The organ was originally built by Samuel Renn in 1835. It had two keyboards with one pedal stop, and stood in the west gallery.

Renn was a local organ builder (after serving his apprenticeship in London). He had premises in Stockport and Manchester where he designed a factory system for producing church organs, so they were built in the factory to a standard specification and then installed in the church.

When the church was reordered c.1896, the organ was rebuilt and enlarged by Alexander Young - a leading Manchester organ builder of the day. A third keyboard was added. The organ was moved to the east end of the northern gallery and Renn’s case was enlarged with side-wings to accommodate the extra pipework. It appears that Young replaced all of Renn’s pipework - only his case remains.

In 1956-1957 the organ was rebuilt by Wilkinson. & Sons of Kendal. At this time the action was electrified with a detached console. There were some minor tonal alterations to the stop list, but it remained essentially a ‘Young organ’.

In the 1960s Rushworth & Dreaper (Liverpool) took over Wilkinsons, and looked after the organ until around 2000. We don’t think they did any substantial work on the instrument.

By 2000, the forty-year-old electrics were becoming unreliable. Henry Grove from Nottingham quoted to renew all the electrics, for minor tonal operations - an 8ft Dulciana was converted into a Fifteenth - and cleaning. The console was rotated to allow the organist to see into the church.

2015 - Clive Sidney (Dereham) - replaced the departmental pistons and supplied six general pistons with a setter and general cancel.

There are 99 channels.

Now, in 2024, the organ is in need of repair or replacing. Lots of pipes are ‘off speech’ particularly in the pedal division, stop mechanisms are tired, leatherwork is perishing, some large broken pipes are leaning and resting on others, and there is a serious intermittent issue with regulating the wind. This wind regulation virtually renders the organ unusable when it occurs. Significant parts of the organ are inaccessible for routine maintenance.

Our present organ builder, Brian Jones, does a sterling job, but in the not-too-distant future, decisions about the organ’s future will have to be taken.

A report from an organ builder of national repute estimated that we would need to raise £250,000, and said if we had that sort of money, not to waste it on that organ!

Meanwhile, thanks to Brian, we stagger on!