Town centrepiece is restored and returned

Tom, left, and Peter Jones, were at the ceremony, 62 years after their grandfather bought the fountain at auction for £10

A town's iconic centrepiece has been returned to its spiritual home after a 62-year absence.

The cast-iron drinking feature was installed in the high-domed Coronation Fountain in March, Cambridgeshire, in 1912.

The structure was sold at auction in 1963 to a private individual and it spent years sat in a family's front garden.

But the drinking feature has been restored and is now on display at March and District Museum's courtyard - a short walk from its original home.

"It looks great to see it in its proper beauty," said Peter Jones, 65.

It was his grandfather, Thomas Jones, who bought the feature at auction for £10.

Thomas Jones, pictured with his wife Florrie, kept the fountain at their home in Wimblington

The 2m-tall (6ft) fountain was sold in 1963 after it was deemed a road traffic hazard by impinging motorists' vision at the junction in Broad Street.

It sat in the Jones family's front garden in Wimblington until 2014 and then ended up in pieces in an outbuilding in Manea.

Peter Jones, who travelled from Cornwall for an unveiling ceremony at the museum, said his parents did not want the feature returned to Broad Street for "safety reasons".

The family is loaning the fountain to the museum.

Kelvin Adams was one of the volunteer restorers who worked on the water feature and used old photos to replicate the colours

Gordon Thorpe said the museum could not display the heavy object inside as it would "crash through the floor"

Gordon Thorpe, chairman of the museum, said it had been a six-year project gaining permission to house the fountain.

"We needed a crane to erect it - it weighs a tonne," he said.

Mr Thorpe said sections of the damaged feature came to the museum in November last year and looked in "a sorry state".

He added that volunteer restorers had worked wonders and spent hours carefully cleaning, welding and repainting the artefact.

March and District Museum is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays 10:30-15:30. Admission is free but donations are welcomed.

The domed Coronation Fountain, seen in 1929, was previously home to the fountain itself