Over
the last several decades, many historic organs have been sympathetically
restored and given a new lease on life, whether it be in their original homes
or by being transplanted to a new home. Sadly, over the years, there have been
a number of very worthy instruments that have suffered the indignity of being
(with hindsight) ill-advisedly rebuilt and where those rebuilds have been
poorly executed.
Restored
Hill Case, St John’s, Ashfield
The
Concord instrument, built with tracker action, arrived in Sydney Harbour on 5
April 1884 aboard the RMS Valetta, a P&O steamer. The ship, having passed
her sea trials in January 1884, was on her maiden voyage to Australia. She was
built for the England Australia run.
Also
travelling on RMS Valetta was the new Anglican Bishop of Sydney and Primate of
Australia, Bishop Dr Alfred Barry. Valetta was met in Sydney Harbour by the steamers Eva and Port Jackson with a number of dignitaries aboard including the Dean of Sydney,
members of Synod, the Colonial Secretary and Colonial Treasurer! Barry was
ushered ashore and later that day attended a Thanksgiving Service in St
Andrew’s Cathedral at 3:00pm. Following the service where approximately 1,400
were in attendance, the Bishop was treated to a reception in the newly built
Masonic Hall in Castlereagh Street. How things have changed! (Ref SMH Mon 7
Apr 1884).
The
Concord instrument had been given to the church by the Walker family of Yaralla in recognition of Eadith Walker’s 21st birthday (‘Historic Organs of NSW’, Rushworth p273). Bishop Barry dedicated the Hill organ at Concord on
14 June 1884. This date has been etched into the casework of this instrument,
just to the right of the console.
William
Davidson installed the Concord organ in the shallow western gallery. It was
moved to its present position at the east end of the south aisle in 1892, possibly
by Davidson. At this time, the Great Trumpet was removed and replaced with a
Clarionet.
In
1960, this instrument was rebuilt by amateurs who installed a poorly
constructed electro-pneumatic action with a detached console. I first
encountered this instrument in the early 1970s and it was not a pleasant
introduction. Interestingly, no professional organ builder consulted at the
time would have anything to do with the proposal which included enlarging it to
three manuals. The specification was to be crowned with a Tuba stop!
Fortunately, funds were limited and the instrument came out of the rebuild as a
two manual instrument only.
The
instrument struggled to survive and finally collapsed in 1979 when a program
commenced to have the organ rebuilt with a modern mechanical action. This
rebuild was highly successful and has been well documented in these pages. The
rebuilt organ was dedicated on St Luke’s Day in October 1989. I became organist
of this church some six months later and served the parish for five and a half
years. At all times, I found this Hill organ to be an inspiration and have a
great attachment to it. The parish had retained a number of documents relating
to the 1960 rebuild from which I wrote an article on the organ’s history for
the parish magazine.
Well,
what has this got to do with Ashfield?
The
St John’s Hill & Son organ was dedicated by Bishop Barry some three weeks
after Concord. It was positioned against the eastern wall of the north
transept.
Prior
to installing the Hill organ, St John’s had been using a single manual organ
built for the church’s western gallery in 1870 by William Davidson. The church
was enlarged in 1875 and Davidson’s organ was moved to the southern transept in
1879. The Rector, Canon James Christian Corlette, was also Precentor of St
Andrew’s Cathedral and aimed at a high standard of parish church music. On the arrival
of the Hill organ, Davidson’s instrument was moved to St Bartholomew’s Church
in Pyrmont. On closure of that church, the organ was moved to St Luke’s
Anglican Church, Northmead where it was restored by Arthur Jones in 1971. (see
OHTA website).
Despite
having served the parish well for many years, forces for ‘modernisation’ were
afoot and in 1950, at the behest of the organist, Keith Noake, the Wiltshire
Brothers were engaged to rebuild the organ with electric action. A new,
detached console was provided on the south side of the chancel, just below the
pulpit. Stop controls were by luminous discs which would light up when a stop
was on and would go out when the stop was off. The Wiltshire Brothers
effectively removed all of the Hill wind system, console, action and left only
the windchests, building frame, pipes and casework.
