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St Mary's RC Leek - Jardine

Started by Peter Jones, August 21, 2012, 04:51:39 PM

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Peter Jones

Hello everyone. I'm new here. With three other colleagues, I try to help the parishes of the RC Archdiocese of Birmingham in matters organic.

This two-manual Jardine is in a state of dereliction. It has not played for several decades (fallen roof debris and water damage etc...  - all rather sad).
http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N03272

A faculty application to have the instrument removed (scrapped?) is imminent.

Yes, the instrument could simply be mothballed but the parish would never have funds sufficient to restore it.
All suggestions as to secure some sort of future for the organ - even if only the pipework - welcome. Thank you.

matt h

Peter.

Could you give a bit more info on the state of the organ please. Is there much damage to the pipework?
And what is your timescale?

Regards,
Matt.

Peter Jones

Matt - I shall visit the church within the next two weeks and try to assess the damage.  I think the timescale will be around six months or so. More information when I have it.

Peter Jones

Quote from: matt h
Could you give a bit more info on the state of the organ please.......

I have now been to visit and the answer is "not good" (something of an understatement).

rainworthgord

Hi Peter. You could do what we have done at Blidworth and have a digital organ built into the pipework. We are not that far from Leek so you are welcome to come and see/hear/play our new Phoenix installation installed by Dukeries Electronics. Doing it this way saved thousands because a new console was not required. If you are interested I would be pleased to show you.

Barrie Davis

Some organs are regretably simply not worth salvaging. I find this quite sad, yes pipework can be saved, but whats the point there are so many organs becoming available this added to the cost of hiring premises to store the pipework in, quite often for several years simply is not viable. I have often thought it is better if the organ is unplayable or in a bad state simply to mothball it in situ and hopefully when the financial climate improves there will me funds to restore it.
I realise that when the question of reordering crops up it is not always possible to save the pipeorgan, this happened at Pershore Abbey and our member Jonathan Lane has this fine organ in store. I do hope one day a home will be found for it.
I wish people would also realise that "Toasters" only have a limited life span and that a decent pipeorgan, if looked after will not need any attention apart from tunings for many more years.

Barrie

rainworthgord

True enough, but if a church has no chance of affording to restore their pipes, then a good digital may be the only feasible option. And, to be honest, as far as our new organ is concerned, only the most discerning ear would recognise the difference, in return for which we have a much more versatile instrument which does not deserve the disparaging term of 'toaster'. At the same time all our pipework has been left in situ ready for reconnection at some time in the future, but I doubt whether that day will ever come.

matt h

Peter.
Is there anything worth salvaging?  I'm thinking of building a small house organ and might be able to rescue bits and bobs. I thought perhaps the pipework in the swell box might have been saved from to much harm.  I'm not far away from Leek, just the other side of Buxton.

One thing that worries me about churches 'mothballing' their pipe organs: in the last 20 or so years electronic organs (I hear what you say about the term toaster, although I shall continue to use it for more vintage examples) have improved dramatically. If this continues through the next generation then our job of saving what pipe organs remain will be so much harder. Large Churches and Cathedrals apart I can see very few lasting my lifetime.

Although not if I have anything to do with it!!

Regards,
Matt.

Peter Jones

Ah - I think I should step in before we go off on a tangent about the digital alternative. St Mary's has a second pipe organ - fully working - installed only a few years ago from a redundant Methodist chapel. It's a smaller instrument but it is capable of accompanying the liturgy quite well. The parish priest at the time grasped the opportunity to acquire this instrument as he knew he could never raise enough money to restore the Jardine.




Contrabombarde

Not that I want to sound biased but I have yet to find any enthusiasm for anything ever built by Jardines (and I've played quite a few having come from Manchester!)

Since my church scrapped their undistinguished far-too-small-for-the-building pipe organ of dubious provinence and installed a Johannus (that I used to own but donated to the church as I was building myself a Hauptwerk organ so the Johannus was superfluous) the church has used the organ for more services than ever before. I personally dislike the sound (one reason why I went for Hauptwerk) but the church thinks it's a vast improvement and they actually sing more hymns than they ever did when they had a "properĀ£" organ.