St. Michael's Parish Church Broadway is fortunate to have an historic and interesting organ, dating from 1943, which is played at all major services and festivals, and many concerts. However, like all instruments, it requires upkeep and repair from time to time, and we have embarked upon a fund
raising project to carry out much needed repairs and renewals, hopefully in 2011.

Pipe organs such as this comprise three major components:

The Pipework is what you see when you look up to the organ, and is the quintessential view of any large instrument. The pipes are the sources of all the sounds, and range in size from sixteen feet to an an inch or so. There are thousands of pipes in St Michael's organ. Most of these are situated high up on the balcony at the west end of the church; but we are fortunate to have also a small "Chancel" or "Choir" organ, situated above the choir vestry facing onto the north side of the Chancel.

The Console is where the organ is played and this consists of a number of keyboards, or "manuals", each 61 notes in size, which activate appropriate sets of pipes, and a 30-note pedal board, which activates other, typically bass, sounds within the organ. At St. Michael we have three manuals; one for each of the so-called "Great" and "Swell" organs, and one for the Chancel organ. The console is also where the "stops" are situated - these control what sounds will be produced when a key is pressed. This is often the part of the organ that is of most interest to visitors. Again, at St. Michael's this is situated high on a balcony, together with the pipes, at the west end.

The pipe work and the console are connected together by the “Action” of the organ. As it name implies, this is the electric, mechanical and pneumatic valves, levers and switches that make it all work. The action should of course be very much neither seen nor heard - it enables the organist to control the
organ as he or she wishes. Unfortunately, when the action becomes old and less than robust, all sorts of strange things happen - sounds which should work when switched on don't; sounds which don't stop when they should; and leaks, whistles and other annoyances not under any control!

It is the action of the St. Michael' s organ that is in need of repair and replacement. It was last overhauled in 1947, with some enhancement in 1957 when the Chancel organ was added. At the time, it was an advanced action, using electrical parts as well as mechanical and pneumatic; but over the last
60 years, it has been worn down, replaced and worn down again, so that now it needs replacement by a modern electronic action which will give us many years of trouble-free service. Of course, because it is buried within the heart of the organ, to remove the existing action and replace it with a new one
requires a strip-down of much of the organ, so we would like to take this opportunity of making a few other improvements at the same time.

One of the most complimentary additions to church worship was the introduction of the church organ many centuries ago. The organ is the most complex of all the wind instruments made and offers a greater variety of sounds from drums to trumpets etc... The earliest organ ever found dates back to the 3rd century BC and was operated by water.

Although one can find a huge variety in both age and quality of organs still surviving in most churches today, at St. Michael and All Angels' Church, here in Broadway, we have an instrument that dates back almost 100 years. This was made by a company called Morgan & Smith. The instrument, originally a two manual organ with 21 stops, was the gift of Theodore Lloyd. In 1943, when Gilbert Mills became the church organist, the instrument was showing great signs of wear. The pneumatic action was very unreliable. In 1947 Mr Mills embarked on a scheme to rebuild the organ and again in 1957 a further modification was made with the addition of the Chancel organ. This smaller organ had been removed from a church damaged in the London  'blitz'.

Time is once again the enemy of this fine church Organ and the congregation of St. Michael's are now once again faced with raising a considerable sum of money to refurbish the ailing organ. Our skilled organ adviser has identified the most pressing need is to replace the electrical switching system that basically drives the instrument with a new micro-processor system of proven design.

This will cost around £32,000 with an option to renew the piston switching system at a further cost of £17,000. It is our hope to carry out the first stage of Restoration in early 2011 but to do this we have to raise the whole sum of money needed .