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Fawsley, Northants restoration of 1839 Joseph Walker finger and barrel organ

The chamber and barrel organ now in Fawsley church in Northamptonshire has a brass name plate under the centre of the keyboard which gives the date and the builder “JOSEPH WALKER LONDINI, FECIT. 1839”. It was made for the Knightley family of Fawsley Hall. See Hilary Davidson Choirs, Bands and Organs: a history of church music in Northamptonshire and Rutland pp93-4 (Positif Press 2003)

The organ is untouched, except for tuning slides and tuning in Equal Temperament. In 2005 the organ was repaired by Martin Goetze and Verners Kalacis, chiefly dirt, and mouse and woodworm damage.

There is a single manual and a pedalboard which acts on the lowest octave of manual keys. The stop knobs are arranged in a horizontal row, three each side of the keyboard.

From bass to treble:

Principal Bass (stopped wood GG, AA – F#)
Stopt Diapason Bass (GG, AA – f#º)
Dulciana (gº – f3)
Stopt Diapason Treble (gº – f3)
Principal Treble (G – f3)
Flute (gº – f3)

The bellows occupies the space at the bottom of the organ. A single fold wedge feeder operated by a hand lever at the bass side of the organ supplies the horizontal rise reservoir, which has one inward and one outward fold. It is also possible for the organist to pump the feeder by foot, the iron roller providing two possible positions for the pedal, either side of the pedalboard. In 2005 Martin and Verners added an electric blower inside the Victorian dais, chopping out woodworm-ridden wood in the process. The manual and foot blowing is still operational.
This instrument was made as a ‘finger or barrel organ’, and although it is now only possible to operate it with the keyboard, evidence remains of the barrel section: the space for the barrels, just behind the music desk, the pull-down holes (and presumably the pallets), and the case door on the treble side where the barrels would have been slid out, the back of the little door still listing the tunes supplied. In 2007 a barrel was found in the church, riddled with woodworm.

Gibside Chapel, Restoration of the 1793 Avery Bureau organ for the National Trust

The nameplate reads: Avery Londini Fecit 1793 St. Margarets Church Yard. It is a bureau organ of a type apparently unique to John Avery, shaped like a small upright piano, with a mahogany case. The bellows and windchest are low in the lower case, and the keyboard is attached to the inside of the front panel of the upper case, folding down and engaging with backfalls and stickers.

Keyboard compass: C, D – f³ (lime bodies, ivory naturals, ebony sharps)
Bellows: single rise horizontal reservoir with feeder, foot pumped
Dimensions: Height 1250 mm, Width 1040 mm, Depth 560 mm (782 with keyboard open)

Mr Simon Elliot and his mother donated it to the Trust, Gibside Chapel, in 2002, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/gibside. Mr Elliot recalls that the organ was in his Mother’s house ‘near Alderley Edge’ in his childhood. Before that time it belonged to her father, Edward Ashworth Radford, who was the MP for South Salford 1924-39 and Rusholme 1933-44. His dates were 1881-1944 and he lived at ‘White Gables’, Wilmslow. He was the son of George Radford of Manchester and Church Stretton. The Elliotts loaned the organ to Manchester City Council, so it must have been the one recorded at Heaton Hall in 1978 (NPOR). The final resting place before Gibside was Mr Elliott’s house in Westmorland.

The organ was cleaned by R. Johnson for Jardine and Co of Manchester in 1975 according to an inscription in the bellows. It was restored by Timothy McEwen at Welbeck in 2003.

Joseph Cullen’s ca1850 Glasgow Chamber Organ Restoration

The organ was saved by Joseph Cullen (organist and choral conductor), and kept with the intention of being restored as a practice organ. It is ideal for this purpose, as it has two manuals and pedal, with full compasses, all in the case of a large chamber organ. The organ was restored by Christina Reinspach and Dominic Gwynn in the summer of 2003.

Pedal pulldowns
Pedal coupler

The manual key compass is C – f³ (56 notes). The Swell organ is inside the swell box from cº. The pedal key compass was originally C – c¹ (25 notes). The pedal keys, and the rest of the key action was missing, and were replaced with new keys and action on the original design but with a C – d¹ compass and modern key spacing.

