Works to repair the iconic Machynlleth town clock are set to be completed this summer – and will cost £55,000.

Architects and a construction firm will oversee the redevelopment of the Victorian timepiece in time for next year’s 150th anniversary celebrations.

Councillors signed off on the plans at a town council meeting on Monday, 24 April, during which it was announced the project will cost £15,000 more than previously expected and could be completed as early as August.

But the town clerk said grants had been successfully secured and only the extra £15,000 needed to be found, which he was confident of finding from other funding streams - or from the council’s own coffers, if necessary.

Next year marks the historic milestone since the imposing and much-loved 24-metre clock tower on the town’s high street was constructed on 15 July 1874. But it has also nearly three years since the town last heard it chime – much to the dismay of residents.

Machynlleth – or the ‘town with the clock’ - is synonymous with the clock which stands on the intersection of the A487 and the A489.

Town and Powys county councillor Michael Williams said he is routinely asked when it will be repaired after it stopped in September 2020.

“I’m very pleased with the work of the clerk who has attracted the grants and hope the extra £15,000 can be secured from other funding,” he told the Cambrian News.

“It is hugely important for the town because the clock does have an iconic status.

“And it must always be remembered that the clock was built with money collected by local people.

“It is believed to have cost £1,000 back then, which is the equivalent of roughly £100,000 in today’s money.

“There is also evidence local people barrowed stone from Wylfa common – so it was built and paid for by the townspeople.”

Smith of Derby clockmakers has been hired to repair the intricate inner-workings, but the town clerk said some ‘cosmetic tidying up’ is required before they proceed – with the council still searching for a construction company.

Town councillor Gareth Jones - who is related to the builders of the clock, Edward and John Edwards – said he is asked about the future of the clock more than anything else in his job - and he says it is ‘essential’ it is fixed in time for July after ‘years of neglect’.

In 2009, following a gruelling nine-year campaign from residents, £200,000 was spent restoring the badly deteriorated clock to its former glory.

Historian David Wyn Jones, who chronicled the history of the structure in his 2007 book ‘Machynlleth Town Clock’, says it was built by the residents of Machynlleth to celebrate the coming of age of the eldest son of the Fifth Marquess of Londonderry, who lived at Y Plas.

Public subscriptions raised enough money to build the clock tower and plant trees along both sides of Pentrerhedyn and Maengwyn Streets.

The winner of a competition to design the clock was architect Henry Kennedy, of Bangor. His design was built by Edward Edwards, a town builder.

It was made mostly of stone from Tremadog, near Porthmadog, complemented by red sandstone from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.