jazzboy

I doubt the Beeb or the orchestra will want to take it with them. I know however there's an organisation interested in it, for restoration and preservation.

The point is no one expected or asked the council to restore it, so the restoration figure they quote is pointless!! In any case it was pretty well fully working when the power was switched off in 2015

Let's get a few things straight on this: 1. The theatre pipework additions were only a few ranks as far as i know. The very large and original classical concert organ was all there. 2. The utter nonsense the council quotes that it would have cost £250 per pipe to test all of them for asbestos contamination, is complete XXXXXX - of course they would NOT have needed to test each pipe!! If asbestos dust was suspected they could simply have had the lot cleaned as a precautionary measure!! (Duh!!). It's been done before (relative recently in Holland I understand) and probably over here (cleaning an organ from asbestos dust I mean). I'd have thought an organ professional working with an asbestos company could clean the whole organ (or at least all the pipework) for a damn site less than £1.5m!!! 3. A quote of £2m to fully restore the organ - yes I expect if they'd have gone to H&H that's the sort of quote the'd have got - BUT the point is that no one asked the council to restore it! All they needed to do was hand it over to the people who have looked after it for years who would have gladly taken it away and found a new home for it. My loathing of this council over this willful vandalism is in the extreme. They should be sacked and prosecuted.

No it isn't. It's a 3-rank Miniatura of 1934. It has not been on Ebay. Currently unrestored but in complete condition. Could be supplied restored (main restoration requirements being it needing releathering I believe). More details and photos available.

Contact me privately for info. Thanks

Just a note to all as a reminder that the wonderfully talented Richard Hills is appearing in his own solo prom concert tomorrow at 4.30pm at the Royal Albert Hall on the wonderful Willis/Harrison/Mander organ. This will be a superb event from one of the world's finest and most versatile performers, on one of the world's finest instruments. Richard will be exploring the lighter side of music arranged for the organ, and really giving a flavour of the versatility that can be achieved on the King of Instruments. Equally at home on theatre organ, church or concert instrument, Richard is one of the country's shining lights in the organ world and an amazingly gifted musician. His pivotal and Internationally acclaimed CD, Grand Variety, recorded on the huge and outstanding Compton at Southampton Guildhall, is still available to purchase via Silver Street Music website - www.silverst.co.uk I hope the turnout on Monday at RAH is very good - it certainly should be! Peter

Just a last minute plug for tomorrow's concert at Southampton Guildhall, featuring visiting American virtuoso Jelani Eddington playing the dual purpose, unique and awesome Compton. This is a 'not to be missed' event. One of the most fantastic, orchestrally rich organs in the world, with huge resources of tone colours and dynamics, being played by one of the world's most wonderfully gifted, inventive and acclaimed performers. The organ is Compton's masterpiece - an ingenious and stunningly executed amalgamation of a large concert organ and a huge theatre organ, with full choruses, many mixtures, numerous fine reeds, luscious strings, tonal & non-tonal percussion and not one but two distinctive 4-manual consoles. It is 99% original, including original relays and all pipework and was built into the Guildhall, with its cavernous auditorium space and superb acoustics, for the opening in 1937. The sheer quality of pipework and vast dynamic range has to be experienced - one can stand some 100ft from the chambers and with just the 8ft Salicional and shutters closed it is hard to hear anything, but then full organ (including the tuba and harmonic trumpet on 25in wind) will pin you against the back wall! Jelani Eddington starts a UK tour with this event, and what a way to start! If ever the saying "one man orchestra" was applicable to a particular person, that is Jelani. He has never played the Guildhall Compton before so this will be a momentous day. Please change your plans for tomorrow and get down to the Guildhall - 2.30pm start. Details: www.guildhall-compton.org.uk Jelani website: www.rjeproductions.com

Does anyone have a smallish electric action drawstop console for sale? Peter

Sorry, tab units please, with or without tabs.

Does anyone have any used SAMs (stop action magnets, or stop units or stop mechs) that are in reasonable condition? I need about 75 for a project and ideally they would be the sort that screw onto the rear of the stop rails, like Syndynes etc. Would consider other makes, such as Kimber Allen, Compton etc

On the subject of Compton strings, I saw Duncan Booth the other day, whilst at Booths collecting the renovated Battersea Tuba, and I asked him again about Compton outsourcing strings to Duncan's Father in the 30s. He confirmed that all Compton string ranks made with black roller beards (as opposed to wood finish) were made by Mr Booth Snr.

Compton did indeed make some Haskelled basses - Southampton Guildhall has a Haskelled 16ft Contra Viola extension to the Swell 8ft Viola da Gamba. If I remember correctly, so does Wormwood Scrubs organ (ex-Forum Ealing) Peter

As I have said before on here, Duncan Booth (Booths of Leeds pipemakers) told me personally a few years back that his Father used to make some string ranks for Compton. I think there could be no doubt that some pipework, and maybe some other items, were outsourced in the height of Compton's production. i too have that video and am well aware that they were able to make everything in house, but the sheer quantity in the early 30s, coupled with info from people like Duncan, surely means they didn't make everything for every one of their organs. Peter

My understanding is that there were cubes, AND there were polyphonic pipes (in more of a normal pipe shape). Southampton has a 32ft Bourdon polyphonic PIPE - it is a single large wooden pipe of some 8ft tall (from memory) that has compartments up its front that are opened successively by pneumatics, in order to incrementally increase its internal volume. It is NOT a cube. It plays the 32ft octave from B down to E, then repeats E for the remaining 4 notes.

