Bingham
St Mary and All Saints

Organ

The original maker of the pipe organ is unknown.

It was originally situated in the north transept. In the middle of the 19th Century, though, Sybil Miles, daughter of Robert Miles, was appointed organist. At that point the organ was moved into the extension, now the clergy vestry, which was built expressly to accommodate it in 1863. (Maybe Miss Miles felt this would be better and prevailed upon her father, or maybe the idea was to open up the north transept.) This resiting necessitated the removal of the glass in two of the windows so that the organ could sound into the church.

We do not know what the organ sounded like before, but the move cannot really have improved the sound of the instrument. The opening into the chancel was adequate, but the one into the nave was too small to allow the organ to be heard properly. It never gave a very good sound after this.

The organ was rebuilt in 1914 by Lloyd & Co of Nottingham, and again in 1973 by Henry Groves (also of Nottingham) when electric action was installed.

The new
electronic organ

By the mid-1980s it was again having problems. There had been water ingress which had damaged the mechanism, and the electrics were beginning to fail. In 1987 the reed stops were said to be ‘in deplorable condition, and sound accordingly’. A major rebuild, or preferably replacement in a different place, was recommended. Financial considerations did not allow this, and the organ continued to deteriorate. By the mid-1990s there were a number of notes in several stops that would not work, and by 1997 it was felt to be unplayable.

It was decided to replace the organ with a good-quality modern electronic instrument. The pipe organ was disposed of and, after the church had used a borrowed instrument for a time while money was raised, an ‘Eminent’ organ from Cathedral Organs was installed in 2001. This had the incidental advantage of releasing the space taken up by the pipe organ, allowing for a greatly improved vestry.