Betsy Hardy woke up early June 29, the weight of five generations on her mind.

Three hours later, she stood in the parking lot of the TowneBank Pavilion Center II building. She watched as the outdoor pedestal clock that had been a fixture in the family’s jewelry business since 1884 was loaded onto a trailer bound for Tennessee.

“I’m going to keep my glasses on,” said Hardy, holding back tears as the crane operator prepared to lift the 650-pound piece.

For years, the black metal clock greeted drivers as they entered the resort area. Before that, it lived in front of her father’s store at Wayside Village Shoppes on Virginia Beach Boulevard. But its heyday was in the early 1900s as a fixture on downtown Norfolk’s Granby Street in front of four iterations of the jewelry store.

Hardy has managed the business since 1993. She moved the clock to her gallery, Hardy’s The Art of Jewelry, in 2010.

“This was all me, and that clock was going to come,” she said, remembering the momentous day in her career. “That was very emotional for me.”

Over the last several months, Hardy, 63, has been planning the next phase of her life. She recently closed her gallery, which displayed rare, exquisite gemstone art and jewelry by internationally renowned designers. She meets with clients by appointment only.

“I’m working towards reducing my footprint,” Hardy said.

The clock was a symbol of the family’s success and its owners’ dedication to the craft of jewelry design. She carried its legacy, but now it no longer seemed to fit.

“Now,” Hardy said, “it’s different because I’m winding it down.”

Hardy’s Jewellers’ origins date to 1845 in Glasgow, Scotland, when Daniel Buchanan designed a watch for Queen Victoria’s eldest son, the Prince of Wales. Buchanan earned the title “By Appointment to Her Majesty.”

Buchanan, Betsy Hardy’s great-great-grandfather, emigrated to the U.S. and in 1884 commissioned the clock from famous Boston clockmaker Edward Howard. It featured a hand crank.

The clock was installed in front of the D. Buchanan and Son jewelry store on Broad Street in Richmond in 1885 and remained through 1910.

It was then moved to the D. Buchanan Jewelry store on Granby. The name of the business changed to Hardy’s, under the ownership of Betsy’s grandfather, with four different locations on Granby Street, and the clock moving each time. It was powered by electricity starting in 1933.

While the clock face has been renovated through the years, the original 13-foot iron pedestal has remained intact.

In 1979, the clock moved again when Hardy’s father, George Buchanan Hardy, opened Hardy’s Jewellers at Willis Wayside in Virginia Beach.

Betsy Hardy, who was born in Norfolk, attended college and graduate school before returning to Virginia Beach in the late 1980s to work with her father.

“Dad was the first one that brought education, to explain about diamonds, so that people knew what they were getting,” she said.

She’s a gemologist who finds inspiration in the artistic journey of jewelry design and passes that knowledge on to her clients. She’s never viewed herself as a salesperson.

“I don’t sell,” she said. “It’s got to speak to you.”

She’s been spending time lately working on a book about the history of the family business. The clock is the narrator. In the process of writing and looking for old photographs, she inadvertently tracked down a pocket watch her great-great-grandfather designed in 1858.

She’s committed to unpacking five generations of history before she retires.

“It’s a big ball of string to unwind,” Hardy said.

Blaine Lewis learned the trade while working at the Virginia Beach store as a young man. He stayed friends with Hardy and owns New Approach School for Jewelers in Arrington, Tennessee. He credits the Hardy family for its existence.

“Their standards of education are timeless,” he said.

When he heard Hardy was downsizing, he asked about the clock and offered to give it a new home at his school. He plans to install it in a courtyard facing a pond.

“It’s not just going in somebody’s backyard or a town somewhere,” Hardy said. “He has the top high-art jewelry fabrication school in the United States, and that means a lot to me.”

Lewis and his family drove from Tennessee to pick up the clock. Hardy watched as he helped guide it onto a frame he built on his trailer. Tears welled up behind her sunglasses.

“I feel like I’ve been a good steward of it,” she said. “Nothing lasts forever.”

Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com