Bell Tower is moved across road to lessen Usher Hall disruption

But the chimes of the Bell Clock Tower are set to be heard once more to ring in the changes at the end of the venue's 40 million refurbishment.

The bells were finally silenced around eight years ago, having been the bugbear of the audience at the Lothian Road concert hall since the clock's installation nearly 50 years ago.

The large hourly bell and four quarter-hour chimes could be clearly heard over the music.

However, thanks to a midnight flit across the road to Festival Square, a new mechanism that allows the chimes to be temporarily disconnected on demand, and improved soundproofing inside the Usher Hall, the Bell Tower Clock will soon be ringing again.

The clock is also set to get four shiny new clock faces to replace the brittle, UV-light damaged originals.

Contractors Bovis Lend Lease rolled a 300 ton crane into Lothian Road this week to carry out the job of moving the tower across the road in one piece.

Project Manager Douglas McNeill said: "The construction of the clock didn't allow us to dismantle it brick-by-brick and rebuild it at the other side, so the only alternative was to make a brave attempt to do it in one.

"First we had to cut away the original foundations and then encase the clock in a full-size steel cage. Then there was the logistics of driving a 300 ton crane up the middle of Lothian Road, with the associated traffic management headaches.

"Once that was done it was just a matter of hauling it up and swinging it across the road.

"We decided to do it overnight on Sunday into Monday to minimise the amount of drunk people hanging around Lothian Road, which we did to an extent but there were still a few curious drunks gathering around with their cameraphones."

A council spokeswoman said: "The move across Lothian Road went extremely smoothly and it's great to see that the Bell Tower is already looking at home in its new Festival Square location."

The Bell Clock Tower was designed by T.W. Alexander of West Linton and built by Stuart McLashen & Co, of Canonmills.

It was gifted to the city by Arthur Bell & Sons, whisky distillers.

It was originally intended for the junction of Elm Row and London Road, but this site had already been allocated to a clock which had been moved from the West End so the Bells accepted the Usher Hall site instead.

However, its chimes soon became unpopular with concert-goers until they were eventually silenced, when a mechanical fault caused them to fall out of synch with the clock-faces.

A full-scale renovation of the Usher Hall was ordered in April 1996 after part of the auditorium ceiling fell in.

The main arena was refurbished from 1997-2000, but a second phase, involving an overhaul of backstage, catering and toilet facilities, as well as the building of the new wing, did not get underway until March 2007. The latest phase is set to finish this in time for this year's Edinburgh Festival.