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Organ The new church of St. Thomas was built in 1911, but prior to this, firstly a harmonium was used, and 1882 it was replaced by a secondhand organ of 2 manuals, enlarged by T.C. Lewis of Brixton, South London. By 1905 this organ had deteriorated beyond effective use despite repairs in 1902, so a new organ was built at a cost of £300 by Nicholson & Co. of Worcester which was supplied with a hydraulic blower costing £60. The organ was originally dedicated on St Thomas's day, 1905, and was then subsequently moved to the new church when this was opened. It was very much an instrument of its time with what might be described as "floods of 8ft tone", there were no mutations, mixtures or stops above 4ft pitch and there was only one reed stop, it had 2 manuals and pedals with 18 speaking stops. The specification of this organ was as follows: Compass: Manual: 58 notes, Pedal: 30 notes
In 1933 further work on the organ was made possible by a gift given in memory of a son lost during the Great War. The unusual oak casework was added, it being designed by Henry Sidebotham, son of the first vicar of the parish. The gift was sufficient to allow the addition of a Great Diapason No 2, Pedal Diapason and electric blowing equipment - which is housed in its own "shed" on the roof of the vestry. This work was carried out by Roger Yates of Nottingham. Despite some minor tonal work during the intervening period, the organ retained its basic sound for almost 60 years until an extensive rebuild in 1964 by Cedric Arnold, Williamson & Hyatt of Thaxted, Essex, guided by the then organist, Vincent James. Once again, the rebuild reflected the prevailing styles of the period with the sound of the instrument changing radically from its previous solidity to a new spikiness. This was obviously quite pronounced as one of the reports obtained for the subsequent rebuild refers to "taming the swell mixture". The stoplist grew to 29 speaking stops thanks, in part, to a little borrowing and extension work, particularly on the pedal. At this time a tremulant was added to the swell. Compass: Manual: 58 notes, Pedal: 30 notes
Whilst necessarily limited by its size, judicious use of the modern piston action can result in much more flexibility than the paper specification would suggest. In 2004 the original multi-channel board was replaced by a new solid-state one, thus enhancing further the quality of the instrument. Compass: Manual: 58 notes, Pedal: 30 notes
* New in 1990   |
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