St Alban's Lindfield organ

St Alban's Anglican Church
cnr. Tryon Road & Lindfield Avenue, Lindfield

B. unknown. Reb. 1911 Geo. Fincham & Son
Reb. & enl. 1948-49 S.T. Noad
Enl. c.1973 A. Welby (addition of swell Mixture). 3m., 22 sp.st., 11c. el.pn.
Gt: 8.8.8.4.4.2.8. Sw: 8.8.8.8.4.2.III.8.8. Ch: 8.8.4. Ped: 16.16.8.
Reb. Brown & Arkley 1989-90 2m., 35 sp.st., el.pn.
Gt: 16.8.8.8.8.4.4.2-2/3.2.1-3/5.IV.8. Sw: 8.8.8.8.4.4.2.III.16.8.8.
Ped: 32.16.16.16.8.8.4.4.2.16.16.8.4.

Cliff Binham writes in SOJ Autumn 2009:

The first organ at St Alban’s was a second-hand instrument of two manuals and ten speaking stops from G Fincham & Sons and installed in the original wooden church in 1910. It was transferred to the present church upon its opening in 1920 and installed in the last arch on the north side [compass points mentioned in this article are presumed to be related to liturgical practice - GL] of the nave where the pulpit now stands.

When the chancel of this church was added in 1938, the organ was transferred to an elevated loft above the vestry on the south side of the chancel where casework and action constrictions effectively muffled the tonal egress.

In 1949 a new three-manual organ, of nineteen speaking stops using all of the existing Fincham pipework and with electro-pneumatic action, was built by S T Noad. The new stop-tab console was installed in a loft above the screen between the chancel and the chapel, directly opposite the pipe loft. With minor additions, this organ served with diminishing reliability until the last rebuild was undertaken by Brown and Arkley in 1989-90, a wise decision being taken to create a large and very comprehensive two-manual specification.

The present organ contains most of the Fincham/Noad pipework with significant additions mostly from the discarded Dodd/Noad organ from St Martin’s, Killara. The attractive Killara console was refurbished as a two-manual drawstop unit with new Peterson components and multi-level capture piston action. A new solid-state control system was also installed at this time. The old console loft was dismantled and the console now stands on an elevated platform behind the choir stalls on the north side of the chancel. With a complement of thirty pipe ranks, this organ may well be the largest two-manual church organ in Sydney. The original three-manual Noad console is now doing valuable service at St John’s Anglican Church, Asquith.

Information for this article has been complemented from Rushworth, Historic Organs of NSW and J J Barlow, Notes on the organ in St Alban’s Anglican Church, Lindfield-June 1989.

From SOJ (Autumn 2010), Peter Jewkes writes:

The organ at this parish is an interesting conglomeration of instruments by Fincham, Dodd, and Noad, rebuilt in 1989-90 by Brown & Arkley. With the solid state switching and capture systems becoming increasingly unreliable and beyond repair, it was decided to replace them, for the first time in Eastern Australia, with an “all-in-one” system by Peterson Electro-Musical products from America. This “new generation” ICS 4000 system combines the notes switching for all the instrument’s electric action, multi-level capture system, MIDI interface and a playback facility (with performances recordable on a USB memory stick!)