St Patrick's Organ

Pipe Organ - After extensive searching, our organist David Forde located a suitable redundant pipe organ to form the basis of a new instrument for St. Patrick’s. The organ came from All Saints Parish Church in Batley near Leeds and was made in 1965 by the acclaimed British organbuilders J.W. Walker Ltd, whose work includes the organ in Liverpool Catholic Cathedral.

David has led the first stage of this project which involved removing the organ from Batley and transporting it to Bristol. This was a complex and detailed project and was completed by 2.30pm last Sunday 15th April. With invaluable help from Mark Humphrey, Rob Enticott, Nick Finan and the Lees, David first spent two days constructing special storage crates for the many delicate organ pipes. Then he travelled to Leeds last Wednesday evening, spending Thursday and Friday day (and nights!) dismantling the organ with the assistance of Nick Regan. Dismantling an organ is a painstaking and complex job, as there are many hand-made and delicate parts to work - David is an experienced organbuilder and has worked on over 30 organs including those in several Irish cathedrals.

With approximately 1200 organ pipes (ranging from over 8 feet long to just a few inches) removed, carefully wrapped and stored, and much of the intricate mechanical parts of the organ removed, David was joined on Saturday morning by Nick Finan, Andrew Lee and Andy Lewis who completed the job hauling some of the largest and heaviest components out and into the lorries, getting back to Bristol at 9pm that evening.

In the blazing heat of Sunday midday, the organ was unloaded and stored - and many thanks to those who gave up their Sunday lunch and volunteered in response to Fr. Gregory’s appeal - particularly Dermot, Gary, Jim, Nick Gill, Tony, Trevor, Andy Coogan, Nick Finan, Andy Lewis, Andrew, Lesley, Sue and Monica, we couldn’t have done it without you! Special thanks to both Nicks and both Andys for travelling to Leeds and to David for leading the project, which was stored by 2.20pm, just in time for all to attend an extra choir practice for confirmation!

The organ will remain in store whilst the church extension is constructed, and plans for its regeneration into our new instrument will be available over the coming months.

Pictures of the work in progress