Organ

For more details see the Organ Specification

The organ dates back to 1900, and was built using funds provided by the Baxendale family of Framfield Place. The original builder was M C Thompson of Burton-on-Trent.

Unusually, it has an electro-magnetic action which is normally found only on larger instruments and in larger churches. This basically means air is let into the pipe by a control valve on each pipe when a key is pressed. Most organs of small scale employ the more common tracker action which relies on numerous control rods and linkages to operate the valves. This kind of action is more difficult to play, the more pipes in use the harder it is to press the keys. The down side is that the electromagnetic action sometimes sticks open and leaves the pipe continuing to sound after the key is released. This accounts for the "sticking" of some notes, which can only be freed by closing off the stop for a while.

There are around 1000 pipes in the instrument and they vary in length from over 18 feet to 1 inch or less. The pipework is located in the organ loft, above the vicar's vestry. The pipes in the north isle are not in fact functional, they just tidy up and cover the real pipes which at this point would be seen "end on" and not look too pretty. The pipes facing onto the chancel are fully functional and on occasion this comes as a rude shock to those sitting in the chancel, as these pipes are in fact the loudest sounding.

There are 22 stops and 8 combination thumb pistons give rapid selection of a group of stops. These are preset by the setter boards on each side of the console.

The pedal board is rather narrower then the usual radial-concave design.

Organ tuning is a complex business and only carried out by specialists, with an instrument of such complexity there is a great deal of variation of pitch with temperature and humidity, much like (but often worse) than that suffered by the traditional piano.