St Luke’s Smithfield Virginia USA Repair of 1630 Chamber Organ

In October and November 2002, Dominic Gwynn, James Collier and Timothy McEwen repaired this historic organ, and carried out a measuring and drawing exercise to prepare for the making of a replica, planned for 2003, but not carried out. The repair followed deliberations during a residential conference at Smithfield, organised by Historic St Luke’s Church, particularly Richard Austin and Fran Olsen. The organ was measured by John Watson of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Robert Barclay of the Canadian Conservation Institute, the organ historian Barbara Owen and George Taylor of organ builders Taylor and Boody of Staunton Virginia. Papers given at the conference were published in proceedings edited by John Watson Organ Restoration considered (Williamsburg 2005). The report and drawings is available as a report from Historic St Luke’s Church and G&G.

The organ was bought by the Lestrange family of Hunstanton Hall near Kings Lynn in 1630. It is not impossible that a label marked is that of the original maker. The musical importance of the organ is that John Jenkins, one of England’s greatest composers, was retained by the family as their professional musician in the 1640s and 1650s. It is a consort organ, that is, it was bought for a professional musician to accompany gentlemen playing a set of viols. The Lestranges were a remarkably musical family.

The organ seems to have spent its life at Hunstanton Hall until it was sold to Captain Lane in 1949, and then bought and donated to St Luke’s in 1958. St Luke’s was an Anglican church, supposedly itself built in 1632

The compass is C AA D – c³. The Stop Diapason, Principal and Fifteenth are divided bº/c¹. The Open Flute starts at cº, but was originally intended to have a bottom octave with Stop Diapason Bass and Principal.

Thornage All Saints, Norfolk, Restoration of the 1812 Elliot Chamber Organ

The organ was made by ‘Thos Elliot/ Tottenham Court London/ 1812’. The organ evidently came to Thornage from Swanton Novers Hall, and was sold to the church for £14 (source?). Under the treble end of the keyboard cover is written: this Organ was rebuilt for L Atkin Esq/ Swinton Novers by EWPaulett of/ Norwich/ June 3rd 1904. The organ was restored by Boggis of Diss in 1945.

In 2002 Edward Bennett and Chritina Reinspach restored this organ, treating for woodworm, replacing corroded pulldown wires, repairing wind leaks and regulating the action and voicing. Stuart Dobbs restored the metal pipes, and particularly the Hautboy, which had been replaced and was found stored on the roof of the organ and elsewhere in the church. The voicing of the Hautboy was restored by Martin Goetze. The case was repaired by Verners Kalacis, and the surface finish touched in and revived by Charles Marsden.

The key compass is GG AA to f³ (58 notes). The pitch is A441Hz at 18C, and the tuning used was modified meantone (the 1945 tuning sldies were retained). The wind pressure was surprisingly low at 46mm w.p. and the voicing gentle.

All the pipes stand in the swell box. The pedal at the treble end operates a sliding swell front (with a rope with two pulley wheels, not a nag’s head).

In the centre of the plinth there is a blowing pedal, no doubt for the convenience of practicing, since there is also a blowing handle at the side. At the bass end there is a shifting movement pedal, which reduces to Open and Stop Diapasons and Hautboy. The sliders are held open at the chest with steel springs. There are notches in the stop shanks so that they are held in the jamb in the off position, when the knob is flipped up they shoot out. Pressing the shifting movement pedal down moves the Principal and Fifteenth sliders off, and the springs move them out when the pedal is let go.

The sound file is from the Historic Organ Sound Archive of the National Pipe Organ Register. For more recordings go to http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?HOSA

Lower Clapton NW London St James Restoration of Gray 1775 Chamber Organ

This chamber organ was made by Robert Gray in 1775, his earliest surviving instrument. Robert Gray insured premises at Leigh Street near Red Lion Square on December 17th 1772 (Joan Jeffrey from the Sun Fire Insurance policy registers). He later went into partnership with his brother William in around 1790 (the date of the chamber organ at Burghley House). William’s son John became one of the finest builders of his day, and went into partnership with Frederick Davison to form the firm of Gray & Davison.

