A FAMILIAR feature of the Worcester city centre scene was missing at this time 50 years ago. It was the Market Hall clock, that had been a firm fixture opposite the Guildhall in High Street from the year 1849 when it was presented to the city by Richard Padmore, of the local foundry firm of Hardy and Padmore.

The Journal explained that the contractor commissioned by the City Council to clean and re-paint the clock, he refused to touch it as, in his view, it was unsafe. "A detailed examination by the City Engineer's Department confirmed that the clock was rather more than unsafe, so it was immediately taken down.

"Thankfully, however, Hardy and Padmore has offered to pay all the costs for repairing, re-fitting and putting back the clock on the Market Hall faade - an operation which is likely to take only a few weeks."

As we know with the benefit of hindsight, the Padmore clock was taken down again when the Market Hall was demolished in the late 1950s but it re-appeared on the faade of the bland and much-criticised development that took place on the site in the 1960s.

That complex has only recently been replaced by a modern development, that again has the Padmore clock as a frontage feature.