Clock is tickety-boo
The church clock is keeping Coleshill on time after its wash and brush up. Above right, Chris Leeson, the great, great granddaughter of its maker, William, hears from Cumbria Clock Company engineer Stuart Morrison how he stripped it down and put it back together again, complete with new auto-winding motors. Two short videos here show how the clock works.
Left and centre, Barry Gascoigne and Sue Wallace, of Gascoignes of Coleshill Ltd, who funded the overhaul, came to check on the time. 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 winding handle Barry and Sue are handling is now redundant.
A really good arrangement by Howard Snell first heard by Coleshill Town Band’s Stephen Fagg at the Royal Albert Hall back in the 1980s. CTB are not playing it, however. Coleshill Youth Band did play Ketelby’s Bells Across The Meadow at a recent concert, however.