Abbotsbury

A Happy New Year to all our readers

I’m sorry that Abbotsbury news has been a bit thin lately.

MAJOR works are about to begin on the church clock.

Have sharp-eyed visitors to Abbotsbury noticed something missing from St Nicholas Church tower?

Has anyone noticed that the clock face has been removed?

Our church clock and its chimes have been a visible and audible symbol for the village since the late C19 before watches became commonplace items.

It has been silent since October.

Manufactured by E I Dent of London, the clockmaker who made Big Ben on the Houses of Parliament, and installed in St Nicholas Church in about 1889, the clock has been a good servant to the village.

I still look up when passing to check the time and my watch!

The clock mechanism had become very tired and a local clock repairer had done a very good job of keeping it going however the time had come for more drastic measures.

On inspection it was found that the clock needed a major overhaul and renovation and that the fixings of the clock face had become so badly corroded that it had to be removed for safety reasons.

The church council decided in October that while the necessary maintenance was being done the time had come for the clock to have an auto wind system fitted if it could be approved, and to have the clock dial renovated as it had lost its gilding and had become almost unreadable.

Access to the clock chamber for winding is very awkward at the best of times.

The chamber is accessed by narrow winding steps, which play havoc to those who have painful knees.

Now after months of waiting, piles of paperwork, emails and questions from the Salisbury Diocese Advisory Committee the petition has been granted and the go ahead given by the Chancellor.

Listed buildings, of which St Nicholas church is Grade 1 , are a real headache for those who look after them for no work or alterations can be done without all sorts of permissions being put in place.

The renovations will start before the end of January and will be undertaken by the renowned horologists, Smiths of Derby. The clock dial will be worked on in their workshops where it has been placed for safe keeping

By good fortune a generous legacy from the late Dorothy Lady Hamilton, a much loved elderly former resident of the village, had been received by the church earlier in 2010 and it was decided that this be used towards the works.

Dorothy would really have approved.

MANY people from the county will have attended concerts and services in St Nicholas Church over the years and listened to a wonderful Bechstein grand piano being played.

The community have been most fortunate to have been able to look after of this rare instrument for them for many years.

It was the gift of Brain Moser - the piano had belonged to his father - and his wife the opera singer Marina Tafur residents of the village.

Now it has been relocated to the School of Music in Exeter where it will be used daily.

Rose Removals of Devon specialist removers collected it before Christmas as the snows started and we sadly said goodbye to the piano as it left in a blizzard.

We can never thank the Mosers enough for their kindness; it has been a real privilege to be able to use it.

The fabulous piano cover stitched by the community will remain in church as it is hoped that in due course the church will have another piano.

SADLY we have lost two elderly village ladies over the past month, Mrs Jean Hutchings and Mrs June Meaker.

We will miss their cheerful presence at village events and send our condolences to their families. The funeral of June will be on Monday, January 17 at 2.00pm in St Nicholas Church.

In the midst of sadness there is joy with the safe arrival of daughter Minnie, weighing about 6lb, in Dorchester hospital for Emily Walpole and Jason Peach.

So congratulations go to them both and to the new grandparents Rob and Helen Walpole and Steve and Marie Peach.

THE Abbotsbury and Portesham Diamond Club’s next meeting will be on Tuesday, January 18

The speaker will be Langton Herring resident vet Martin Fielding.

We are advised that the Diamond club’s winter meetings will now take place in Portesham village hall.