By the end of 2013 we had worked out which parts of the existing organ could be preserved, and how the Nelson organ would form the basis of the rebuild.  Essentially, the Swell (top) keyboard and the Great (lower keyboard) and the Pedal keyboard would each have their own independent sets of pipes.  The Swell pipes would be in a large wooden box with louvered doors which open and shut as a pedal is operated, so this department of the organ is capable of  very gradual changes in volume as the doors open and shut.  This remedied the three biggest design defects of the old organ – (i) the duplexing by which the same pipes were used on several parts of the organ, (ii) the lack of proper volume control and, (iii) the absence of medium volume sound.

The Swell and the Great would be, essentially, the Nelson organ, with the addition of the restored All Souls Trumpet to the Great and a “Mixture” to the Swell.  The Mixture is a single stop with 3 sets of pipes per note, all at high pitch and tuned to provide extra bright harmonics to the organ and give it the “silvery” sound that is characteristic of all good organs, and which was entirely missing from the old organ.  The independent Pedal division would be built mainly from the restored All Souls flute rank and principal rank.

It would have been good to complete the organ with a quiet and bright  “Choir” division (which would have been helpful for the “terraced dynamics”* that are now part and parcel of the modern liturgy of the Church).  However, building a new Choir division would have been prohibitively expensive.  The other problem was that the old organ console was shot to bits and had to be completely replaced.  The medium oak woodwork can be re-used, but the keyboards and pedalboard were almost completely worn out (the pedals were damaged by organists walking on them to get into the cramped seat!), and most of the wiring was either hazardous or not working, and the contacts were failing.  The organ builders were offering us a old ‘Compton” organ console with some new electronics.  This would have worked reasonably well but (i) it is not as good as a traditional console with proper drawstops (but which would have cost, new, around £25,000!) and (ii) it was not capable of being extended to include the Choir division.

* the Catholic liturgy is based on “terraced” combinations such as Assembly/Choir/Cantor (so each could be allotted registration set on a separate keyboard at 3 separate volume levels if there are three keyboards), or Assembly/Cantor/Organ solo line.