King's jeweller to save 140-year-old ceremonial mace

Bangor's mace has become too fragile to use after 140 years of wear and tear

A mace used to mark key events for more than 140 years is set to be saved by a royal jeweller whose own family walked behind it.

The civic mace has been carried by every mayor of Bangor since 1884, but had become too delicate to use.

Bangor City Council feared it would not be able to repair the mace due to the cost.

After hearing the council's plight, a jeweller who made the King's wedding ring has come to the rescue.

London-based Wartski said it would carry out the restoration works on the civic mace for free to secure it for future generations.

Royal jeweller Wartski, which had its first shop in Bangor, has offered to help

The jewellers, which opened its first store on Bangor High Street in 1865, has a close link to the mace because Isidore Wartski was mayor of Bangor at the outbreak of World War Two.

The mace was donated to Bangor in the year when Queen Victoria granted the corporation of Bangor royal charter status.

Years of use in processions left it with broken fixings, so the council ruled it could no longer be used.

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"It's come to one wobble too many", said Bangor city councillor Mark Roberts.

"We've been lucky, we wrote to Wartski and straight away they got back, they said, 'bring it down and we'll do it'.

"It's not in bad condition externally but internally there is a wooden staff that runs through it and the bayonetted fixings of that have broken and there is a piece missing from the top."

Councillor Mark Roberts said the mace had suffered "one wobble too many"

Despite the amount of work involved, Faberge specialists Wartski, based on St James's Street, was happy to help.

"Wartski is very proud of its Welsh heritage," a spokesman said.

"This very mace would have been used when Isidore Wartski, the son of the firm's founder Morris Wartski, served as mayor of Bangor from 1939-1941.

"It therefore seems very fitting that Wartski should be called upon to help restore this historical mace."

The mace has been used in ceremonies in Bangor since the 19th Century