The early history is unknown. In 1848 the organ was restored, with a new pipe front added, by Bates of Ludgate Hill, when it was purchased by the Refuge for the Destitute, Hackney Rd, Dalston, for £55. It was given to St James in 1923, and has stayed there ever since. The organ’s future was saved by the Vicar in the 1970s, when it was brought back into use. The 2002 restoration by Edward Bennett, Verners Kalacis and Christina Reinspach was carried out on the initiative and through the efforts of Victoria Hay, sometime organist of the church.

Key compass GG AA – f³

Open Diapason (c° – f³)
Stop Diapason
Principal
Fifteenth

The shifting movement reduces the stops sounding to Diapasons.

The pipes have a very low mouth height, and have a correspondingly gentle sound. Their condition is fragile, so it was decided to keep the tuning slides, the pitch therefore remaining at A440, but using the tuning system surviving at Burghley House, a modified 1/6 comma meantone.

Osterley Park Middlesex Restoration of the 1788 Holland Chest Organ

The label above the keyboard gives: “Henry Holland NEPHEW and SUCCESSOR to Mr Pyke/Organbuilder to His Majesty/Bedford Row and St James’s Street PICCADILLY”. A graffito under the organ shows that it was not Holland who made it: “Ed. White Invent et Delinea/May ye 30th 1788”. It restored in 1955 by N.P.Mander and during the winter of 2000-2001 by Edward Bennett.

It was originally made for Osterley Park, spent some time at The Vine in Hampshire, and has now been returned to Osterley, on loan to the National Trust https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/osterley-park-and-house ,from the owner, Augustine Ford.

The organ has St Diapason, Principal and Fifteenth, with bass and treble knobs for each stop on either side of the keyboard. The shifting movement removes the Fifteenth. All the pipes are made of pine, narrow-scaled, in a traditional English manner which must have seemed quite old-fashioned by 1788.

The compass is GG AA – f³, with the bass/treble division at bº/c¹. An internal blower and a trolley have been provided so that the organ can be moved for concerts and weddings.

Brightling Church in Sussex, restoration of the ca1820 Nicholls Barrel Organ

The local squire, John Fuller, gave the organ in about 1820. He had already encouraged the psalmody in Brightling church by providing nine bassoons to accompany the singing.

A printed label at the back of the chest reads: ‘W.A.A.Nicholls, son-in-law and successor to the late G.P. England, No.9 Stephen Street, Tottenham Ct. Rd.’

There are six stops: Mixture, Fifteenth, Twelfth, Stopt Diapason, Principal, Open Diapason

Key compass: AA D F G A B c#-g² c A# G# F# E C (43 keys)

The pitch is 434.17Hz at 20ºC. The tuning is 1/4 comma meantone. The wind pressure is 43mm.

The bellows is blown by foot pedal, independently of the barrel mechanism, which means that the ‘player’ can dwell on a note (e.g. the initial reciting note), without worrying about loss of wind.

There are two barrels with 12 chant and hymn tunes each:

The last ones (12) on each barrel are not available, and have been replaced with the transposed tunes at the opposite end of the barrel, which sound ghastly in meantone of course, which may be why there are no notes played in the bottom octave.

Merton College, Oxford, Restoration of ca1760 Thomas Parker Chamber Organ

The appearance, pipe marks and style of manufacture link the organ at Merton with Thomas Parker, who worked with Richard Bridge and had his own workshop in Grays Inn Lane ca1750-1770. Parker made the organ now at Great Packington in Warwickshire, and the organ at the Foundling Hospital in 1768-9. The Merton organ dates from around 1760.

Before it went to Merton, the organ stood in Hawkstone Park, Shropshire, and perhaps originally in Hodnet Hall, Shropshire (home of the Heber-Percys). It does not seem to have been altered in any way until 1912, when it was repaired by Balsar Ludwig of Banbury, with minor alterations to the case, chest, the Cremona and mixture, and the pitch and tuning. Walkers repaired the organ, also with minor alterations (including electric blower), in 1965.
The survival of the Cremona and the original bellows system make this organ particularly interesting.

In 1999, Martin Goetze and Dominic Gwynn carried out cleaning and repairs. The restoration of the gilded front pipes and the pipe shades, was carried out by Chris Wells of Stannington near Sheffield, and of the finish of the organ by Charles Marsden of Tickhill near Doncaster. New stop jambs with paper labels were made to replace those provided in 1912. The front was made to be removable again, to facilitate tuning, and a new roof was provided.

