Organ
At the Dissolution in 1540, an inventory states that there were "a lyttel payre of organes" in the Lady Chapel and in the Choir, "a great large payre of organes" and also "a lesser payre". The parts of the Abbey that housed these instruments were demolished shortly afterwards. The church currently contains a large 3 manual organ. A plaque on the organ case has the inscription, "Flight & Robinson 1827, the gift of (Thomas) Leverton Esq.", although this organ actually dates from 1819. It was fully rebuilt in 1860 by J. W. Walker & Sons Ltd. In 1879, the organ was dismantled and rebuilt at the eastern end of the North Aisle, but was finally rebuilt in the West Gallery in 1954, with the console in the chancel. A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register. The "Waltham Abbey Church Heritage Organ Appeal" was launched in July 2008 to replace the existing organ, which is deemed to have come to the end of its useful life. The appeal was launched by comedian and amateur organist Jo Brand.
Read more about this topic: Waltham Abbey Church
Famous quotes containing the word organ:
“Nature is so perfect that the Trinity couldn’t have fashioned her any more perfect. She is an organ on which our Lord plays and the devil works the bellows.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In that reconciling of God and Mammon which Mrs. Grantly had carried on so successfully in the education of her daughter, the organ had not been required, and had become withered, if not defunct, through want of use.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)