A TINY piece of falling stonework sparked off the mammoth safety exercise on Darlington's lofty clock tower this year.

The 8x2ins fragment signalled the start of a £220,000 project which lasted nearly six months, with scaffolding shrouding what is recognised as the symbol of Darlington.

The old town hall in Horsemarket was opened in 1864. The clock tower was added and the clock and the five bells were paid for by Joseph Pease as a gift to the town.

It was built in a Victorian Gothic style and constructed in off-white Pease bricks, typical of many of the local Quaker buildings.

The doorways, windows, bell arches and pinnacles are made of stone and the bells in the tower were cast in the same foundry as London's Big Ben.

Unfortunately, not all the townspeople were pleased with it and Mr Francis Mewburn, solicitor to the Stockton and Darlington Railways, commented: "The market tower is to cost £500, what a sum for an encumbrance."

In the early 1950s, the old weather vane was found to be damaged during a routine inspection. On removal it was found to have been hit twice by bullets fired from a German aircraft which strafed the town on March 4, 1945.

It was replaced in the early 50s with a gilded vane in the shape of the No 1 Locomotion.

The next inspection was in the 70s when some renovation work was carried out.

Two of Darlington council's architects, Mr Brian Donaldson and his assistant on the project, Mr Clark Morrison, had the satisfaction of seeing this summer's repair job through to a successful conclusion. "We had to go up in a cherry picker and tap test it with a hammer," said Mr Morrison. "If it sounds hollow you have a problem."

The tower was shrouded in scaffolding to protect the public from any other falling masonry and then a serious investigation began.

"We found defects in a lot of different areas," he went on. "We had to repair the roof and replace slates and we decided to re-gild the weather vane and put that back.

"The clock face was badly corroded and the glass was cracked. We replaced damaged stonework and put in insulation and bird deterrents.

"Pigeons had been roosting in there for about 30 years and we took away 30 bags of bird droppings and put on a very fine overall mesh to keep them out in future.

"Later we cleaned the external brick facade. The new stonework still stands out from the old at the moment, but it won't once it weathers."

Mr Morrison said there was more deterioration than initially thought. "Some stonework had only been rendered and that was crumbling away.

There are three or four different kinds of stone up there and some of the original is a bit soft."

Some integrated stone sections are believed to have come from a quarry between Harrogate and Ripon. It is said to have had the only seam in the country, but it no longer exists. The softer pink stone came from a quarry near Aycliffe.

Another feature that was missed during the work was the chimes from the clock. They had to be silenced because the vibration from the chimes could have led to further damage.