DYMOCK'S church clock recently achieved a memorable hat trick; but unlike goals at Euro 2016, it was not something which anyone in the village felt like celebrating.

The clock, which is an icon of the village, has broken down three times in just over 12 months, leaving the parish council with a hefty repair bill running into hundreds of pounds.

At the New Year, the cost of alone repair was £700, and the final tally for all the repairs is still to be made public by the parish council, which is responsible for the upkeep of the clock.

The latest break-down was caused by a state of the art battery unit that powers the re-winding unit.

Cllr Terry Ball, chairman of the parish council said: "We have a one hundred year old clock , and it was a modern component that failed us this time."

Cllr Ball said he had his fingers crossed that, with the new repair carried out, "the clock will be fine".

But the parish council has been here before and Cllr Ball said: "It has cost us quite a bit of money".

The first break down happened when the electrically powered re-wind unit was diagnosed as faulty and removed to the workshop of Smiths of Derby, where it was fitted with new shafts and gears and with a new drive motor.

This work was completed in February, 2015, and the clock kept good time until Christmas and New Year approached.

But just before last Christmas, another breakdown was due to a failure of the spring that regulates the pendulum.

Now, with the third repair completed, on the battery unit Cllr Ball is hoping that third time unlucky will lead to a more reliable future for the village time piece.

He said: "At the moment, it seems to be working beautifully."