The Battersea Hope-Jones organ has the following buttons situated at the back of the keys to which they apply: Swell to Gt - brings on all 3 pitches of Sw to Gt tabs Tubas to Gt - not sure yet if this brings just one pitch of Tuba on or more pitches, will find out Swell to Orchestral - not currently working but presumably does whatever the Sw to Gt does, but for the Orch. Suitable bass - if latched, recalls a 'suitable' pedal registration with the combination pistons for that manual (applies to Orchestral, Great & Swell manuals) I can also confirm that the Southampton Guildhall Compton has Gt, Sw & Solo to Choir couplers, as well as the usual others. P

Ingrams, working with RHJ, produced some of course, or at least one - St Oswalds Hartlepool being a still present but not working example. Designed by RHJ before he 'fled' to the USA but not built til 1905 according to NPOR. Something I'd be interested to know on a technical point, is what orientation of magnets did the likes of Willis and others starting/dabbling in EP use - that is, did they have them 'upside down' as Hope-Jones did (magnets on top side of action, meaning that armatures fell to the on position when the organ was off, thus as the blower ran up or down there were a huge amount of brief cyphers, which prompted RHJ to create elaborate switching systems to shut ventils and sliders off as the highest pressure reservoir collapsed (at least he did so at Battersea)), or what we now know as the right way up, with magnets on the underside of chests? Of course I'm sure that time-served organ builders can answer all this. P

Well I know that Hope-Jones together with Norman & Beard made some extended ranks around 1900. The tuba for instance at Battersea is an extended rank from 16ft through to 4ft. Although it was added in 1903, we believe it was planned for in the original design of 1900 but not initially installed. The organ also has Diaphonic horn, Open diapason and Violin 8ft extended to 16ft as well as slider chests in Swell & Orchestral with 73 pipes in to allow for octave couplers, but you can't really call this a unit organ as such.

Sorry, yes true to say that Compton went down the EP route for soundboards, as HJ did, but persisted with solenoid stop actions and relays. He did venture briefly into pneumatic note actions for relays, and a couple still survive - absolute works of art! Peter

Compton's pneumatic actions (certainly from the early thirties onwards, and probably from the 20s) were not the same as HJ at all. All earlier unit chests I've ever seen used what I believe was his own derivation of a Roosevelt type unit chest, with magnets exhausting single pneumatics which directly operated disc pallet valves. Not the fastest of designs but it worked, although from about the mid thirties (I think) he used his own compound magnets on the bottom two octaves of the manual chests, thus improving the speed of the lower notes.. HJ used double pneumatics (primary & secondary) throughout as far as I know - his slider chests I've seen having box motors operating primary disk pallets and secondary hinged pallets. Some of his (or at least N&B's) unit chests had disk pallets for the secondary. Anyway HJ, Wurlitzer and N&B/HNB/Christie all had double pneumatics throughout I believe.

and by the way, HJ did invent Tibias way before emigrating. Battersea Town hall HJ had a Tibia Plena and Profunda when built in 1901. Worcester cathedral HJ organ (1896) had a Tibia Clausa and Tibia Profunda.

Dear David This is all very interesting - one correction though. As far as my research indicates, there was a later HJ/Ingram organ made - that is at St Oswalds church in Hartlepool, Northern England. It's still there too, although has been unplayable for many years. Presumably it was designed by HJ before he left the UK, but not completed and installed until 1905. I have been undertaking much research on HJ lately, particularly in relation to his time and associations with Norman & Beard. I'm very keen to learn more too. As this is off topic for this thread, perhaps you could write to me personally with details of your HJ organ. Many thanks. Peter

I would be very keen to collaborate on a JC book, and I expect we could get input from other important people like Ian Bell too.

You are so right. The really wonderful thing about JC too was that he understood traditional organ building techniques and values, but sought to add his own mark to the industry, enhancing certain aspects, inventing completely new things, streamlining and standardising components, maintaining high quality workmanship and voicing and even forging ahead towards pipeless instruments. A real genius. As a starting point, would you be interested to join me at Southampton Guildhall for a study of Compton's Magnum Opus there some day? I'm sure that on a maintenance day you could come down, have a play and have a good look at this momentous original JC installation. Southampton is especially good to study in terms of the technical innovations of JC, as it contains many of his great inventions or technical triumphs - his largest matrix relay system, reversers, illuminated stops, a Melotone, Bi-phone pipes, 32ft polytone bourdon, haskel basses, traps, tuned percussion, etc, not to mention the 40 units (50 ranks) of superbly crafted pipework. Peter

Excellent news. i may be able to help if needed, and of course there are several others who could have very good input. I'd particularly like to document all the technical innovations - such as bi-phone pipes, polyphones, 32ft cubes, Melotones, solo cello, matrix relays (both the usual fully electro magnetic ones AND the rare ones with pneumatic note pull-downs), compound magnets, reversers, metal tibias, wiffle-tree swell motors, etc etc, plus a full account of his stops, voicing, use of extension, and such like.

I know that Duncan Booth said his Father used to make some strings for Compton. Don't know about reeds though.