By
the early 1970s, the instrument was in poor condition and the church sought to
have the organ rebuilt again. The Rector, the Revd P.W.G. Twine, LTCL, was an
organist and keen to have a good instrument in his church. This time a modern
mechanical action was envisaged and the parish engaged Anthony Welby in 1975 to
perform the work. Interestingly, there was a move towards mechanical action for
this old organ in 1975. It was all the rage at the time.
Welby
Console, St John’s, Ashfield
The
new Welby console was necessarily brought back close to the organ, but was
still detached. The organist now faced south with the organ immediately behind
his back. To save on height, the console was fitted with stop tabs instead of
stop knobs. The stop action was electric and used ‘SLIC’ slider motors
developed by Steve Laurie of Melbourne.
The
very nature of this rebuild was the genesis of the organ’s ongoing action
problems. To fit the mechanical action under the console and back into the
organ, it was necessary to remove part of the structural support of the floor.
Over time, the floor sagged and brought all manner of problems with the action.
Building Frame, St John’s, Ashfield
John
Parker replaces the first front pipe
In
2006, the parish approached John Parker to submit a quote to move the console
as the church had plans to remodel and completely open up the chancel area. The
console needed to be re-positioned. Needless to say, it was impossible to
accede to the parish’s request. A mechanical console is an immoveable object!
Hutch
Swell box being re-assembled
Following
discussions with the Rector, the Reverend Andrew Katay, it became obvious that
the organ was in need of a major refurbishment to allow the console to be
moved, to fix the numerous action faults and tonal irregularities as well as
stabilise the floor.
It
is to the Rev Mr Katay’s credit that the unexpected, but necessary money, was
found to allow the organ to be rebuilt. Given what seems to be happening in
other Sydney Anglican churches, it is gratifying that this organ was
appreciated by the parish it had served for well over 120 years and that they
were prepared to give it a new lease on life. It could have been so easy to
throw it out and to use other means to try and support congregational singing.
New
bellows frame and (above) electric pull-down actions
Briefly,
John Parker has converted the instrument to electric ‘pull-down’ action of the pallets. New windchests
for the pedal pipes have been provided. Also, three new bellows (3.5ft X 5.5ft)
have been built and the BOBCo blower has been repositioned into the adjacent
vestry. The Swell and Great windchests have been fully restored with the pipe work
being cleaned, repaired and returned to proper speech. Wind pressure has been
returned (raised) to the Hill standard of three inches.
Restored
Great pipe work
As
part of relocating the blower, it was necessary to run the main wind trunk
under the floor from the vestry into the organ. A startling discovery was made
when the floor was opened up under the organ. A large quantity of lead
pneumatic tubing was discovered lying on the ground, no doubt left from the
time of the Wiltshire Brothers rebuild. It was a cheap and simple answer to
getting rid of it.
The
amount of tubing was far in excess of what might be expected had the organ been
fitted with tubular pneumatic action to the pedals only, for example. This has
led to the belief that the organ had been built by Hill & Son with
tubular-pneumatic action rather than tracker action as has been commonly
believed. If that is the case, then the Ashfield Hill may have been the first
pneumatic organ in Sydney. It would have been two years ahead of the Hunter
organ at Petersham.
John
Parker has cleaned and repaired all of the pipe work and carefully voiced it o
remove speech irregularities. Tuning slides have been installed on some pipes
on the Great organ for protection of the pipe work. Much of the Swell flue work
already had tuning slides and these have been retained. All Pedal, front pipe
and off note chests have been replaced.
Other
interesting facts about the instrument are summed up by John Parker:
“This
is the third time major work has been carried out on this instrument since its
arrival in Sydney, and could even possibly be the fourth. Much evidence seems
to prove that the organ was probably a second-hand purchase from Hill (with
additions), and its relatively cheap price of four hundred pounds, is certainly
under that of other Hill instruments of similar size, imported around the same
period.
