Church clock thought to date from 1400 refurbished

A church clock thought to date back as far as 1400 is being removed from its tower to be refurbished.

The clock at St Catherine's Church, in Montacute, Somerset, still has a number of its original components, including the outer frame.

Church representatives knew the clock to be centuries old but research carried out in-house found its construction methods likely date back to the 15th century.

It will be removed by a specialist team later before an audience of pupils from All Saints Church of England Primary School.

Churchwarden Nic Laycock said the discovery of the clock's age had made its removal a big community story in Montacute.

"The belief was it went back as far as the English Reformation - 1539 - when the old priory in the village was dissolved by Henry VIII.

"But, when experts came and looked at the construction - the quality of the workmanship, or lack thereof because it's of fairly crude construction, they decided it was a good deal older.

"We've no written provenance of the date, but the style and quality of the work puts it around 1400, we're told, which makes it one of the oldest working clocks in the country."

He added: "We've now got the primary school involved in marking this by writing a poetry anthology."

The current clock face was added in 1815 by villager George Baker.

Beyond the clock's great age and its removal from the church tower, there are community links that cement its place in local folklore.

"There's the story of Eric Rogers, who wound the clock every single day from 1914 for 67 years," says Mr Laycock.

"He'd promised his uncle he would do so until his uncle returned from the First World War, which tragically never happened."

Mr Rogers wound the clock daily until the 1980s, when local man Humphrey Hamlin took over.

Although Mr Hamlin later electrified the clock, he still monitors its condition in his 90s - just the second person in more than a century to be its keeper.

To add to the story, he now lives in the house where George Baker made the clock face in 1815.

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