Uniting Church (formerly Methodist)

Beecroft Road, near Hannah Street, Beecroft

1968 S.T. Noad & Son, Sydney
Enlarged 2000 Ian D. Brown & Associates, Ballina
2 manuals, 6 ranks extended, electro-magnetic action





 


Historical and Technical Documentation by Ian Brown, Kathy Drummond, Phillip Bongers (1996),
Graham Jones (2002) and Kelvin Hastie (2024)
© OHTA 2024 (last updated April 2024)

The first organ in the church was a Compton electronic which was probably purchased in the 1950s. By 1968, the electronic componentry had deteriorated and S.T. Noad & Son was engaged to build a pipe organ for the church reusing the Compton console.1

The organ consists of 6 ranks with electric action. The ranks supplied by Noad are Great: Open Diapason, Dulciana, Swell: Geigen Principal, Gedeckt and Quint. Ian D. Brown & Associates added a Trumpet in 2000. The same firm also moved the console and extended the main cable c.1996.

Graham Jones, in a personal email to the Organ Music Society of Sydney in 2002, supplied the photographs used here and indicated that the Trumpet rank was donated in memory of Mrs Grace Warne (his mother-in-law), who was organist at Beecroft for about 25 years from c.1965 to c.1990.

The tonal design of the instrument suggests the influence of J.W. Walker & Sons (as in the stoplist for the Great, which is similar to that of a standard small Walker "Positif" model organ) and Roger H. Pogson (in the provision of a "Swell-Positiv" organ, similar to the 1966 Pogson instrument at Miranda Uniting Church and in the provision of a separate Nazard/Larigot rank, similar to Pogson instruments of 1968 at St Martin's Anglican Church, Blakehurst and St John's Anglican Church, Dee Why).

 

GREAT
Principal
Gedeckt
Dulciana
Octave
Twelfth
Fifteenth
Trumpet
Swell-Positiv to Great
8
8
8
4
2-2/3
2
8
A
B
C
A
A
A
D


  
SWELL-POSITIV
Double Gedeckt
Geigen Principal
Rohr Gedeckt
Gemshorn
Nason Flute
Nazard
Octave
Flautino
Larigot
Octavin
Tremulant
16
8
8
4
4
2-2/3
2
2
1-1/3
1
B
E
B
E
B
F
E
B
F
E


  
PEDAL
Sub Bass
Principal
Quint
Choral Bass
Octave Flute
Fifteenth
16
8
5-1/3
4
4
2
B
A
B
A
B
A
  

No pistons
Crescendo Pedal
Swell Pedal
Compass 61/32
Electro-magnetic action 2

 

 





Photos: Graham Jones (2002)

 

1 Kathy Drummond and Phillip Bongers, "Organ Ramble: Ryde, Eastwood, Epping and Beecroft Districts", The Sydney Organ Journal, Autumn 1996: 41-42, using information provided by Ian Brown.

2 "The organ of Beecroft Church", The Methodist, 21 August 1971, 6.