ORGAN OF THE MONTH 45: March 2006
Darlington
Street Methodist, Wolverhampton |
||
| 
| 
|
|
Click on the thumbnail to obtain a full-size image |
||
This is the first of three organs visited as part of the Association's "Organ Crawl" around Wolverhampton city centre in February this year.
The present organ began its life in 1861, but it was the rebuild of 1901 (when it was enlarged to three manuals) that saw the organ through most of the last century without tonal changes or major work of any kind until 1990. Indeed, even the recent restoration work has seen the tubular pneumatic action and the original stop-list retained, but with the addition (in 1998) of a pedal Trombone and (last year) a modestly-voiced Tuba Millennium [sic]. The organ is currently maintained by Hawkins.
One feature of particular interest is the 1901 "special combination action - A H Whinfield, patentee", which uses the black knobs above the stop-keys (see photo, right) and a foot-controlled lever to set the combinations. The thumb pistons themselves are unusual in that each has a dual action: the left-hand side controlling a suitable pedal combination while the right-hand side controls the manual combination. Deft positioning of the thumb can therefore select either independently or both together in a single action!