Going, Going, Gone!

 

First thing on the morning of Tuesday 26th August the guys from Principal Pipe Organs turned up and by lunch time the organ looked as though it had been ravaged by pipe thieves. By the end of the day – no pipes left, the upper case dismantled and the swell box safely stored in the north aisle! A serious amount of woodworm damage has been discovered too – and the bad news is that it’s active, not dormant. Some of the supporting struts just crumbled away to nothing as they were taken out.

 

 

Tea time saw just the “ground floor” remaining, and by lunch time on Wednesday (and after some hard and difficult work) that had gone too, and the floor of the transept was revealed for the fist time in 50 years, as well as the oddly contrasting windows which the organ had concealed.

 

 

The bellows and the Reed pipes have gone off for specialist restoration, but much of the workings of the organ are being stored in the north aisle. Please give them a wide berth. Most of the pipe work is stored in boxes in the Choir Vestry. When it went, the organ had 906 pipes – when it comes back it will have 1052 – and you WILL notice a difference!

 

 

Grateful thanks to Paul Heaton, Bob Dibben and Pete Etherington who have taken enough photographs between them to fill a complete archive. Special thanks too to Hazel Rayner and to Bob who answered the call on the Emergency Clean-up Line on Wednesday afternoon once the men had gone, and within an hour, the Church was as clean as a new organ pipe in time for the Funeral on Thursday.

 

Meanwhile we have the fun of having a very small pipe organ on loan form Principal Pipe Organs – it will do the job just fine, but it will be such a joy to have our organ back! In the interim, please grin and bear with the disruption – which gets worse from Tuesday 1st September when Houseman and Falshaw move in to fix the floor, then build the gallery.

 

John and Liz