Fresh face revealed for Manchester Town Hall’s clock tower

At over 280ft tall, Manchester Town Hall clock tower is only narrowly shorter than the Houses of Parliament’s Elizabeth Tower. Great Abel, its eight-tonne hour bell, is the city’s answer to Big Ben.

Since they were last on display, the clock’s four dials and four sets of hands – which were suffering from the ravages of more than 140 years of weather – have been meticulously restored to their Victorian glory.

The cast iron dials, which were rusting and deteriorating with their paintwork worn away, have been restored. The glass panels which were cracked and damaged – including by the shockwaves of a World War II bombing raid in June 1941 – have been repaired, with the original glass retained wherever possible. The 9 ft 8 ins long minute hand and 6ft long minute hands have been cleaned, treated and their ironwork repainted in its original colours.

The intricately-patterned dial and hour markers are back to their gleaming best after being re-gilded in 23-carat gold.

For the time being, the hour and minute hands are connected to a temporary drive while work to clean and repair the original clock mechanism is completed off-site ahead of its reinstallation. The clock, made by master clockmakers Gillet and Bland, is the largest of its design ever made and remains one of the country’s biggest and most significant tower clocks. It will be reinstalled once works to the rest of the clock tower are complete.

Work is also concluding on the clock tower’s impressive Carillon, a set of 23 bells with which tunes can be played. This was previously not working reliably, and restricted to playing a small repertoire of tunes automatically controlled by a pianola-style punchcard. Once its restoration is complete it will be possible to play any tune on it, opening up a wealth of possibilities.

All works are being carried out by Cumbria Clock Company Ltd.

Over the coming months more of Manchester Town Hall will emerge from behind the scaffolding as further external works conclude, gradually restoring views of the iconic building as internal works are completed.

Garry Bridges, deputy leader of Manchester City Council, said: “The town hall clock has been keeping the time for Mancunians since New Year’s Day 1879 and its prominent tower has watched over the city for even longer.

“As part of the once-in-a-century Our Town Hall project to repair and restore the town hall and safeguard it for future generations, we’ve taken the opportunity to bring it back to its original glory.

“It’s great that we’ve now reached a stage where we have been able to remove the scaffolding and restore the view of the clock tower, giving a foretaste of the whole building being returned to the people of Manchester in magnificent shape. It’s a milestone moment.”