Halam St Michael

Organ

The new organ

The organ was installed in November 2009. It was built to the designs of Paul Hale and Alec Wells by Henry Groves and Son of Chilwell, Nottingham.

The new organ has been built by Jonathan Wallace's team at Henry Groves & Son (Organbuilders), a company founded in Nottingham in 1957. Taking up little more floor space than the previous 5-stop, 1-manual, 210-pipe Bevington, by clever layout design and a limited use of ‘extension’ whereby some ranks of pipes are used at different pitches to create more stops, this new organ comprises 28 speaking stops and no fewer than 1,049 pipes, of which one rank (F) is arranged to speak down the south aisle, thus creating a Nave chorus to boost the volume of tone as heard in the chancel. Many pipes are new; some are vintage. Here is the specification:

Great Organ
         rank             rank
Open Diapason   8   D   Open Flute   4   G
Nave Diapason   8   F/D[bass 12]   Fifteenth   2    
Clarabella   8   G   Nave Fifteenth   2   F
Swell Gedackt   8   A   Cornet II   12.17    
Principal   4       Mixture III   22.26.29    
Nave Principal   4   F   Swell Trumpet   8   E
            Tremulant        
Swell Organ
                    
Lieblich Gedackt   8   A   Fifteenth   2   C
Salicional   8   B   Piccolo   2   A
Gemshorn   4   C   Mixture III   19.22.26   25 notes, repeating
Stopped Flute   4   A   Trumpet   8   E
Nazard   2⅔   A   Clarion   4   E
            Tremulant        
Pedal Organ
                    
Violone   16   D   Bass Flute   8   G
Bourdon   16   G   Fifteenth   4   D
Principal   8   D   Bass Trumpet   16   E
                     
Couplers
                    
Swell to Great   Swell to Pedal
Swell Sub Octave to Great   Great to Pedal
Great & Pedal Combinations Coupled
                     
Accessories
                    
6 thumb pistons to Swell, 6 thumb pistons to Great, 6 toe pistons to Pedal
6 general thumb pistons, reversible pistons (thumb and toe) to Gt to Ped and Sw to Gt
200 levels of piston memory. MIDI recording system.

The old organ was a ‘Chancel Model C’, built by Bevington of London in about 1870-1880, and probably installed in the restoration of 1862. It was restored in 1981. The pedals were German. The manual stops: Bourdon, Open Diapason, Stopt Diapason, Claribel, Dulciana, Principal.