Clock dial restorer marks 20 years with Loomes of Stamford

A skilled craftsman has marked 20 years of restoring and creating heirlooms for a town business.

Wayne Brereton works on the top floor of Loomes of Stamford, repairing clock dials – and occasionally designing and creating new ones.

Having studied as a graphic artist in Birmingham, Wayne decided he “didn’t like drawing crushed Coke cans” and instead developed his fine art skills through a career in clock dial restoration.

Robina Hill, managing director at Loomes, said: “Wayne’s skills are vital to the work we do, and they are quite rare.

“It can take about a week to repair a clock dial – it’s labour-intensive work – and we have people contact us from all over the world, including Australia.

“A good thing about clock dials is that they can be removed and sent quite easily through the post.”

Wayne not only cleans and repaints dials, reproducing authentic enamel colours and designs from the past. He is also commissioned to create new ones, and has been busy producing a clock face featuring four makes of tractor in the different seasons, and topped by two shire horses.

“The fellow who wanted it phoned up looking for someone to produce a clock dial with tractors and a traditional scene of horses ploughing the fields, as it would have been before tractors were used,” said Wayne.

His creative work has included restoring gold leaf clock dials as well as freshening up the look of faces that have faded or discoloured with age.