Morris Lubricants’ historic Clock Tower ticks again

One of the town’s major landmarks, the Morris Lubricants’ Clock Tower at the company’s Castle Foregate headquarters and manufacturing facility, was not working and had been out of action for some time while specialists fitted a set of new hands and refurbished the 79-year-old mechanism.

Now fully working and in pristine condition following a fresh coat of paint, the refurbished clock looks great. The remedial works will hopefully ensure that the clock runs smoothly and accurately in the decades to come.

Paul Perry, Morris Lubricants’ facilities and site services manager, explained that the clock stopped working because its hands, which were manufactured from wood and had expanded and retracted over the years due to the different temperatures, were catching on the south, west and east dials and needed replacing.

So, in order to repair and refurbish the clock, experts were called in. Cumbria Clock Company, who service over 1,400 clocks throughout the UK including famous clocks such as Big Ben, Kensington PalaceandThe Science Museum in London, were called in to help.

The wooden hands have been replaced by identical, specially crafted stainless-steel alternatives, which have been painted black and the clock mechanism has been refurbished.

“The clock movement was previously manufactured by J.B. Joyce & Company of Whitchurch, Shropshire in 1946 and took the form of a timepiece movement, with gravity escapement and pendulum action driving the 4x dials.

Cumbria Clock Company technical sales manager, Keith Cotton, formerly of J. B. Joyce, provided more detail about the repair work. “We’ve refitted the hands and dial motion works; the original hands have been left on site for historical reasons,” he said.

“The movement was dismantled and cleaned to remove the build-up of old oil and dirt, all the bearings were checked for wear, we polished all working surfaces and the weight cable was also replaced.

“As I live locally in Shropshire and am passionate about the clock, this was a great privilege having worked on it when I was much younger.

Morris Lubricants executive chairman, Andrew Goddard, is pleased to see the project completed. “The clock and clock tower are an important part of the heritage of Shrewsbury and of Morris Lubricants,” he said

Morris Lubricants purchased the former Corbett's Perseverance Iron Works for the princely sum of £6,500 in 1927 – around about the same cost as the current clockworks. The Iron Works were originally built by Thomas Corbett in 1871 and the clock followed in 1876.