Finalising the Arrangements - October 2008

At a final pre-contract meeting, held on Thursday Oct 30th, in the bell chamber,  representatives of Hayward Mills Associates from Nottingham, the bell hangers, and Smith of Derby, the clock engineers,
met with the PCC to finalise arrangements for removing the bells and to co-ordinate this with the electrification of the clock.

Spiral stone staircase

Because the tower is solid, the only access to the bell chamber is a narrow spiral stair case. The bells will have to be removed though the North window of the tower; necessitating the temporary removal of the tracery.





Peter Hayward from the bell hangers is seen here, standing at the top of the stairs, checking the dimensions of the frame. As you can see working space is rather tight! The bells will be taken out of the window seen at the top of the picture - they do just fit!.

Removal is expected to take two days; probably in early December. Then there will be an 8 week gap, followed by a week or more to get things back in place.


To the left of Peter is the wooden casing for the clock, which is to have work done on it at the same time.


The clock mechanism is shown here with the doors open and being checked by Michael Tomlinson from Smith of Derby.












The clock mechanism was made by

W. Potts & Sons , Leeds in 1887.

Checking dimensions of the bells frame Checking the clock in the church tower The clock mechamism in St.Mary's church tower