I became interested in the village of Furness Vale as a young man of twenty two, or so years, first in a girl in a church and also in an organ in that church. As a youth I attended a chapel in a village called Brookbottom which housed an organ which was of reed sound rather than pipe. I have always loved the sound of the organ, especially the cathedral organ.
You will imagine then my feelings as I crossed the threshold of F. V. M. C. for the first time to wait for the girl who was to become my wife and who was a member of the choir there. I remember sitting on the chapel stairs at that time and listening to the sounds being produced. I recognised then that the sound produced was extra ordinary and came from an instrument the quality of which was well above average.
A good many of these average organs had been supplied by a trust instituted by a man named Andrew Carnegie who incidentally made his fortune in America and spent it in suppling organs and via the aforementioned trust to provide this organ was not of the Carnegie kind.
Until the turn of the century most organ builders used mechanical means to implement the transfer of movement from keyboard to the base of the pipe (tracker action), and the organ at Furness Vale was the first to use wind pressure to achieve this end. This organ would be built I think about 1913 and caused a good deal of alterations inside the chapel. I have seen an old photograph of the interior there and it shows the chapel had a ceiling with the older organ in place below it. As can be seen now the roof has been covered with pine boarding to accommodate the new instrument it being a bigger and more powerful one.
A study of the layout and arrangement of pipes inside the organ gives rise to the belief that here is an instrument of some size which has been re-designed to fit into a smaller space and so compact as a result as to afford some difficulty in moving around when tuning or repairing.
Added to this is the fact that a number of speaking pipes are to be found on the external front of the instrument, these pipes being possibly 1 feet length, and part of a diapason rank (or stop). It would I think be impossible or very unlikely for this to be carried out b tracker action and is a tribute to the person or persons who built this organ. Any person I think looking to tr and locate a "cypher" here would be unaware of this re-arrangement of pipes have some difficulty in finding the fault, because most internal pipe work on the average church organ is purely ornamental, or dummy, and one does not expect to find speaking pipes on the outside of the organ framework.
Whilst thinking about it one is struck by the beauty of the organ here which though not ornate is good to look upon, its pine woodwork is naturally colourful and has kept well over the years, the matching panels with which it is faced around need study to be appreciated, its external piping as well as metallic piping in the ranks which make up the "Great Organ" and swell "organ" are of best Belgian zinc. Its stops are beautifully sweet and powerful, being both loud and soft giving scope for choice and mixture to the player. The bass or pedal stops are of a fullness which give support to the tonal effect. The bourdon or heavier stop has a lighter bassoon sounding companion a favourite of at least one resident organist.
Well coupled together the full organ can produce a volume of sound which can be somewhat disconcerting to a pulpit occupant though not discordant.
Members of the congregation who are not organ lovers usually disappear down the stair to continue conversation else where. When first built long before the advent of electric blows the organ was hand blown an appointment with an annual payment of £1 but round about 1950 an electric blower was installed by the trust at the time and I think is still doing its noiseless job.
During the same period it was decided to have the organ cleaned and rebuilt. I remember seeing hundreds of pipes on the chapel floor near the singing gallery as it was then called. Remarkably the person who first built the instrument carried out the cleaning process, a gentleman from Wakefield in Yorkshire, an employee of J.J.Binns organ builders of Bramley, Leeds he was well suited to the task having been its tuner ever the intervening period and knowing the location of every small piece of equipment. Its complimentary to him that now it performs equally well as ever, and requires little attention. Looking at a copy of the opening ceremony, I saw the organist engaged for the occasion was resident organist at Nottingham Town Hall, Mr. Bernard Johnston, and since then a group of music lovers have continued to play thereon. Although I am not sure of the sequence of these changes, the organist at the beginning of my sojourn was Bernard Pearson, a member of the church and trust and James Pasquill Jun was his deputy. The Pasquill family and the Gough family were both very closely attached to the musical side of the church life and shared the musical provision. This arrangement came to an end sometime in the sixties with the moving away from the district of the aforementioned persons, the church then was without resident organist for a while and was dependant upon volunteers who provided an acceptable service at the time. However as it happened there followed a time when the position of organist was filled b the two main players both of whom were members of the Anglican Church and brought with them something from the realm of that church's music. I do not forget the look of these two men as the came up the stairs into the chapel and set eyes on the organ which dominates an otherwise very plain interior. (Methodist chapels are not ornate in themselves, as a people Methodists especially those amongst the hierarchy are given to functionalism rather than decor) they were obviously delighted to be presented with an opportunity to exercise their talents to the full, which the proceeded to do and in so doing delighted themselves but few others. It should be remembered though that when this instrument was thought of congregations were bigger and here a special case existed. After the First World War a "News Fellowship" was formed at F. V. and filled the Chapel regularly at afternoon services an attendance of perhaps two hundred and fifty people would thoroughly justify an organ of this size if only hand blown! A further expansion of surprise came from the lips of Sir John Pritchard who did not expect to find something of this size and quality in a village hall. The occasion was a concert organised by Whaley Bridge Music Lovers Society under the auspices of Derbyshire Music Society and the Arts Council of Great Britain an outstanding occasion for Furness Vale possibly. Musical occasions have occurred here from time to time and this organ has justified its purchase and upkeep both then and on regular occasions each year as witness the Sunday School Anniversary services always a feature in country districts in the past, and Annual Hymn Singing events like the Old Sing as it was called. The tuning of this organ takes place twice a year and it has been an occasion for complaint by tuners that the main use to which this organ has been put is the playing of hymn tunes which only use a couple or so octaves on the keyboard and the great majority of pipes are never in use. I wonder sometimes what will happen in the future to this and similar producers of a kind of sound unlikely to be produced otherwise. I realise of course that Cathedral organ sound can be simulated in a way acceptable to untrained ears and that building an organ of the kind at F.V. would be cost prohibitive in most cases, but time goes on and I have often thought that this issue was not a new one when installed here conjecture? Yes but surveying the interior that it was designed to fit a larger area, and it may yet be used more. Finally if you want to hear the tonal quality to good advantage sit in the top vestry with the door at the top of the stair open.
William Bramwell Beard.
note: William Beard was Methodist Local Preacher and Choir Master. He married Ellen Rowley of Furness Vale and had two daughters, Anne and Marie. Marie had a wonderful contralto soloist voice. William Beard died in 1989 of motor neurone disease.
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