November 2021
The organ, at St Thomas' Church, is a three-manual instrument built in the 1870s by Alfred Monk of London and rebuilt by Bishop and Son in 1930. The pipework is still of excellent quality but many parts of the organ, including the 1886 windchests and slider sound boards, are starting to fail. Because of this a project team was set up to plan for a rebuild of the organ, retaining the quality pipes and rebuilding the old worn-out or redundant parts. Now, after several years of planning and fundraising, we are delighted to announce that St Thomas' Church signed the contract for the organ rebuild work with Anthony Hall of Clevedon Organs on 1st November 2021.
We are so thankful for all the enthusiasm, support, effort and contributions which have been vital for this. They reflect the value and blessing music gives in our worship of God and in our lives.
The design and manufacture of sections of the organ will happen between now and Easter 2022. Dismantling of the organ will take place after Easter. Some of the pipes will remain at St Thomas' while some pipes and other sections of the organ will be taken to one of Clevedon Organ's workshops to be cleaned and mended.
In the autumn of 2022, the new and restored sections of the organ will be brought back to St Thomas' and the organ will be rebuilt ready for Christmas 2022. While our pipe organ is being rebuilt, Clevedon Organs will loan us the use of a digital organ.
Thank you to all those who have supported our project so generously. To the many individual donors; to those who have given their time and talents to give recitals in aid of our organ project; and to the trusts and charities who have helped us reach the position of being able to sign the contract:
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The Greys Charitable Trust
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Allchurches Trust
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The Goring Gap News Association
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The Gatehampton Trust
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George Michael Legacy Project
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Barbara's Shop
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Lucy Woodward Charitable Trust
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The Englefield Charitable Trust
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Oxfordshire Historic Churches Trust
We continue to receive generous donations by local people who are keen to support our organ rebuild project. We have also received many donations in memory of Michael Howell, Ann Marshall and Myrna Anderson. Thank you.
Our focus can now continue to move forwards onto the wider life and mission of the church, in which our music-filled worship of Almighty God plays a vital part.
We will try to give regular updates of how the rebuild is progressing over the next year. We will also be continuing to hold fundraising events for the rebuild and part two of our project, using the rebuilt organ to serve both the church and wider community.