THE time is right for maintenance work on a town’s iconic clock tower, which is now cloaked in scaffolding.

Coleford Clock Tower is undergoing repointing and cleaning work as part of a month-long £15,000 project.

The work on the 196-year-old Forest landmark is being funded by the town council and is set to be finished early next month.

Town clerk Annie Lappington said: “It’s being rendered with lime mortar, which needs to be done when the weather is neither too hot or cold, so we either did it now, or wait until September.

“We have wanted to do it for around 18 months, but struggled to find anyone.

“It seemed as if it was too big a job for some, and too little for others, but we finally found somebody on our doorstep in Coleford, CJS Plastering, who were prepared to do it.

“It’s been safely fenced off and won’t interrupt townspeople at all, and will be completed in plenty of time for the town’s summer events, like the annual music festival.”

The 16-metre high clock tower was originally attached to an octagonal church built in the Victorian Gothic style in 1821.

By 1882, this church was too small for the town’s population and a larger parish church was built in Boxbush Road.

The original eight-sided church was demolished, leaving the clock tower in splendid isolation flanked by the market hall.

The market hall was also pulled down in the 1960s, while the replacement church St John’s was closed last year, after church authorities said it needed £1.8m of restoration work. It is now up for sale.