It’s time to renovate Millennium Clock

ASHBOURNE’S Millennium Clock is due to be taken down and refurbished this year, as part of an ongoing scheme to transform the area currently dominated by the crumbling Elderly Person’s Rest Room.

The wooden building is due to be demolished as part of a deal struck with construction firm Amos, which is redeveloping the former Bennetts building into shops and flats, and town councillors have agreed to let the firm use the area next to the shops to help with their project in return for the demolition of the rest room.

The wider scheme to smarten up the area with seating and planting areas will start once the dust has settled on the Bennetts scheme, but in the meantime the town council has agreed to commission specialists to remove and renovate the town’s clock.

The renovation will involve the delicate removal of the clock, conveying it to a workshop, and then a full restoration will begin.

Although no costs have been produced, councillors agreed unanimously to commission clockmakers Smiths of Derby, which originally supplied the clock, to take on the threemonth project.

The Millennium Clock, which has stood proud in St John Street since March 2000, was unveiled by the late Alan Hodkinson, who was mayor of Ashbourne at the time.

Although it has been regularly maintained by the town council, its official owners, this will be its first full renovation.

Back in October 2020, while the town was reeling from the effects of the pandemic, the clock mysteriously started turning backwards and it was repaired as part of a three-year maintenance contract.