THE ORGAN CONSOLE The three manual and pedal console. Beneath the music desk can be seen the gilded lettering describing some of Bevington's prizewinning medals.	KEY AND DRAWSTOP ACTION This is taken from under the Swell box - it shows the vertical trackers going to the Choir organ and the horizontal drawstop action to the Swell	MAIN THREE FOLD BELLOWS According to Pat Christian, who looks after the tuning and maintenance of the organ, this type of bellows is very rare.
A VIEW FROM THE PASSAGE WAY BETWEEN CHOIR AND GREAT SOUNDBOARDS This view shows some of the pipes of the Open Wood 16'	LOOKING DOWN ON SOME OF THE PEDAL PIPES To the left the Subbass and Violoncello: To the right the tops of the Bourdon unit of 56 notes which is extended from 16ft to 8ft and 4 ft on the Pedal and as the Great 16 ft Bourdon. It is also wired up in fifths to generate the Acoustic Bass at 32' pitch. In the background can be seen the tower of 6 15" speakers which generate the tones of the 32' and 16' pedal reeds.	SWELL PIPEWORK The shutters have been removed for tuning purposes. From the front: Oboe, Cornopean, Mixture, Principal, Stopped Diapason, Voix Celestes, and Salicional. Towards the back can be seen some of the Open Diapason and Vox Humana pipes.
SWELL PIPEWORK (2) A close-up of the Swell Oboe, Cornopean, Mixture, Principal, etc.	CHOIR SOUNDBOARD Clarinet/Bassoon, Vox Anglica, Salicional, Leiblich Gedackt and Harmonic Flute. Behind can be seen the shutters of the Swell organ.	GREAT SOUNDBOARD Trumpet, Mixture, 15th, Twelfth, Flute 4, Principal, Claribel, and Bell Diapason
THE UNENCLOSED SECTIONS Nearest camera we see the tops of some of the Choir pipes and looking across to the Great soundboard with the Trumpet pipes predominating.	PAT CHRISTIAN AT WORK Pat Christian looks after the organ's tuning and maintenance. Here we see him tuning some of the lowest pipes of the Great Principal 4 ft.	TUNING THE SWELL REEDS Some of the shutters have to be removed in order that Pat can tune that department. In this picture he is tuning the Swell Cornopean (the Oboe is in front)
TUNING THE SWELL CHORUS REEDS Pat Christian is here tuning the Swell Cornopean	CHOIR ORGAN	GREAT ORGAN Another view of the Trumpet, Sesquialtera, etc.
GREAT ORGAN The very large scale pipes at the back are the case pipes of the Open Diapason	GREAT ORGAN The hooded pipes of the Trumpet predominate - behind are the pipes of the Sesquialtera, 15th, Twelfth, Flute 4, Principal, Claribel and Bell Diapason	GREAT ORGAN Taken from the Swell box area
SWELL ORGAN PIPEWORK Just beyond the passageboard are the pipes of the Contra Fagotto, Vox Humana and Voix Celestes	SWELL ORGAN PIPEWORK Right inside the Swell box - in front the Oboe and Cornopean - at back can be seen the larger pipes of the Open and Stopped Diapasons	SWELL ORGAN PIPEWORK This view is taken from beyond the Choir organ.

THE ABOVE PICTURES ARE THUMBNAILS - CLICK TO ENLARGE.

It was in 1997 that we at St Mary's had to face the fact that an instrument over one hundred years old cannot go on for ever without something wearing out. The springs inside the Bourdon chest were rusting and breaking (causing cyphers) and these have been replaced. The Swell stops marked * in the Specification below stand on a pneumatic soundboard worked from the main Swell soundboard. The pneumatic motors were all re-leathered as they were drying out and therefore did not 'flex' as they should, causing sluggish speech of the pipes, also some leathers were splitting. The hitherto uneven speech of the Bell Diapason has now been corrected and many damaged pipes caused by decades of cone tuning were repaired. The tuning stoppers of many of the stopped wooden pipes in the instrument have been replaced or re-packed as necessary. The coupling mechanisms (Swell Octave coupler and manual to manual and manual to Pedal couplers) have been completely reset as some of the keys were getting very hard to depress and also, because the mechanism was out of adjustment, some of the notes were not coupling through properly. The last task, and the most difficult one to be done, was to completely replace the leather of the main wind reservoir, as it had begun to leak badly owing to the fact that the original material was perishing.

But now to the all important tonal matters …........

It appears that, some years ago, (1965) the wind pressure was raised to three inches w.p.g. to make the organ sound more forceful. This meant that the pipes were being overblown and the Diapasons especially were 'hooting' rather than 'singing', the Great upperwork was 'spiky' and harsh (obliterating the Trumpet somewhat), the Great Claribel had a hard tone and, in my opinion, was rather characterless, and the Bell Diapason and the Swell strings had a nasty 'edge' to the tone. The Choir Leiblich Gedackt had an annoying transient hoot (rather like a 'coughing bourdon'). John and Eric Shepherd of Edgware (whose expertise with restoring old organs is renowned), visited the church with the Organ Club in the early 1990's, and thought then that the instrument sounded odd, and weren't too impressed. (They have recently been back and have voiced their praise of the organ as it sounds now). It all came to light when Patrick Christian experimentally removed some weights from the bellows on one of this tuning visits (he had his suspicions that the pipes were being overblown) and after replacing them left a note in the tuner's book to the effect that without them the organ certainly sounded better (especially the Diapasons). So, one of our plans was to incorporate the lowering of the wind pressure in the context of the work to be done on the organ's overhaul. But, anything proposed has to be passed by that body of church bureaucracy known as the Diocesan Arts Committee (the DAC), the dishers-out of those bits of paper known as "Faculties". All of the remedial work to be done was "OK'd", but with the proviso that we should get in an independent expert to asses the validity of our concern about lowering the wind pressure.

