ORGAN OF THE MONTH 68: February 2008
St
Margaret's, Great Barr |
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The origins of this instrument are uncertain. NPOR gives Nicholson & Lord as the builders, which seems quite likely as this firm was until 1950 based in Walsall, just a few miles down the road. It received attention from several different builders during the latter half of last century and before the 1960s' work by Hawkins of Lichfield, the pipework was played via a tracker-action console.
It was later reduced in size slightly by Tom Sheffield in the 1980s, eg the Great second diapason was removed, and a further rebuild was undertaken by Jim Molineux of Stoke-on-Trent in 1997, when more tonal changes were made and the Great Stopped Diapason was combined into a single stop (previously divided Bass and Treble in the old-style). At this time, a new two-manual console was provided with keyboard compass to c4, although the pipework does not extend beyond f3.
Since the organist now effectively sits inside the chamber looking out across the choir stalls and surrounded by pipes, full organ is not for the faint-hearted. Fortunately, its impact is rather less in the Nave!