St Mary's Church, Portsea - restoration of Horn 8'

In our restoration of the 1889/1892 J.W. Walker & Sons organ of St Mary’s Church, Portsea, one of the technical challenges is returning the organ to its Victorian tonal ethos. Various modifications were made in the 1960s. The Swell Horn 8’ suffered three indignities. Firstly, a new C1 resonator was made, and all the other resonators and blocks were moved up one. A new shallot was added to transpose these as well. Secondly, the resonators in the treble were replaced altogether with new of harmonic (double-length) construction, a technique often used to gain power (at the expense of brilliance) in reed trebles. Thirdly, the original resonators in the bass, that had been moved up one note, had new slots cut into them to sharpen their pitches.

We are reversing all of this. The non-original C1 resonator has been discarded and all original resonators are being returned to their original homes and blocks/shallots, including manufacture of a new shallot. The slots cut into the original resonators are being closed up to return the reeds to dead length. The 1960s harmonic treble resonators have also been discarded and are being replaced with new non-harmonic resonators whose scale runs on from the bass notes.

In this video, our head voicer James Atherton explains and demonstrates some of the work in our metal shop to restore these pipes.

More project details at www.nicholsonorgans.co.uk/pf/portsea