced for your wall at home Shop. How old is Earth? How fast can you think? How long is a light year and how short is a femtosecond?

What does Greenwich Mean Time mean? Can you tell the time with flowers? When did time begin? This light-hearted, illustrated miscellany from Royal Observatory Greenwich goes a long way to answering some of these questions and also presents a whole range of other amazing facts and figures which show the influence of time on our daily lives Buy Now.

A stylish hour analogue clock that will make a statement on any wall, with its bold monochrome face, and matte black metal casing A luxury chrome-plated half hunter pocket watch and chain from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, with a moon phase dial Moving the clocks forward in the summer months would give us darker mornings but lighter, longer evenings.

Since then, Britain toyed with moving the clocks a number of times, including bringing them forward two hours ahead of GMT during the Second World War.

They were also brought forward for periods in the spring of , in line with fuel shortages. There was an experiment, between and , which kept clocks one hour ahead of GMT all year round. Britain then reverted to our now familiar system of GMT in the winter and summer time in between March and October. Do the clocks change in Europe, the US and Australia? How the clocks going back affect travel timings. However, some have campaigned for British time to be brought in line with other European countries to reduce accidents.

This would make it two hours ahead of GMT in the summer and one hour ahead in the winter. However, our priority now should be the prevention road accidents that cause serious injury and death. But it arrived in the UK after Coldplay singer Chris Martin's great-great-grandfather, a builder called William Willett, thought it was a good idea too. In , he published a leaflet called The Waste of Daylight, encouraging people to get out of bed earlier. Willett was a keen golfer and he got cross when his games would be cut short because the sun went down and there wasn't enough light to carry on playing.

The idea of moving the clocks forwards and backwards was discussed by the government in , but many people didn't like it so it wasn't made a law.

Willett spent his life trying to convince people that it was a good idea, but it was only introduced in the UK in - a year after he died. But this didn't last for very long.

Now, the UK's clocks always go back by one hour on the last Sunday in October and forward by one hour on the last Sunday in March. Moving clocks like this is now done in some countries across the world, but many still don't do this.

Lots of people have different opinions about whether we should change our clocks like this. Some think having BST is a good thing because it saves energy, by making better use of natural daylight, and helps to reduce traffic accidents. Did you know that the clocks in the UK change twice a year? Check out this handy guide to the changing of the clocks, so that you never lose track of time during your trip to London.

When do the clocks change? Why do the clocks change? When do the clocks go forward?