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The St. Sepulchre Organ Appeal The historic Renatus Harris Organ at St. Sepulchre's, most recently re-built by Harrison & Harrison in 1932, will be seen and heard on BBC Songs of Praise on Sunday 20th January. The organ is in urgent need of restoration at a cost of £75,000. I St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate is the largest church in the City of London, it's porch, tower and outer walls dating from around 1450. The main body of the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and subsequently rebuilt in 1670-71. Following the restoration, the organ builder Thomas Harris was commissioned to build an organ in the west gallery, under the tower. This one-manual instrument was notable for its fine case, which still houses the organ today.
By the 1920s the organ in the St. Stephen’s Chapel had become completely unplayable and had to be completely rebuilt. Sir Sidney Nicholson was appointed Advisor, and in 1928 the firm of Harrison and Harrison were brought in. They rebuilt the instrument in the north east end of the church, above the north choir aisle. It is this organ that is present in the church today.
In an article in The Organ journal in 1933, Gilbert Benham describes the Great Open Diapason as “refined, velvety, and firm diapason tone that may be regarded as a model for this particular type”. The double diapason “blends admirably with the chorus, adds considerable depth, and imparts to the full organ a feeling of dignified solemnity”. Of particular mention is the swell box “extraordinarily reliable and efficient, giving a gradual, regular crescendo throughout the travel of the pedal, the last half-inch adding as much as the first. I do not recollect a range of power so excellent nor so even in action, as this box and mechanism provide.” Recordings of the St. Sepulchre Organ can be heard by clicking the links below: Boyce - Voluntary in D (opening of allegro section) - high quality (128Kbit/sec MP3 - 560KB) low quality (64Kbit/sec MP3 - 280KB) Bruhns - Praeludium in E minor (opening of final fugue) - high quality (128Kbit/sec MP3 - 1.4MB) low quality (64Kbit/sec MP3 - 690KB) The St. Sepulchre Organ is again in a poor state of repair, and is in urgent need of restoration at a cost of £75,000. If you would like to donate towards the restoration of the instrument, please send a cheque, payable to 'St. Sepulchre Organ Appeal', to Ruth Gibbins, St. Sepulchre Music Administrator, The Watch House, 10 Giltspur Street, London EC1A 9DE. For further information, please e-mail organappeal@st-sepulchre.org.uk. Thank you for your support. Andrew Earis |
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Further additions to the organ were made in the following years including a
Choir division in 1701-2, thought to be by Harris’ son, Renatus. In 1730,
extensive repairs were carried out by Byfield, Harris’ son-in-law. Further
additions were made by Hancock in 1817 and by Gray in 1827. In 1838 Gray again
extended the Swell and added a 16' open diapason to the Pedal. In 1849 Gray &
Davison carried out further repairs. Further work undertaken between 1859 and
1863 included re-tuning the instrument to equal temperament and the restoration
of the case. In 1879 Gray & Davison moved the organ from the west gallery to the
St. Stephen’s Chapel (now the Musicians Chapel) on the north side of the church.
It was here that the young Henry Wood, founder of the Promenade Concerts,
learned to play the organ and at the age of fourteen became Assistant Organist. 
With the limited financial resources available, it was necessary to use much
of the existing pipework from the original organ in the St. Stephen’s Chapel.
Only the Great flute and salicional and Swell cornopean were new stops. Indeed,
some of the original seventeenth century Harris pipework is present: the treble
of the Great double diapason, the Great octave, the swell open diapason from
middle C upwards, and lieblich gedact, and the pedal bourdon, except for the 16'
octave.