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MMD > Archives > October 2010 > 2010.10.12 > 10Prev  Next


Roll-Operated Player Pipe Organ Census
By Rowland Lee

In the UK I am aware of just three remaining original Aeolian pipe
organ installations and two old secondary installations, all early
instruments.  These are as follows:

Opus 912, Thornbridge Hall, Bakewell, Derbyshire, 1/8 (C). The first
ever Aeolian pipe organ in the UK, originally installed at Audley End
House for Sir Howard de Walden. The cable has been cut and the basement
chamber bricked up, but there is a possibility that the organ may be
restored.  The console now has two keyboards, the upper one being of
short compass.  I am unsure whether this reflects the "92-note system"
or this short keyboard is just for playing the chimes, which were added
at a later date.  See: http://www.thornbridgehall.co.uk/home.html 

Opus 1048, Manderston House, Duns, Scotland, 2/23 (H,C).  A magnificent
installation in a contemporary Edwardian country house of some
significance.  The house has been used frequently as a film and TV
location, most notably for the film adaptation of Edith Wharton's "The
House Of Mirth," starring Gillian Anderson.  The console sits under the
famous silver staircase, with the organ housed some distance away
behind a screen based on a Robert Adam design.  See: http://www.manderston.co.uk 

Opus 1122, Shirenewton Hall, Monmouth, Wales, 2/11 (H).  An original,
untouched installation in working order in an older private country
house on a large estate.  The console is built into panelling under the
stairs, with the organ housed in a former bedroom off the adjoining
Great Hall.

Opus 1123, Dinmore Manor, Herefordshire. originally 2/9, now 2/12 (H),
with some extension work added in the 1950s, when the console was
modernised.  This is a secondary installation of 1919, the organ having
been originally installed in a house near Manchester.  This organ is
housed in a magnificent, purpose-built music hall, with the console in
a gallery.  See: http://www.uk-hotel-accommodation.co.uk/leisure/visit.cfm/l/dinmore-manor/87 

Opus 1191, Stanton Hall, near Nottingham, 2/9 (H).  An untouched, but
unplayable, instrument lying neglected in a comparatively small house
which is now an old people's home.  Most of the organ is under the
stairs, with pedal pipes disguised behind panelling nearby.  The client
here was the electrical engineer C.R. Crompton, of Crompton-Parkinson
Electric Motors and British Organ Blowers fame.  One wonders whether
British Organ Blowers was founded in response to problems related to
this residence organ.

In addition to Paul Morris' well-known and exemplary installation and
restoration of opus 1458 (the only working 3-manual Aeolian in the UK),
there is Richard Cole's painstaking and magnificent restoration of opus
1124 and also the instrument in the Musical Museum in London, an
expanded restoration (as I understand it) of opus 1249.

There are at least three other organs restored and playing around the
country and probably a few others in storage, including, in my own
collection, opus 1431, opus 1089, and the pipework of opus 1036.  There
are a few Aeolians (and a couple of Walckers) which were rebuilt in
churches after the second World War, but these have all been shorn of
their roll players, vox humanas, percussions, and string ranks.

There were also a few Welte Philharmonic Organ installations, but I
believe the only surviving one is the justly famous 3-manual instrument
at the David Salomons House in Kent.  A country church near my house
has an expensive-looking organ by a British maker, Rushworth and
Dreaper, with a roll compartment door above the manuals, and a big
empty hole inside where the mechanism used to be.

There are also a couple of country-house concealed orchestrion
installations of which I am aware, an Imhof and Mukle and what I
believe to be a Welte Brisgovia, but that is a subject for another
time.

Rowland Lee
Lincolnshire, UK


(Message sent Mon 11 Oct 2010, 23:54:15 GMT, from time zone GMT+0100.)

Key Words in Subject:  Census, Organ, Pipe, Player, Roll-Operated

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