The mixture had been recast in 1912, and was restored to its original composition. The tuning slides were retained, left at modern pitch, but with an unequal tuning. The Cremona was repaired as found. The leather of the bellows was reinforced, a new trunk replacing the faulty kopex connection to the cut-off valve.

Stop List

Belton House near Grantham Restoration of 1826 Thomas Elliot Organ

The organ in the Chapel at Belton House near Grantham in Lincolnshire, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/belton-house, was built by Thomas Elliot for £458 10s 0d in 1826. In December 1828 it was visited by the organbuilder Alexander Buckingham who kept notes of his visit, and 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.

John Brownlow, Earl Brownlow and Viscount Alford, who bought the organ, also patronized music-making in Grantham, including a volume of sacred music written by William Dixon, who was organist of the chapel in the early nineteenth century, and organist at St Wulfram Grantham. These must have been performed at Belton too.

The organ has two keyboards, a Great of 58 notes (GG AA to f³) and a Swell of 35 notes (gº to f³).

It has the following stops (according to the order on the bass and treble stop jambs):

The organ is in the Chapel Gallery. It has a fine mahogany case with a ceramic medallion of Handel above the single pipe flat, probably designed by Jeffry Wyatville.

In the winter of 1997 to 1998 Martin Goetze and Stuart Dobbs restored the organ. 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.

The restoration project was entered for the Museums & Galleries Commission Conservation Awards and was shortlisted.

St Fagans Museum of Welsh Life Cardiff Restoration of ca1830 Scottish Chamber Organ

This organ is very similar in style to others by James Bruce of Edinburgh (e.g. John Barnes’s), that it may well be by him (see Alan Buchan’s article in BIOS Journal 21). There is what looks like a monogram on the f³ key, and possibly on the bass pallet. The organ would date from around 1830.

It may be that it was moved to Llanfihangel by Jardine (whose label is glued to a back panel). Whiteley of Chester last maintained the organ and rebuilt it, probably about fifty years ago. They removed the swell box, with its pipes and keys, added the octave coupler, a Gamba and its upperboard at the back, the plastic stop knobs and re-leathered the pallets about 1950.

The chapel in which the organ spent the last part of its life became redundant in the 1970s and lost its roof. The organ started to fall apart with dampness. In 1987 the organ was offered to the Museum of Welsh Life, and in 1997 it was restored by James Collier of Martin Goetze & Dominic Gwynn. It is now in the Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagans near Cardiff.

The stop list before the 1997 restoration was (stop knob order on bass and treble jambs):

The Octave coupler and the Gamba were removed during the 1997 restoration. The stop list is now:

Stopped Diapason (treble and bass)
Open Diapason (cº-f³)
Principal (treble and bass)
Twelfth
Fifteenth

There is a shifting movement (with two pedals – off and on). There is a foot pedal for the player and a handle for an assistant.

The compass is GG to f³ without GG#. The keyboard slides into the case; Whiteley had fixed it for use with the octave coupler. It has ivory naturals and ebony sharps.

Originally there was a second keyboard with a small Swell organ. The evidence for this is as follows:
• the three vacant stop knob holes in the bass jamb (which are the same as the other holes)
• a hole cut out of the back of the wind trunk for a subsidiary trunk, now leathered over
• the gap between the basses of the Stopped Diapason, about as wide as the keys, with mortises in the back rail, and a large mortise in the middle of the upperboard
• the two Stopped Diapason bass toeboards rest on sawn-off portions of the rails in which the cheeks of the Swell keys ran, with tongues in the cheeks running in grooves in the rails
• there is space above the surviving keys for an extra keyboard, the space used by Whiteley’s octave coupler
• two surviving pipes from the Swell in other ranks (12th eº is marked Dulc 1 SW, 15th d² is marked pr c# Sw)

So it looks as if the Swell had a Stopped Diapason, Dulciana and Principal. It must have been short compass, perhaps c¹-f³, but there is no sign of that. The idea of two sliding keyboards is very unusual but not impossible.

The case is a light-coloured mahogany, with furniture-Gothic ornament. The case measures 3250mm tall, 1655mm wide and 765mm deep. Most of the ornaments were missing and only some have been replaced.