The Corpus Clock on King's Parade has no hands and no numbers. What it has instead is a large golden grasshopper crouching on top of a shimmering 24-carat disc, opening its mouth to snap shut on each passing minute. The creature is the Chronophage, or "time-eater," and it does its job with unsettling conviction.

Created by inventor Dr John Taylor and unveiled by Stephen Hawking in 2008, the clock cost £1 million and is deliberately imprecise. It's only accurate once every five minutes, the irregularity intended to reflect life's unpredictability. The escapement wheel, believed to be the largest grasshopper escapement in the world, was formed from a single sheet of steel by controlled explosions in a vacuum. Its radiating ripples nod to the Big Bang.

VoiceMap's Cambridge tours use the clock as a pivot point, connecting Taylor's theatrical timepiece to the physics of John Harrison's escapement mechanism and the scientific history playing out along Bene't Street.