The organ in St Paul's is nearly 100 years old and has given excellent service over the years. The time has now come for extensive work to be done on the organ to ensure its continued operation and to preserve it for future generations.

The work falls into 3 main categories

• Re-leathering the wind reservoirs
• Electrifying the action
• Restoration of the case

There are 4 wind reservoirs in the organ and their job is to store and steady the wind supplied by the blower. Over time, the leather dries and cracks and wind leaks out. They have been patched up over the years to keep them going but they are on their last legs and must be re-leathered.

The main bellows is the largest of the reservoirs. It is a double rise bellows so there is more work required to releather it.

The swell bellows. Contrast the old leather with the strip of new leather used to repair a split.

The mechanism which connects the organ keys to the pipes in St Paul's is pneumatic. Narrow lead tubes containing high pressure air make the pipes speak when a key is pressed. The workings of the mechanism are now becoming unreliable and some accessories at the console haven't worked for years. Electrifying the system with a state of the art solid state system will not only cure these problems but will give us more console aids. It will also facilitate the connection of the 'prepared for' stops for which we now have the pipes through the generosity of many churches.

The electrification process will require that every single pipe will have to be removed from the organ which will give us the opportunity to have all the pipes cleaned and their voicing checked.

Finally, the last part of the restoration will be to return the organ case to its former glory with the woodwork and pipes stripped of the unsympathetic colour scheme that was painted onto the organ in the 1960's.

The target is £106,000 and already we have had generous donations towards the project. Nothing Fancy, a local second hand furniture shop has very kindly agreed to collect for us and sell any items of furniture given to them by the church on our behalf. So far they have collected over £1000. We thank them most warmly for their much valued support.

Fantastic news! With the aid of an extremely generous grant from the Sports and Arts council we have been able to begin the releathering of the main bellows. Brian Jones is undertaking this work and below are photographs of before and during the work. More photos will follow as the work progresses.

The main bellows before restoration with the cast iron weights on top, all 400kg of them!	The well of the main bellows after the top section has been removed to the workshop. The wind enters through the hole at the far end of the bellows.
The top sections of the bellows are re-assembled after they have been re-leathered in the workshop.	Close up photo of one of the corner gussets showing the intricate leatherwork which allows the bellows to rise and fall.

June, 2011 After much hard work and fund-raising, all three of the divisional bellows have been re-leathered and now all the windleaks have stopped.
This completes phase 1 of the restoration which is a major milestone in the programme. Our attention will now turn to raising the money for the electrification of the action and the addition of the 'prepared for' stops.

The swell, great and choir bellows after restoration.
 
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