The sight and sound of the church clock telling the time again was an early Christmas present for at least one resident, following its complete overhaul last month.

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The two year wait, chiefly because of covid restrictions and clock engineers catching up on the work backlog when they were eased, came to an end with the clock chiming the hour late on a mid-December Thursday morning.

There to see and hear it was Chris Leeson, the great, great granddaughter of its maker William. 

Stuart Morrison, the Cumbria Clock Company engineer who ensured the town keeps on time, explained how colleagues had abseiled down to the clock faces, removed the hands, and did all the external work necessary before he removed bent and cracked items from the mechansim to orkshop repair, stripped, cleaned and reassembled it and checked for timekeeeping.

Later, Barry Gascoigne and Sue Wallace, of Gascoignes of Coleshill Ltd, who funded the overhaul, came to check on the time (pictured). Restored to near original condition, the clock is ticking and keeping time better than it has done for a long time.

Current clock conservation standards insist on the retention of the patina on the mechanism and, where fitted, the re-fitting of the auto-winder to the main winding barrels to ease wear on the clock.

Where once a bellringer had to wind the clock twice a week, two auto-winding drives were intalled in 2003, but had come to the end of their life and were unreliable. 

Two new, sturdy, state of the art auto-winders underneath the clock have replaced them. The old windlass Barry and Sue are handling is now redundant.