St Mary and St Nicholas with All Saints, Leatherhead
The 1766 Thomas Parker organ

Progress Report 2, April 2007
Restoration work
all images by permission of Goetze & Gwynn unless otherwise stated

Casework
The timber for the case has all been machined, and the frames are being completed in stages: the open frames and ones with flat panels have been made first, to be followed by those with raised and fielded panelling. Mouldings are partly made, and are being fitted to the impost frame.

The carving has been fretted out, and the chisel work nearly completed.

Soundboards
The upperboards are original, but have had considerable alterations during past work on the organ. Some of the alterations even appear to have been made during manufacture, such as the curious upperboard screw positions which resulted in re-siting some mixture pipes. These off-set screws line up with the channels rather than the bars, and did not provide a firm fixing. In revising their position it was noticed that in the table, there are indeed original screw holes in the more logical place.

The upperboards were made as a single layer of oak, off-set pipes having channels or cross-borings, as normally found in work of this period. Later alterations required much drilling out of the top surface, and veneers adding. It was decided that the most effective and least invasive solution was to make new oak veneers. Some upperboards had been sawn shorter when the lowest notes were discarded, and these have been lengthened.

Willow twigs were harvested from the upper end of the lakes at Welbeck, and made into pull-downs for the purses in the bottom board.

The sliders have been repaired and lengthened. After flattening the table, sliders and upperboards, all were coated with graphite in order that the sliders have as tight a fit as possible while remaining moveable.

No original rackboards survived, and hardly any rack pillars. New pine rackboards (as in the Parker organ at Great Packington), and oak rack pillars, were made.

Metal pipes
Work has been completed on the metal pipe restoration, the last phase being the front pipes.

The Trumpet and Hautboy are now being made. The shallots, blocks and boots are made and fitted together, ready for the resonators.

Sheets of pipe metal have just arrived, so the reed resonators, missing front pipes and all the other new pipes can be made.

Martin Goetze, 12th April 2007
Goetze & Gwynn

L: Dominic drawing the carvings above: Dominic carving them

Edward burning the pipe holes in the new veneer of the Sesquialtra and Trumpet upperboard
Above & right: Edward applying & brushing graphite on the underside of an upperboard

Tim making the back frames for the case	The impost frame glued together
Martin cleaning up the impost frame

Cutting the wedge hole in the block
Stuart cleaning the repaired front pipe ljoint	Stuart soldering a patch at the top of a large pipe.

Leatherhead Parish Church