The organ was constructed by JJ Binns in 1926 in a purpose built organ chamber situated in a gallery on the North side of the chancel (click on picture to view the organ case).It replaced a 2 manual Willis located in the North transept which was not powerful enough to accompany the massive congregations of nearly 1000. The vicar at the time was a cause of some hilarity in the national press for his statement 'at last we have an organ equal to the size of the church'. There was a cartoon in Punch magazine illustrating his statement!  It was comprehensively restored by Roger Taylor in 1995 and the action was replaced by electro pneumatic action. Great pains were taken to preserve the integrity of the instrument and no tonal alterations were made. The original console with its ivory keys and stops was carefully restored. As the original instrument lacked a mixture, a new one was added by moving the Great bourdon pipes with the rest of the Pedal bourdon from where it borrowed the lower registers. The mixture pipes came from the redundant Binns organ in All Saints, City.The changes to the 1926 specification in early 1970 were the 2 foot Block Flute on the Choir which replaced a Vox Humana and the rather inappropiate remodelled swell mixture. The original specification was to a scheme drawn up by Herbert Walton, organist of Glasgow Cathedral, who also gave the opening recital The new Great mixture is designed to work with large congregations and used mainly with full organ. During December there are services with attendances of up to 500 people and a lot of power is needed! The Swell mixture which was altered in early in 1970,was very shrill and totally out of keeping with the original tonal scheme. It was made up as follows:- C to ten F sharp 15 19 22 G to treble F sharp 12 15 19 22 G onwards 12 15 19

The mixture has now been recast by Roger Taylor as follows and is much more in keeping with Biins’s originalscheme:-

C to ten F sharp 15 19 22 G to treble F sharp 12 15 19 G onwards 8 12 15

SPECIFICATION