The quarter chimes of the Beverley Minster clock are ringing out across the town again after the Friends of Beverley Minster agreed to cover the costs of its repairs.
The Minster’s PCC asked the Friends for help after giving them the news that it did not have the funds to pay for the work.
The chimes, which were composed by the Minster’s organist John Camidge and have been heard every day since 1902, had to be turned off in August to avoid further damage when one of the clock hammer check springs broke.
The broken pieces were removed by the Cumbria Clock Company and were taken back to a workshop in Penrith, where a new spring was hand forged to the exact dimensions as the original one.
The new one was then fitted during December, just before Christmas.
“The spring sits in between two of our larger bells with only a few inches in which to work, other parts of the mechanism might have to be removed to gain access to fit the new spring,” said Mike Robson, the Minster’s steeple keeper.
“When you have something like the clock that has been in place for more than 120 years then you expect that at some point something will stop working.”
If the Friends of the Minster had not stepped in to cover the £612 cost of the work, then the chimes would have been turned off indefinitely.
