Ballrace Newton’s Cradle

Against the backdrop of ‘Swinging London’ Loncraine Broxton ran their design company above a rag and bone shop in Lots Road, Chelsea. Their first design of 1967 was Ballrace, a desk-top stylish chrome version of Newton’s cradle. It became the defining executive toy of the 1970s and 1980s.

This elegant design, inspired by the Bauhaus-period furniture of Marcel Breuer, became the iconic ‘executive toy’ which featured on the desk of every high-flying businessman – on and off the screen.

Ballrace has featured extensively in television and film of the period and beyond: It’s been used as a relaxing diversion on the desk of characters such as Chuck Lumley (Henry Winkler), the mild-mannered New Yorker in Ron Howard‘s Night Shift and of Deputy White House Communications Director Sam Seaborn played by Rob Lowe in The West Wing. 

We find Newton’s Cradles on the on the desk of David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) in Straw Dogs and of lead villains such as that of Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman) in The Hudsucker Proxy, Magneto in X-Men, and of the Kryptonians in Superman II. 

You can find vintage versions of Ballrace for sale on Etsy and eBay from time to time.