“There
is much evidence that the ground and building frame have been significantly
altered at some time. We would imagine that this work was done prior to the
organ coming to Australia, as everything has been reduced in floor space.
Certainly the outer casework has been moved back into the organ on all sides,
to fit on the raised platform the organ sits upon. There is no evidence that
the organ floor has been altered, or changed since the organ’s installation, as
when floor frame work was removed, it showed clean timbers underneath.
“Other
changes to the building frame appear to have been carried out by Hill – excepting
obvious amateur alterations, carried out in other work.”
CHANGES
SINCE 1883
1950 Rebuilt with electric
action. R A & D A Wiltshire
1975 Rebuilt with tracker
action.
Anthony Welby
2008 Rebuilt with electric
action. John W Parker
“In
the Wiltshire rebuild, the organ was converted to electric action of some
description. Certainly the pedal chests were provided with an electric
‘primary’ action, and a very strange form of “envelope” opening pallet valve.
Some of these chests remained till 2006 when the organ was dismantled.
“The
Wiltshires also extended the 8’ Hill pedal Violone Cello to 16’ pitch, and
provided a remote console on the opposite side of the chancel. Apparently, at
this time the Hill double-rise bellows was dispensed with, and some strange
form of regulator/bellows was installed. Some people have suggested that there
may have been wind pressures as high as 6 inches introduced at this time, but
there is no evidence that any pipe work was altered to suit.
“At
the same time, the front pipes were put on electro-pneumatic chests, and
certainly the slider soundboards had some form of action made to operate them.
Sadly, the work of 1975 removed any ‘tell-tale’ information, as this involved
the cutting out of the underside of the slider soundboards.
New
Console, St John’s Ashfield
“Realising
funds were limited, and that this could be another organ that was cast into a
corner and forgotten, we set about assessing it. The pipe work was virtually untouched, other than the Swell
being fitted with tuning slides; the addition of a third rank to the Mixture in
1975, and the revoicing of the Oboe as a Hautbois, or small Trumpet.
“The
Great pipe work was a bit sad. Years of cone tuning had ruined the pipe toes. The
smaller pipes of the Principal and Fifteenth were actually forced down the
toe-holes. It was decided that these pipes be repaired, and that the fitting of
tuning slides would preserve their usefulness, not to mention speech Also, the
wind pressures were set too low. We knew there was an organ waiting to ‘get out.’”
A
refurbished console, originally built for the J P Eagles organ at Lugar Brae
Presbyterian Church, Waverley, has been provided. The pedal board is a
refurbished one originally built by Hill Norman & Beard. This stop-tab
console is located, at the church’s request, on a mobile platform to allow it
to be moved up to two metres away from the organ.
Given
that this organ appears to have been put together from several different
sources in the Hill factory, and the subsequent rebuilds, there is probably
nobody alive now who can accurately recall how it sounded prior to the
Wiltshire rebuild.
John
Parker has achieved outstanding results in this latest work. It must be
remembered that everything was necessarily achieved on a tight budget.
Workmanship is of the highest order and every part of the organ has received
critical attention.
One
source of regret in this work is that the stencilling on the case pipes could
not be reinstated. Gold paint was applied to the pipes in the Wiltshire rebuild.
However, restoration of the diapering will have to wait for the future.
The
organ speaks cleanly and boldly into the church and more than adequately
supports the congregational singing. Because of the constrained budget, some
tonal items have been left over to another time. This includes the taming of
the Oboe and revision of the Swell Mixture.
Nevertheless,
this organ makes a very respectable sound and is a great credit to John
Parker’s professionalism and the enthusiasm of the Ashfield parish. Given the
organ’s background, it is probably fair to say that it has never sounded better
than it does now.
There
has also been an unexpected and welcome aside to this story. One of the Rev Mr Katay’s
sons, Miles, attends a Sydney
Anglican School, and was so taken with the organ’s rebuilding, he was
sufficiently inspired to undertake organ lessons at the school.
I
would like to thank John Parker for his input in the completion of this article
including the provision of the photographs.
The organ’s specification is
as follows: