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Finding pipes


father-willis

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It seems to me that making contacts is the best way of locating second-hand ranks of pipes for sale or rescuing if unwanted. This can be a bit hit-and-miss though. Do members of the board have any insights/knowledge how to find ranks? I do know that there is a firm in Warwickshire that handles and sells a good deal but I'm really looking for things that will either cost very little or nothing! Money isn't plentiful at the moment.

 

Of course this could be the best opportunity to make some contacts and gather info. So here goes... I am really on the look-out for a good, quite big and fruity, Vox Humana, a good stopped wood 8' rank and, ideally/eventually, some 32s! We have some excellent stopped 32s down to bottom F but then that note is used for everythig lower. What would be wonderful is to do what Tewkesbury (Grove) did and obtain the 5 lowest notes from somewhere. Unfortunately I can't find any; perhaps they are not being thrown out as once they were?

 

Any help gratefully received.

 

F-W

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It seems to me that making contacts is the best way of locating second-hand ranks of pipes for sale or rescuing if unwanted. This can be a bit hit-and-miss though. Do members of the board have any insights/knowledge how to find ranks? I do know that there is a firm in Warwickshire that handles and sells a good deal but I'm really looking for things that will either cost very little or nothing! Money isn't plentiful at the moment.

 

Of course this could be the best opportunity to make some contacts and gather info. So here goes... I am really on the look-out for a good, quite big and fruity, Vox Humana, a good stopped wood 8' rank and, ideally/eventually, some 32s! We have some excellent stopped 32s down to bottom F but then that note is used for everythig lower. What would be wonderful is to do what Tewkesbury (Grove) did and obtain the 5 lowest notes from somewhere. Unfortunately I can't find any; perhaps they are not being thrown out as once they were?

 

Any help gratefully received.

 

F-W

(Visions of Private Walker from Dad's Army, drawing on a Woodbine, asking "Pssst. Wot'you after? Godda laverly silky Salicional here... 'ah'bout a nice Double Open? One careful owner. Out of fashion now of course but still good for a punt...")

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Finding pipes

 

A very tenuous connection to the purpose of this thread, perhaps, but I found a pipe one day, quite a long time ago. Open wood, about a foot long in a very poor state of repair - obviously dumped by someone. It was lying at the edge of a car park behind the railings surrounding a telephone exchange, so I suspect it may have come from there.

 

I thought nothing more of it at the time, but this thread reminded me of it.

 

I'm trying to think of some reason why a telephone exchange would use an organ pipe. To generate a steady tone for some reason?

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  • 4 weeks later...
(Visions of Private Walker from Dad's Army, drawing on a Woodbine, asking "Pssst. Wot'you after? Godda laverly silky Salicional here... 'ah'bout a nice Double Open? One careful owner. Out of fashion now of course but still good for a punt...")

 

A Double Open...out of fashion?! Surely not!!

 

F-W

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I found an organ pipe in the gutter outside Christ Church Woburn Square....

 

Hill organ and Church now demolished.

 

Attempts were made to find a new home for it: nowhere would take it. Same story for St Mary, Nottingham (Walker 1916), Preston Public Hall (Wilkinson 1882), Charterhouse School Chapel (Schulze). St George Hulme (Renn 1829).

 

That just covers a few instruments where enormous efforts and publicity went into rescue efforts. Salutory for the rest.

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Attempts were made to find a new home for it: nowhere would take it. Same story for St Mary, Nottingham (Walker 1916), Preston Public Hall (Wilkinson 1882), Charterhouse School Chapel (Schulze). St George Hulme (Renn 1829).

 

That just covers a few instruments where enormous efforts and publicity went into rescue efforts. Salutory for the rest.

 

 

 

 

Part of the Preston Public Hall organ found its way to Matthew Copley (didn't they?) and certainly the 32' flues are now in his new(ish) organ in the RC cathedral in Glasgow.

 

Whatever happened to the Hulme 'Renn'? Surely historic and important?

 

So what else is out there at the moment that is at risk? The IBOB has a good list of redundancies but they seem to be from the CoE and non-conformist places. What abouts the RCs? Or how would one find out what is available from RC churches?

 

F-W

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Part of the Preston Public Hall organ found its way to Matthew Copley (didn't they?) and certainly the 32' flues are now in his new(ish) organ in the RC cathedral in Glasgow. .....................What abouts the RCs? Or how would one find out what is available from RC churches?

F-W

 

I think you might mean Edinburgh RC Cath rather than Glasgow (which has a re-homed Vincent Willis I think).

For the RCs a word with John Rowntree might be beneficial.

PJW

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  • 1 month later...

St Mark's Portobello, Edinburgh has most of the old organs' pipes in the basement, carefully stored. They will probably never speak again. The organ was replaced by a digital one. The organ from St Ninian's Stirling went to the Gypsies last week. It was an (former Theatre organ) Ingram. The 18 note Deagan chimes are still there attached to the back of the Swell Box. The organ was again replaced by a digital electronic. The action parts and pipes were literally sold for scrap value. Nobody wanted it. Even the two 5HP Discus blowers (recently rewound motors) were scrapped. The remaining 16' open (metal) and some other larger Bourdon pipes are still in the chamber being uneconomic to remove.

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Attempts were made to find a new home for it: nowhere would take it. Same story for St Mary, Nottingham (Walker 1916),

 

Actually, some of St Mary's Nottingham's ranks are in the organ of St Francis Welwyn Garden City. I cant remember which (board member RAC will probably know exactly which ones), and I am sure I read somewhere that the 32' contra trombone found its way to New Zealand!

 

Richard

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Actually, some of St Mary's Nottingham's ranks are in the organ of St Francis Welwyn Garden City. I cant remember which (board member RAC will probably know exactly which ones), and I am sure I read somewhere that the 32' contra trombone found its way to New Zealand!

 

Richard

 

I think maybe the 32' is now in St George's Cathedral Capetown.

 

A

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Actually, some of St Mary's Nottingham's ranks are in the organ of St Francis Welwyn Garden City. I cant remember which (board member RAC will probably know exactly which ones), and I am sure I read somewhere that the 32' contra trombone found its way to New Zealand!

This is the only pipe organ I've played when I was told afterwards I was too loud.

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This is the only pipe organ I've played when I was told afterwards I was too loud.

 

It is a very loud instrument - possibly one of the loudest two manual organs in the UK! If you stand hard against the East End wall when it is going full blast then you can cope with it for a minute or two (The organ is at the west end, divided North and South in elevated lofts). Aside from the vestries and church hall, there is no where on the premises where you can escape the tutti effect!

 

Richard

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I think maybe the 32' is now in St George's Cathedral Capetown.

 

A

 

The St George's Cathedral, Cape Town, website has information about the organ at http://www.stgeorgescathedral.com/sermons/hillorgan.html

 

When E H Lemare was appointed to St Margaret's, Westminster, he found the existing organ, which had been rebuilt by Hill in 1868 and enlarged in 1883, didn't suit his repertoire of orchestral transcriptions and in 1897 Walker's built a new organ.

 

"It is at this point that the connection with St George's Cathedral, Cape Town begins.

 

The Hill organ was bought by a Mr W. H. Baxter of Harrogate, a maker of stone-breaking machinery in Leeds who had extensive business connections in South Africa. He had originally intended the instrument to be erected in a church, for which, however, it was found to be too large, and so it was temporarily erected in the west end of St Barnabas Church, Holbeck in Leeds. When in 1902 Mr Baxter happened to read in the newspapers that a new Anglican Cathedral was being built in Cape Town, he decided that the gift of the organ would be a way of showing some tangible appreciation of the considerable profits he had derived from that part of the world. He accordingly wrote to the Bishop of London making the offer, which was enthusiastically accepted. Mr Baxter showed even further generosity by paying for the rebuilding and enlarging of the organ (with Sir George Martin (1844-1916), the organist of St Paul's Cathedral acting as adviser). In addition, a number of additional pedal stops and a solo organ were added as well as a new console and new action chests, making a total cost of something like £3000. He also paid all the shipping charges to Cape Town and for the re-erection of the organ in St George's Cathedral, leaving the Cathedral authorities to purchase only the electric blowing apparatus, which cost a mere £300."

 

"In the seventies two interesting additions were made to the instrument. The first was in 1973 when St Mary's, Nottingham, disposed of its 1914 Walker organ. St George's bought the 32/19/8 pedal reed unit, the principal reason being to add a 32-foot to the existing pedal department. As such, it fulfils its function admirably, although the 16 and 8-foot pitches are less successful, mainly because the voicing of the Walker pipes is so very different from that of the Hill reeds, being somewhat bland in comparison."

 

"Yet another interesting addition took place in 1975 when the swell 4 flute was bought from Trinity College, Cambridge, when the Harrison and Harrison organ was replaced by the present Metzler."

 

One thing the Cape Town organ has in common with that of St Francis, Welwyn Garden City, where I have been Organist since 1976, is pipes from the Walker organ of St Mary's. Nottingham, and Harrison & Harrison pipes from a Cambridge College Chapel.

 

From Nottingham there is a Sesquialtera (2 ranks of theit Swell mixture?) on the Great and a Contra Fagotto 16' now labelled Fagott on the Swell and Pedal.

The pipes of the Pedal 4' Choral Flute were originally in the 1922 Harrison & Harrison in Trinity Hall Chapel.

Full details of the St Francis organ can be seen at http://npor.rcm.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?...ec_index=N08025 with information on the pipework following the stop list and accessories.

 

Innate wrote . . . "This is the only pipe organ I've played when I was told afterwards I was too loud"

 

The organ certainly has a wide dynamic range , you might say ppp to ffff, and many visitors have found that it needs to be used with discretion!

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