Why do some have one hand?

Most seventeenth-century people did not need to track minutes. Knowing the hour and roughly the quarter was enough for rural and domestic life. Early clockwork also lacked the precision to make a minute hand worthwhile. A single hand circling a dial divided into quarters suited the balance wheel escapements of the period.

I have noticed that a lot of these clocks seem to have a pendulum swinging outside the back of the case. Was that the original design?

Most early antique lantern clocks began life with a balance wheel on top. When pendulum technology arrived in the middle of the seventeenth century, owners wanted better timekeeping. Clockmakers routinely converted older examples. They removed the top balance and fitted a verge escapement with a short pendulum swinging freely behind the backplate.

How are the weights wound?

You pull the ropes or chains downwards by hand. The mechanism uses a simple ratchet system where pulling the unweighted end raises the heavy driving weight back to the top. There is no key involved. The weights hang directly below the clock and need pulling up every twelve or thirty hours depending on the internal gearing.

My friend has one with very elaborate pierced brass panels around the top bell, and I wonder what those decorative panels are called and what they actually do?

Dealers call those panels frets. They sit on the front and sides of the frame just below the bell. Their main job is hiding the hammer and top wheels from view, keeping the outline neat. Makers cut them in patterns like crossed dolphins or floral scrolls, which often helps identify where the clock was made.

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Antique Lantern Clocks

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Antique lantern clocks are early domestic weight-driven brass timepieces, styled to resemble traditional enclosed lanterns, built in seventeenth-century England to hang on a wall and strike the hours.