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Decorated Pipes


Mark Taylor

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I have just submitted a photo’ of St. Ethelreda's church, West Quantoxhead, Somerset to NPOR. It’s an attractive looking organ with highly decorated pipes. Here are two pictures in large format.

 

I wonder whether some areas of the country are more likely to have this type of decoration? On the other hand, maybe it is not a regional thing; more likely, I suppose, to be related to date and builder(?).

 

What other examples are there of this sort of decoration in parish churches?

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Guest Cynic

By total coincidence, on Monday and Tuesday of this week I and a party of helpers took down one of the organs featured in Vox Humana's list of photographs. The decorated front will be retained to screen the Makin organ that is being installed, but there were four decorated pipes within the organ, explained by the fact that the organ has been moved twice in this church and was originally built for a private house.

 

The organ in question is at Bodicote near Banbury, and part of the front pipe display can be seen at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxfordshirech...57594566173226/

bottom row, second from the left.

 

I know what some of you are thinking...'how come Cynic is helping people commit vandalism?'

Well, this instrument was (by anyone's estimation) long overdue for a rebuild and had already been messed about (Swell went 8.8.8.4.Nazard.CollapsedOboe) and funds simply didn't allow for further improvements to an organ which despite some decent pipework was ineffective in the body of the church.

 

Anyway...

Anyone want a slightly dented, superbly decorated Bevington display pipe? It'd give you a splendid conversation piece! I have two approximately 9' long and one around 6'. The fourth one went to the rectory; I wish I'd been able to take a photo of youngish keen clergyman cycling off with his display pipe held like a medieval knight's lance. I haven't the heart to take the survivors to the scrap man but this is probably what'll have to happen......

 

[Thinks: There ought to be a society to prevent such things happening. Mind you, we'd have to be really careful who we choose to be chairman. ]

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I go to graphic-display places and print-colour works quite often.

 

I couldn't help thinking, on reading this thread, that nowadays it would be so easy for everyone and everywhere to have decorated pipes.

 

They could produce standard designs and sell them as clear, sticky rolls, to wrap around organ-pipes like wallpaper. We could have new designs every few years, with all sorts of themes.

 

We could have "Smartie" organ-pipes, "Floral" organ pipes, "Flame effect" organ pipes or organ-pipes with humbug stripes.

 

We could even have the "Andy Warhol organ pipe", resembling a stack of coke-cans. Sell a few of them at Christie's, and the instrument would be self-financing.

 

I think we should run with this idea.

 

MM

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I go to graphic-display places and print-colour works quite often.

 

I couldn't help thinking, on reading this thread, that nowadays it would be so easy for everyone and everywhere to have decorated pipes.

 

They could produce standard designs and sell them as clear, sticky rolls, to wrap around organ-pipes like wallpaper. We could have new designs every few years, with all sorts of themes.

 

We could have "Smartie" organ-pipes, "Floral" organ pipes, "Flame effect" organ pipes or organ-pipes with humbug stripes.

 

We could even have the "Andy Warhol organ pipe", resembling a stack of coke-cans. Sell a few of them at Christie's, and the instrument would be self-financing.

 

I think we should run with this idea.

 

MM

The decorated pipes at St Michael's, Tenbury are quite extraordinary, imo. There's a photo on npor but it's not brilliant. To find St Michael's on npor you put in Worcestershire and St Michael's in the search address, for some reason Tenbury doesn't work.

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St Hilary Spridlington in Lincolnshire. Organ by Thomas Nicholson (1878), front pipes decorated by "Lambert of Lincoln". Andrew Carter has just restored this organ. See his website http://www.ajcarterorganbuilder.co.uk/Spri...n%20Article.htm, and the NPOR entry http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=D04214 which has a good picture of the front pipes.

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The decorated pipes at St Michael's, Tenbury are quite extraordinary, imo. There's a photo on npor but it's not brilliant. To find St Michael's on npor you put in Worcestershire and St Michael's in the search address, for some reason Tenbury doesn't work.

 

Hi

 

Tenbury doesn't work because the church is in a village, not in the town! The low-res pictures are for copyright reasons (and server space/download time).

 

Every Blessing

 

Tony

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  • 1 month later...
  • 5 weeks later...
I go to graphic-display places and print-colour works quite often.

 

I couldn't help thinking, on reading this thread, that nowadays it would be so easy for everyone and everywhere to have decorated pipes.

 

They could produce standard designs and sell them as clear, sticky rolls, to wrap around organ-pipes like wallpaper. We could have new designs every few years, with all sorts of themes.

 

We could have "Smartie" organ-pipes, "Floral" organ pipes, "Flame effect" organ pipes or organ-pipes with humbug stripes.

 

We could even have the "Andy Warhol organ pipe", resembling a stack of coke-cans. Sell a few of them at Christie's, and the instrument would be self-financing.

 

I think we should run with this idea.

 

MM

Some yeras ago I attended Sunday Mass at the Roman Catholic Church at Schull, deep in the far South-west of Ireland. There was a pipe organ, but it wasn't used. The locked detached console gave every appearance of a small cheap single manual extension organ. But the organ front was beyond belief. Clearly, someone manufactures sheets of plastic imitation organ piping by the roll, and a length or two of this fronted the real gubbins.

I know that some church finishers specialise in bad taste, but thuis about took the biscuit.

Almost worth going out of your way to see - you wouldn't believe it unless you did!

Peter Godden

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  • 7 months later...

I've just returned from two weeks holiday in Dulverton, Somerset where there is a Walker organ of 1860 - 1870 vintage, restored by Geo. Osmond of Taunton. I did not manage to hear the organ played although there is a recital on Monday next. Typical...

 

The Open Diapason pipes above the console are a delight but I apologise for the poor quality of the picture; I did not take a sufficiently wide-angle lens. One is to hope that the tea lights in the little jars are not to be used!

 

P

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Here is our local methodist church - quite a riot of decoration - and an interesting history to the organ too if you follow it back from this entry.

 

A

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Gloucester Cathedral is one of the better-known examples of decorated pipes. Most of the display pipes are (i) painted, and (ii) speaking, the main exception being the gilded display pipes in the chaire case which are, in fact, made of wood. Both East and West fronts are decorated in this way. The pipe shades on the West front are painted as well, rather than carved. As is well documented elsewhere, the chaire case was dated (by Rev F.W Sutton) as 1579, and the main case (by Thomas Harris) - I think - 1665 or 6. Both cases were extensively restored in 1971 at the time of the HN&B rebuild.

 

http://pipedreams.publicradio.org/gallery/...nicholson.shtml

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There's also this one just up the road from Gloucester of course, on which I had the pleasure to play Howells St. Paul's plus Elgar Spirit of the Lord for evensong on Monday this week...

 

2cgdlyo.jpg

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