More than just a good clean.
The highly celebrated J.W.Walker & Sons Ltd built the Davington organ around 1848 and it was installed in 1849. It was ordered by Thomas Willement*, who had carried out some decorative pipe commissions for Walker’s, and was built specifically for this church. Its 19 pipes have 7 patterns on them, designed by Willement himself, and highly regarded (see Nicolas M Plumley “A history of J.W.Walker & Sons Ltd Organ builders”)
The organ is registered No. K00925 in the National Pipe Organ Register and was been given a Grade 2* certificate by the British Institute of Organ studies, “as being an instrument of importance to the national heritage and deserving careful preservation for the benefit of future generations.”
Inside the organ, the metal pipework has an unusually high tin content and it still has its original pipework in its entirety, creating a “great beauty of tone”. Copperplate script was used for the engraving of stop names onto the ivories, let into the stop knobs.
At some point, may be in the 1890s, the organ was enlarged with the addition of a Lieblich Flute 8ft to this very English Walker organ. The additional pipes may well have been second-hand. The work has been done well, but the location of the extra pipes hampers tuning. It has been suggested that removing the pipes will result in the organ being more authentic to its original state.
In the 1960s an electric Discus blower was added. This involved a significant amount of work and was probably the last time the organ was cleaned, and though the lime keyboard was treated for severe woodworm and some keys made new in 2001, it is probably 60 years since any significant cleaning work has been undertaken.
Back then, the regular tuning was carried out by Martin Cross, and, following him, Richard Sheppard has taken over; the comments in the organ notebook following each of the tunings have been getting more and more desperate about the state of the instrument. It is now very, very dirty and problems are developing due to rusted steel components.
As cleaning requires the dismantling of the organ, we are aiming to take the opportunity to complete a historical restoration, including removing the later pipes and possibly re-siting the side panels of the casing to their original position, for not much extra money.
The snag is that the total cost would then be above £50,000!
The congregation are proud of their organ and are committed to maintaining it. An aspiration is for it to be more widely available to the community; the church has an excellent acoustic and has been popular with choirs and soloists for some time.
To date, through various fund-raising efforts, the congregation have raised more than £7,500 and will be seeking grants to help cover the full cost.
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* Willement was attracted to Faversham, (who isn’t), while working at St Mary of Charity. He purchased Davington Priory, then in a very sorry state, in 1845 as his home and workshop.
He had been appointed heraldic artist to George IV and later artist in stained glass to Queen Victoria. Among the many projects that he worked on were four heraldic windows for the choir clerestory of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, work which later extended to the choir aisles, the Beaufort and Lincoln chapels, and the chapter room.
Of course he also designed the splendid East window in Davington church and the more restrained but equally delightful Clerestory windows as well as some in the North Aisle.