Historic organ restored and ready to play in Chichester

SussexWorld

A centuries-old organ has been saved from disuse and neglect, restored to past glory at the heart of what is now Chichester City Arts Centre, formerly St Bartholomew’s Church, Mount Lane, Chichester.

Transcript

00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. Fantastic

00:06 to be speaking to Rosemary Bell, Jenny Jackson and Ian Jackson, co-owners of the Chichester

00:11 City Arts Centre, about a wonderful project which has come to fruition now. You have restored

00:18 an organ which is pretty nearly 200 years old in what was the chapel to the old Theological

00:24 College in the western side of Chichester City Centre. Now you took over the building

00:30 to set up the City Arts Centre, when was that, last year wasn't it?

00:34 That was in May, we took possession in May of last year.

00:38 May of last year. And Ian, what condition was that organ in when you took over?

00:43 Well it was just playable, but then again none of us could actually play, and it was

00:49 making awful noises, and at one point we thought we should get rid of it, but then Alan Thurlow

00:56 turned up and…

00:58 Former Cathedral Organist.

00:59 Yes, and showed us what a wonderful sound it made. We took a video at the time and it

01:07 brought me to tears, I'll be honest, it was a fantastic moment.

01:11 Well that's understandable, you're tapping into something which is pretty much two centuries

01:17 old, aren't you? And what did you have to do to it to bring it back to where it is now?

01:22 Well some of the keys didn't work, some of the stops, I don't know if you know something

01:31 about organs, you have to pull out certain stops to make certain pipes operative. Well

01:36 if you pulled the stops then the pipes kept blowing, you couldn't stop them from playing.

01:43 Some of the pedals, it has a pedal board for your feet which controls other pipes, and

01:50 some of those didn't work at all, and there were little things like the ivory on the keys

01:58 was missing. When we started to investigate further, we then found that suddenly the electric

02:07 motor that provides the power of the blower to provide air to the pipes stopped working.

02:16 On investigation we found that the company who originally had fitted it back in 1940

02:22 was still in existence, and they showed us the handwritten record of the installation

02:29 in their archives, which was quite fascinating.

02:33 And you've crowdfunded this work and it's now been completed. So is it back as good

02:39 as new?

02:40 It is, the blower and motor was reconditioned, the same 1940s vintage system was reinstalled

02:51 by myself, and now we've had a local company, South Coast Organs, clean the organ, repair

03:00 the mechanisms that weren't working properly, and it's now, dare I say, almost as good as

03:06 new.

03:07 Wow. I guess it just shows that these things were absolutely built to last, weren't they

03:11 really?

03:12 Indeed.

03:13 And we just want to say a huge thank you to everyone that supported us. It was so overwhelming,

03:19 the donations that came in, and it's enabled us to do the work we've been completely self-sufficient

03:24 in.

03:25 I mean, no pun intended, you clearly struck a chord with people when you launched this

03:29 project, didn't you?

03:30 Nice one.

03:31 But Rosie, the principal purpose of the building now is your dance academy, isn't it? And you're

03:39 saying it's such a lovely thing when people come in, see the organ, say, "Oh, does that

03:43 work?" And you can say, "Yes, it does."

03:45 Yeah, it's the first thing people look at when they walk in the room, and it does give

03:51 the building the wow factor. This week we're holding our first exam session, our Royal

03:58 Academy of Music Dance Academy, here at CCAC, and I can't wait to bring external examiners

04:05 into this building and my pupils dance here for a while. It's going to be just the most

04:11 amazing dance venue in the area.

04:14 It's going to be fabulous, isn't it? So how do you imagine you will use this organ now

04:18 as back to nearly good as new?

04:21 Well, I'm getting married on the 19th of August.

04:28 Although I'm legally marrying at Ede's house because the church is deconsecrated, so we

04:33 can't have a legal wedding here. But we're going to have our celebration here on the

04:36 Saturday, and it will be a big white wedding. And we have an organist playing. Unfortunately,

04:42 Alan Othello's away, but we have another friend of his who's going to play for us, and the

04:48 organ will be used at the wedding. The annual Christmas Carol concert that takes place with

04:54 the local residents, which they were so keen to get back and to do here, will happen every

05:00 year.

05:01 Wow. But that's super cool to effectively restore the organ for your own wedding.

05:07 That's quite something.

05:10 And we also have a venue as well for anyone else, the parties, we've had music videos,

05:17 we've had a coronation party, a baroque concert. We've had lots of events and it's still available

05:24 for hire.

05:25 Fantastic. And anyone wanting to hire should just get in contact with the venue, just pop

05:30 up, presumably.

05:31 We're always here. We love the building.

05:34 Well, so you should. It gets better and better. Fantastic. We're really lovely to speak to

05:39 you all and congratulations on bringing this to fruition. And Rosie, congratulations on

05:44 the wedding.

05:45 Thank you.

05:46 Thank you.

05:47 Thank you, Phil.

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