The Grade II listed church closed in 2020 and has been on the market ever since.

It’s not that Pipe Up objects in principle to the conversion - there have been many like it - but that this one involves the complete removal (ie, destruction) of its 1870 Father Willis organ, which forms one of the major features of its interior. The NPOR entry is at” ,https://npor.org.uk/survey/N05939

The application for listed building consent gives no reason for the proposed removal. A “heritage statement” meekly asserts that as the Willis was not installed as soon as the building was built, removing it would not cause substantial damage to the significance of the building.

Pipe Up’s objection points to the existence of lots of other venues that successfully combine the conservation - and use - of a pipe organ with other activities such as rock gigs, banqueting, weddings and dance studios, everywhere from Edinburgh to London, via Wolverhampton, Reading, and elsewhere. We say that a pipe organ will enhance, not diminish, the utility of the building.

The application has caused a storm of local protests about it becoming a “nightclub”.

The church had a significant recent history. In 2014, the URC community decided to spend £300k on alterations to create community facilities. In 2018 it discovered that its roof had “nail fatigue” costing a likely £400k to repair, and in 2020 it decided to close.

We await the Norwich planning committee’s decision.

Photo credit: NPOR

Singer Katherine Jenkins presented the programme about the role of the pipe organ in religion. She interviewed celebrity organist Anna Lapwood at Pembroke College, Cambridge, gave a short history of organ music in Christianity and how she used the organ to accompany service. Later, Pam Rhodes interviewed Martin and others as he visited a number of organs in London.

One of them was our beloved “Henry” at London Bridge, rescued by Martin from a closed church in Whetstone in north London in 2021 and installed at the station in 2022.

The second was an a Nelson organ rescued by Martin from County Durham and installed in a Seventh-Day Adventist church in Clapton, east London where it is much used by 11 teenage local organ students. Fiona Pacquette was interviewed about the value of the organ in its new home. This project featured in James Dawson’s film “Organ Stops".

The third visit is to a fine but barely-playable 1920s organ in a now-closed Swedenborgian “New” church in Notting Hill. Its new owner is planning its conversion to a Greek Orthodox Church, but without the organ. Sadly the outlook for this organ is still unclear.

Each of the interviewees chose a hymn, and the programme closed with a performance of the hymn “Be Still“ by Katherine and Aled Jones at Westminster Abbey.

The programme is available for a limited time on the BBC iPlayer at:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b006ttc5/songs-of-praise

With a bit of perspective, we can say that it’s been in three phases:

Phase 1: Henry takes the stage

The first started in July 2022, just after we got our final approval from the Charity Commission that we were thrown headlong into some very welcome activity.

A long-running dream of one of our co-founders, Martin Renshaw, was suddenly achieved: to persuade Network Rail to allow a pipe organ to be placed in a railway station, in the same way that pianos have already been installed.

Suddenly the lights turned green and a small group of Trustees loaded the 1880 Henry Jones organ from Martin’s garage (to which it had been recovered 12 months previously, from a closed URC church in Whetstone) and delivered it, over three late evenings, to the chosen spot in the concourse of London Bridge Station in Southwark.

It took three further days’ work by us to clean Henry, make a few repairs, re-assemble, tune and test him.

And just before Henry was ready, we had a surprise visit from celebrity organist and social media star Anna Lapwood, who made a TikTok video of her discovery which duly went viral. She’s seen playing part of Bach’s G Minor Fugue (BWV 543.)

In a week, Henry was transformed from a collection of dusty parts in a garage to a media star in his own right.

Finally, the gates were opened and access to Henry was opened up.

Ever since, Henry has supplied us with few problems and much delight as we watched an astonishing array of passers-by take to his keyboards and play everything from Chopsticks to Bach in a delightful confusion of styles and every level of achievement.

Henry even got a mention in the media in the Netherlands.

Recently, Henry has been filmed by ITV, two BBC shows, appeared in dozens of YouTube, Instagram and TikTok videos and been used for recordings (notably by the Royal College of Organists).

Phase 2: The Christmas Broadcast of “Organ Stops”

On Christmas Eve 2022, BBC broadcast a slightly shortened version of James Dawson’s acclaimed 2021 film which (over many months) followed Martin Renshaw’s efforts to re-home a series of unwanted Nelson organs from closed churches in County Durham. Some successful (to Clapton, East London, and France) and others, sadly not. We alerted supporters via an email.

The broadcast had some 400,000 viewers live, and many more afterwards on i-player.

We expected a surge of interest, and were prepared for this. Hundreds of people registered for news of Pipe Up.

What was a surprise, however, was the number of notifications of unwanted organs that it generated. These came in thick and fast via our website, sometimes 3 or 4 in a week.

There’s another news item analysing these a more detail, but suffice to say, they were from almost all parts of the country, involving all sizes of organs. After some sifting and prioritising, we now have a list of 33 organs ranging from simple disuse through neglect, to imminent danger – just like those featured in “Organ Stops.”

It has been a humbling and time-consuming experience, corresponding with all the churchwardens, trustees, and congregation members all of them trying to find solutions to the problems. Some now seem safe, but others – notably five more Nelson organs in County Durham – are threatened, just as those featured in the film.

Phase 3: James, and gearing up for Salvage Operations: and now, membership and crowdfunding

In April 2023, Martin struck again: we helped install a rescued 1880 James Trustam organ from Bedfordshire in the Whitgift Shopping Centre, Croydon, this time, sponsored by the London Mozart Players.

But for much of the spring and summer, our priority has been to find storage facilities for the organs identified as those most imminent risk of destruction.

Despite a number of offers of help, this has proved a serious challenge. We’ve investigated dozens of buildings as potential “organ refuges”, including a number of redundant hospital chapels.

We have an offer of a railway arch rent-free for a year (again, thanks to Network Rail), a redundant church in the Midlands, and an archive building in Lincolnshire, all of which we following up vigorously.

It’s a race against time. The imminently-threatened organs are the ones in closed-down churches – many of them Methodist churches.

In parallel, we’re launching our membership scheme, and a crowdfunding appeal, so as to enable these rescues to take place. Please help us by becoming a member or making a donation.