The London Bridge station pipe organ, popularly known as Henry, is a Victorian pipe organ located at London Bridge station in the United Kingdom. Built in 1880, it was moved to its current location for public use in 2022 by the "Pipe Up for Pipe Organs" charity project, which had recovered the organ from Christchurch in Whetstone, north London, after the church closed in 2020.
The pipe organ was built by Henry Jones in 1880 and nicknamed "Henry". [1] [2] The console has one manual, a pedal keyboard and eight stops, and the organ blower has a 30-minute switch. [1]
The organ was installed at Christchurch, a United Reformed church in Whetstone, north London, where it remained in use until the church closed in July 2020. [3] [1] It was removed the following year. [1]
In July 2022 the organ was installed at London Bridge station − in the Stainer Street concourse, near Saint Thomas Street − by the "Pipe Up for Pipe Organs" charity project led by the organ restorer Martin Renshaw. Its relocation saved the organ and helped to raise public awareness of the loss of pipe organs from closed churches in the United Kingdom. [1] [4] [5] It is freely available for anyone to play, [6] and the Future for Religious Heritage organisation believes it to be the "world's first open-access railway station pipe organ". [6]
The "Pipe Up for Pipe Organs" project estimates that of the approximately 35,000 pipe organs in the United Kingdom, "up to four pipe organs a week are being stripped out and sent to rubbish tips". [6] The charity relocates British pipe organs to France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway and Eastern Europe. [6]
Another organ, known as "James", was moved by the project together with the London Mozart Players to Trinity Court in the Whitgift Centre, a shopping centre in Croydon, south London. [7] [8]
Following the organ's relocation to London Bridge station in July 2022, [9] a ceremony was held on 27 October 2022 to mark its installation. The event was attended by the chair of Network Rail, Peter Hendy, and the organist Anna Lapwood, Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge, gave a performance. Organists and Network Rail officials cited the positive reaction they observed from the public. [5] [10] [11] [12] [13]
Lapwood's performance of "God Save the King", accompanied by a security guard, in September 2022 had previously gone viral on Twitter. [14] [15] [16] [17] In 2023 David Hill, the former organist and music director at Westminster Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral and St John's College, Cambridge, performed Bach's Toccata in D minor on the organ. [18]
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre, volume, and construction throughout the keyboard compass. Most organs have many ranks of pipes of differing pitch, timbre, and volume that the player can employ singly or in combination through the use of controls called stops.
Sir Walter Parratt was an English organist and composer.
London Bridge is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in Southwark, south-east London. It occupies a large area on three levels immediately south-east of London Bridge, from which it takes its name. The main line station is the oldest railway station in London fare zone 1 and one of the oldest in the world having opened in 1836. It is one of two main line termini in London to the south of the River Thames and is the fourth-busiest station in London, handling over 50 million passengers a year.
The Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a Church of England cathedral in the city of Truro, Cornwall. It was built between 1880 and 1910 to a Gothic Revival design by John Loughborough Pearson on the site of the parish church of St Mary. It is one of only three cathedrals in the United Kingdom featuring three spires.
St Mary's Church, Handsworth, also known as Handsworth Old Church, is a Grade II* listed Anglican church in Handsworth, Birmingham, England. Its ten-acre (4 hectare) grounds are contiguous with Handsworth Park. It lies just off the Birmingham Outer Circle, and south of a cutting housing the site of the former Handsworth Wood railway station. It is noteworthy as the resting place of famous progenitors of the industrial age, and has been described as the "Cathedral of the Industrial Revolution".
Henry Willis & Sons is a British firm of pipe organ builders founded in 1845. Although most of their installations have been in the UK, examples can be found in other countries.
Chelmsford Cathedral in the city of Chelmsford, Essex, England, is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, St Peter and St Cedd. It became a cathedral when the Anglican Diocese of Chelmsford was created in 1914 and is the seat of the Bishop of Chelmsford.
St Mary Moorfields is a Roman Catholic church in Eldon Street near Moorgate, on a site previously known as Moorfields. It is the only Catholic church in the City of London. Prior to a 1994 boundary change, the church was in the Borough of Hackney, such that there were no Catholic churches in the City.
Belfast Cathedral, also known as St Anne's Cathedral, is a Church of Ireland cathedral in Donegall Street, Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is unusual in serving two separate dioceses. It is the focal point of Belfast's Cathedral Quarter.
The Church of St Andrew, Holborn, is a Church of England church on the northwestern edge of the City of London, on Holborn within the Ward of Farringdon Without.
J. W. Walker & Sons Ltd is a British firm of organ builders established in 1828 by Joseph William Walker in London. Walker organs were popular additions to churches during the Gothic Revival era of church building and restoration in Victorian Britain, and instruments built by Walker are found in many churches around the UK and in other countries. The firm continues to build organs today.
John Snetzler was an organ builder of Swiss origin, who worked mostly in England. Born in Schaffhausen in 1710, he trained with the firm of Egedacher in Passau and came to London about 1741. When he retired in 1781, his business continued and ended up with Thomas Elliot. Snetzler died in Schaffhausen on 28 September 1785.
All Saints Notting Hill is a Church of England parish church in Talbot Road, Notting Hill, London that is affiliated to the Anglo-Catholic Forward in Faith movement. The church is built in a Victorian Gothic Revival style with striking polychromatic decoration. For heritage purposes the church is a Grade II* listed building.
James Jepson Binns was a pipe organ builder based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.
St Mary and All Saints’ Church, Kidderminster is a Grade I listed Major Parish Church in the Church of England in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England.
Holy Trinity Parish Church is the parish church of Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, England. It is Grade I listed and gives its name to the ward in which it stands, Sutton Trinity.
Christ Church at Whetstone was a United Reformed Church in Whetstone, north London. It was founded before 1788 and closed in 2020. Christ Church at Whetstone United Reformed Church has its origins in independent meetings first held in Whetstone in 1788. In 1817 the meetings were moved to Totteridge where at first the congregation met in private houses. A permanent chapel with adjacent school room were constructed on Totteridge Lane in 1827, named the 'Totteridge Lane Chapel'. In 1884 it was agreed that the church should move to the developing residential area of Oakleigh Park, Whetstone, and a plot of land was duly purchased. A new church and school were built and opened in 1888, with the name 'Whetstone Congregational Church, Oakleigh Park'. In 1900 the church was gutted by a fire. It was decided to convert the damaged church into a hall, and build a new church and school room. In 1972 the Congregational Church merged with the Presbyterian Church to form the United Reformed Church, and the Whetstone church accordingly changed its name to 'The United Reformed Church, Whetstone'. Extensive rebuilding work was undertaken in 1975 - 1976, including the construction of a new church and a block of flats. In 1979 the name 'Christ Church at Whetstone United Reformed Church, Oakleigh Park' was adopted.
Henry Bevington was a prolific English organ builder, active in London during the Victorian era. Many of his organs were erected in Australia and South Africa.
Anna Ruth Ella Lapwood is a British organist, choir director and television and radio presenter. In 2016 she was appointed Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge, one of the youngest people ever to have directed an Oxford or Cambridge university college choir, and in 2018 she established a girls' choir at the College. As an associate artist at the Royal Albert Hall in London since 2022, her recordings have reached a wide audience on social media.
Charles Brenton Fisk was an American pipe organ builder. He was one of the first to use mechanical tracker actions instead of electro-pneumatic actions in modern organ construction. Originally involved in the Manhattan Project, Fisk made a career change from atomic physics to organ building. He later co-founded C.B. Fisk, Inc., an organ building firm.
free public use
