If you’ve ever visited Winchester Cathedral, you’d have seen its impressive vaulted ceilings, which are a mainstay of Gothic architecture. England’s largest cathedral has inspired a similar aesthetic in Parmigiani Fleurier’s Toric Quaestor Winchester, first revealed at SIHH earlier this year.

Despite its blackness, the dial of the Toric Quaestor Winchester is actually 18 karat gold. Several techniques are available to render gold black in colour, including plating, PVD, chemical patination and even the usage of lasers to deform the metal’s surface. The result here is a dark black dial which has been engraved with a bevelling technique to increase its number of facets. The pattern created is akin to the vaulted crossing of a cathedral, where the transept intersects the main nave to create a crossing square.

In addition to the engraved dial, the rose gold indexes have also been faceted in the same way, thus extending the relief all the way to its edge. The only other features on the dial are the power reserve indicator and small seconds sub-dial at three and six o’clock respectively. We were quite surprised with their successful integration – despite the sharp angles and hard edges resulting from aggressive bevelling on the dial, the round small seconds and curved power reserve indicator actually sit well on it, with nary a hint of discord. Beyond the dial, the watch comes in a round rose gold case with two concentric bezels, which is simple enough to avoid detracting from the dial.

Striking visuals aside, the Toric Quaestor Winchester’s beating heart is the Calibre PF357 manual winding movement, which contains a minute repeater complication with cathedral chimes. Cathedral chimes refer to gongs that encircle the movement twice instead of once, thus improving the acoustic quality of the set at the cost of complicating the watchmaker’s work on the housing. The inclusion of a minute repeater in this timepiece couldn’t be any more fitting – what then, if not a device to invoke the church bells rung to mark the time or an occasion?