Our Church Organ was originally built by Theodore Charles Bates of Ludgate Hill, London, in 1840.
The organ has undergone several during its lifetime. Work has been done by John Rayment Rust, of Chelmsford, Norman & Beard Ltd, F. Francis, 1913. The last major restoration of the instrument was by Cedric Arnold of Thaxted in about 1927,
Although dirty, the general construction and condition of the organ is considered good, with the usual exception of wear in the keys, actions and leatherwork, that should be expected after many years of use. The metal pipe-work requires some attention.
It is considered a very fine instrument, which is suited for its role in the church and is considered well worth preserving.
It is suggested that the following work should be carried out:
To have the organ dismantled and send all the pipes to an Organ builder for cleaning, repair and retuning, also clean and repair all moving parts including the bellows, sound box, keyboard and stops. To replace the wiring and service the blower. The remove the 1960’s blue paint and apply a more suitable finish. Finally, to rebuild the organ and tune the instrument.
We hope that you could support the work required on this fine instrument. The work planned will give this organ another 100 years of live supporting worship and events in our parish.
The work has now started:~
Work started on the restoratiuon and clean on December 27th 2019.
The pipes and blower are being removed to the restoration workshop and the cleaning has begun.
The organ had a very thick layer of dust inside as can be seen on the pictures below.
The dust shown below looks like the pipes are inserted in soil!
The picture below shows the pipes from above.
More pipes more dust!
2020 restoration continues
Here we see the organ pipes that have been repaired with all the dents removed, also seen are the new tuning collars that will help keep this instrument in tune in the future. Also shown is the work on the keyboard and the new air seals on the organ stops. The organ now has all the pipes reinstated and the instrument is now working beautifully. The next stage of work will be the removal and painting of the case, then now next year the new pedal board and pedal activated pipes.
