Restoration of the 1826 Thomas Elliot Organ at Belton House near Grantham in 1998
In the winter of 1997 to 1998 Martin Goetze and Stuart Dobbs restored the organ at Belton House near Grantham in Lincolnshire. This organ was built, according to the nameplate, by Thomas Elliot in 1826. In December 1828 it was visited by the organbuilder Alexander Buckingham, who, in the deprecating manner he used for his former master, Thomas Elliot, said that 'the organ is very bad contrived to get to tune it and the chorus stops does not mix well together.' In 1831 he returned and moved the Swell nine inches towards the back '...for convenience of tuning...' in 1833 he added a set of 17 pedals, and in 1842 he put in the Swell to Great coupler. In 1896 Bevington installed a Troy water engine, fed from the lake and rebuilt the bellows with cuckoo feeders. They also revoiced the Hautboy with new shallots.
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The organ has
two keyboards, a Great of 58 notes
The restoration
work consisted mostly of cleaning and adjusting. The main parts
of the work involved the two wind chests and the pipework. The chest
had to be dismantled, the bar frame flooded, and the pallets re-leathered,
in the style of the 1826 organ. The feet of most of the treble pipes
had corroded and become misformed as a result. The corrosion probably
originated in sulphur dioxide from the coal fire in the gallery,
which condensed in the cold area of the pipe feet between the upperboard
and rackboard, and acting with other impurities, produced blisters
in the feet from the inside of the foot. The feet had become porous
and brittle, and some of the corrosion was so severe that the feet
had curled to one side. Since corrosion also expanded the metal
and jammed the foot in the rackboard, some of the toes had lifted
out of their uperboard holes. The feet were soaked in Paraloid B72
where not too misformed, or replaced by cutting off the affected
section and replacing with new metal. There is a Harley Monograph on this organ. |
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