by Nick Lillitos

nlillitos@thekmgroup.co.uk

It's been a long time coming - almost 100 years in fact - but 'high noon' is about to end in Stone.

For the church clock's clapped-out hands, frozen at 12 o'clock since the First World War, are finally set to shake from their slumber.

As the clock tower faces up to its responsibility, new bells of St Mary the Virgin at Stone will also be echoing across its lush green fields for the first time in nearly 400 years.

Queen Elizabeth I used to call the old bells her 'nightingales' and the church her 'Lantern of Kent', when passing by in her royal barge along the River Thames.

Now the beautiful mediaeval church is powering up to fast forward into this millennium in a project costing nearly £100,000.

The original bells were destroyed in a fire on January 14, 1638. But the newly-installed ones will finally ring the changes for the church - along with the tower's clock.

The church hopes to have the bells and hands on the clock face - the one that looks south towards London Road - working by Spring.

There's been no bell ringing at the church since 1638. The original ones were destroyed after they came crashing down in a fire caused by a bolt of lightning.

"Our gleam in the eye is to have them working by Easter and if we can get the clock ticking again by then, that will be a bonus," said an excited Rev Kenneth Clark, the church's vicar.

"The clock tower in fact has two faces, one facing west, the other south.

"The internal mechanism behind the south face has been taken out to be repaired.

"The clock dates from 1860 and one of its faces suddenly stopped around the First World War. Its hands have been stuck since."