NEWS RELEASE

30 March 2010

Wimbledon’s Sacred Heart Church wins Heritage Lottery Fund grant to restore historic organ

Wimbledon's Sacred Heart Church has won a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant of £237,000, towards the £360,000 needed to restore its historic and rare Edwardian organ.

This April, thanks to the HLF grant, the firm of Mander Organs will dismantle the organ, and take it to their workshops in Hackney, where craftsmen will faithfully restore its cracked bellows and countless leather motors, before reinstating it within the Sacred Heart in time for Easter 2011.

Parish Priest, Fr. Keith McMillan, of the Society of Jesus, said:

“Thanks to this generous grant from the HLF we are now able to press ahead with restoration. The Parish itself has already raised over £70,000 through its concerts, organ recitals, and generous donations - and we will continue to seek funding to cover the balance.

Over the next year we will be running an education programme which will include an exhibition, visits to the factory, and a video of the repair process, undertaken by students of media and music technology. We are glad that so many of our school-children and students will have the chance to learn about and see the restoration in action, and come to appreciate the amazing variety of sounds our organ can produce.

The organ's centenary will coincide with the London Olympics in 2012, and will be marked with a special series of concerts and other musical events.”

This magnificent organ was built on a Cathedral scale by the firm of J W Walker & Sons, in 1912. It is a rare surviving example of an organ of tubular-pneumatic action - every part of the mechanism is driven by compressed air, which passes through miles of metal piping - while other organs of the Edwardian period have been irrevocably altered through the substitution of modern electric actions.

ENDS

For further information contact:

Bob Rathbone (contact form)
Director of Music
Church of the Sacred Heart
Edge Hill
Wimbledon
London
SW19 4LU
[Sorry, number no longer available]