Clock will get some modern twists.

WORK has started on modernising the 143-year-old clock in a north Warwickshire town.

It ticks away in the bell tower of Coleshill Parish Church, so winding it and checking the time has always been the responsibility of one of the bellringers.

On Sundays, the weights which drive it have to be raised 24ft by hand.

Coleshills last official clock winder, Mike Walpole, will now only need to check the time instead of winding the clock and chiming mechanisms twice a week.

Engineers will be working from a bosun's chair to remove the hands from the three clock faces to enable them to be cleaned and repainted, and the clock faces to be regilded.

The hour-chiming clock will also have worn bearings replaced and the winding mechanisms replaced by electric motors.

The work means that Coleshill will be without a clock in the town centre for about two weeks.

The clock was made and installed by William ''Clocky Leeson of Coleshill in 1860 at a cost of nearly pounds 117.