During town meeting held on the 12th May 1844, Guillaume Montespan, the mayor, and his town councillors, petitioned for the establishment of a letter delivery office (“Bureau de distribution de dépêches”), i.e. a kind of early post office. The Préfet, however, demanded that one condition be met – that the commune set up a public clock visible for everyone to see. Since the town budget was near nil at the time, the mayor gave an advance out of his own pocket, to the tune of 500 Francs – a considerable amount at the time – towards the construction of the proposed building. The ground floor was to be put to use later on as a small jail! The curé (parish priest) in charge at the time would not allow a clock to be built against the walls of his church, so the tower was erected on Place de l’Horloge (Clock Square), a now apt name, where a shrine used to stand; the shrine’s cross is still there. Permission to buy a clock and bell was granted by King Louis Philippe himself, on his minister’s brief.

The six-sided tower was built between 1844 and 1852, by Guillaume Rives, mason in Mondonville, out of pebbles and hand-cut red bricks provided by the nearby Montespan brickworks.