Scarborough Clock Tower

Scarborough Clock Tower was constructed in 1979 by the Scarborough Rotary Club and the City of Stirling to commemorate the 150th anniversary of white settlement of Western Australia and the 75th anniversary of Rotary International. 

The Rotary Club of Scarborough was provisionally formed on 5 July 1956 and admitted to Rotary International the following month. 

The tower was designed by architect and Rotarian, Peter Otto, who provided an outline of the thinking behind the design at a Rotary meeting in July 1979: 

The 3 legs may be representative of Rotary, the City of Stirling and WAY ’79 and the curve of each is a radius ingeniously conceived and constructed. The tower will be 40 metres high and 4 metres wide at the top. The Clock will face East up Scarborough Beach Road, North-West towards Trigg – and South-East towards City Beach with a face about 900mm in diameter. They should be readable from a distance of at least 500 metres. The legs will be of concrete with the Clock structure of stainless steel so that the whole thing will last indefinitely. The Tower will be placed in a new roundabout at the beach end of Scarborough Beach Road and will be floodlit at night. The roundabout will be landscaped in wave forms to bring the theme of wave and surf right up to the Tower.

It was constructed by Rotarians with the assistance of the City of Stirling, with much of the labour and materials donated. 

The Governor of Western Australia, Sir Wallace Kyle, officially dedicated Scarborough Clock Tower on 13 September 1979. Members of the Scarborough Surf Life Saving Club formed a guard of honour and the Scarborough Senior High School Band made its first official public appearance at the ceremony. Sir Kyle unveiled the commemorative plaque, while Lady Kyle commenced the clock mechanism. The Scarborough Life Saving Club were appointed ‘Honorary Guardians of the Clocktower’ in perpetuity and it was expected that ‘this tower will become the focal point at Scarborough Beach. A meeting place, a landmark for small craft at sea, the centrepoint’. After the ceremony, guests moved to the Scarborough Surf Life Saving Club for refreshments and the presentation of a time capsule to the Scarborough Rotary Club. The time capsule was later placed below the centre of the clock and is to be opened in 2079.

Since its construction, Scarborough Clock Tower has been the focus of ‘Carols by the Clock Tower’, an annual Christmas celebration, flag raising ceremonies, naturalisation ceremonies, Australia Day functions and New Year celebrations.

Scarborough Clock Tower is a precast sandblasted concrete and stainless steel clock tower, constructed in 1979, with paved surrounds, bench seats, garden beds and a time capsule, located near a traffic roundabout at the intersection of Scarborough Beach Road and The Esplanade, Scarborough.