Well, Alan Thurlow of Chichester Cathedral, who was sitting on the DAC (and no mean Organ Adviser himself) recommended that we call in the eminent authority, Dr Nicholas Thistlethwaite, the author of the book, "The Making of the Victorian Organ". As our organ was built in that era, Nicholas was keen to come and test it out and he visited us in late November, 1997, in the presence of Pat Christian, Stanley Houlgate (Organist & Choirmaster) and myself. After he had played through all of the individual stops and ensembles on the instrument he agreed that "Summat was certainly wrong". In his subsequent letter to us, he said .......

"It was a great pleasure to have the privilege of hearing and playing your splendid organ. It is by any standards a fine musical instrument - a rare and important example of Bevington's work from the mid-Victorian years. During my visit a number of weights were removed from the bellows in order to lighten the pressure and the musical change was striking. Previously, individual registers had sounded forced and 'edgy' and spoke too quickly, giving rise to an unpleasant speech characteristic (a sort of 'plop', for want of a better word). Although the 'chorus' effects sounded impressive, the pipework was not speaking with natural ease. However, with the pressure lowered, it regained the unforced musical speech I would expect to find in an instrument of this vintage and provenance, and the reeds lost some of their blandness. I am therefore happy to endorse the proposal to reduced the wind pressure and which will enhance (or perhaps I should say, restore) the organ's intrinsic musical character"

Soon after Nicholas's visit to us, Patrick and I experimented with different wind pressures - this entailed humping cast iron slabs of different weights on and off the top of the bellows (wind reservoir) until we found the optimum point where the sound was correct and the individual stops of the Diapason Chorus cohered perfectly, so now we can hear the full effect as the organ has subsequently been tuned and regulated at the new lower pressure which now lies at two and three quarter inches (Bevington's norm).

Let me detail the most striking improvements:-

Diapasons - 'sing' and 'gel' as they should.

Great upperwork (especially the Fifteenth and Sesquialtera) - no longer screams at you which now enables the reeds to be heard in perfect blend.
Great Bell Diapason & Swell Voix Celestes - have lost their reedy harshness - now sound smoother and sweeter.

Flutes - All of the flutes have taken on a beautiful 'liquid' tone. The Swell Stopped Diapason (which may have come out of the previous organ) is an exquisite gem and much admired.

Chorus reeds - their 'fire' and brassiness have been restored, without them having to be re-voiced

Another significant improvement concerns the 'touch' of the keyboards. It is now considerably lighter as the pallets do not have to fight against the higher wind pressure any more.

To highlight some of the many excellent features of the organ I would like to tell you know about a few of the individual stops and ensembles ........

The flutes are real gems - the Choir Harmonic Flute and the Leiblich Gedackt deserving special mention. The Great 4' Flute is slightly overblown and produces a mild orchestral "chiff", which is quite attractive. The Choir Vox Angelica was originally called "Dulciana", but was tuned sharp at my request, and when drawn with the Salicional these two stops fill the church with a most beautiful and restful ethereal sound.

The Salicional on the Swell is really too soft to be a perfect partner for the Voix Celestes. However, all is not lost, as they do sound well together (almost like a Viol d’Orchestre) and the latter stop, which is rather "stringy" also blends extremely well with either the Open or Stopped Diapason.

The Great Diapason Chorus (16-2 ft) is truly one of the glories of this organ and Austin Niland's pre-1965 comments were well-founded. It has a singing cohesion which would grace any cathedral organ and when combined with the sparkling Sesquialtera and Trumpet makes a truly inspiring sound. The Swell Chorus Reeds have regained their richness without having to be revoiced and with the Octave coupler and Mixture produce a cathedral-like 'caged tiger' Full Swell. The sound of Full Organ with Full Great and Swell coupled plus the 32' reed is quite spine-tingling.

Many people who have played or heard the organ consider that it now sounds just like a cathedral instrument. One of the comments made about it in a "thank you" letter after an Organists' Association visit was "A MAGNIFICENT ORGAN IN A MAGNIFICENT SETTING". What more need be said? The former Organist of Tewkesbury Abbey on his visit in early 2004 said, "This is a jewel of an organ – a real stunner and must be preserved".

An interesting postscript to all of this is that sound engineers from the Dutch digital organ firm 'Content' visited us in 1998 and sampled the pipework, so it is possible that if you are the lucky purchaser of one of the "English Voicing" models, then you may be privileged to be playing on some stops sampled from this very instrument, which to them epitomised the true 'English' sound more than either of the other local organs they sampled. They were most impressed with the wonderful blend of all the stops. A 3-manual exhibition model was displayed at the Frankfurt Music Fair in the summer of 2000.