Interior
The interior of the organ of St Peter’s Church
The organ of St Peter’s Church is situated in an organ chamber to the north of the chancel, and speaks into the church through two arches: a low arch into the north aisle (through the “Snetzler” case) and a higher arch into the chancel. In common with many English churches, a great roar inside the organ chamber only produces sound of moderate volume in the church itself. The organ is raised to first-floor level, the ground floor beneath the organ contains the church kitchen and a corridor through to the St James’ Room which acts as the choir vestry. When the choir leave the vestry they process under the organ and out beneath the “Snetzler” case into the north aisle.
The Swell box sits in the middle of the chamber facing west, towards the north aisle arch. To the west is the Great organ, directly under the north aisle arch. To the east is the Choir organ. The Pedal flues are situated along the north of the chamber. The result of this layout is that the Great speaks almost exclusively into the north aisle, the Choir speaks almost exclusively into the chancel, and the Swell speaks equally into both, while the Pedal flues are rather distant.
The Great organ
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 The Swell box is on the right with its shutters (in the upper half of the picture) closed. It can be seen that the arch significantly obstructs the passage of sound into the north aisle. The chancel arch is directly behind the camera, so the Swell does not speak directly into the chancel either. The two rows of Great/Pedal reed pipes can be seen, flanking the rest of the Great. Behind the Swell box can be seen some Pedal flue pipes, those on the left are painted dark red. |
 These are the upper octaves of the Great/Pedal reed, to the south side of the Great. |
 This is the bottom octave of the Pedal reed, the 16′ pipes are folded in order to fit in the chamber. More of the red-painted Pedal flues can be seen in the background. |
The Swell organ
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 Here are some of the ranks inside the Swell box. |
The Choir organ
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 This is the main part of the Choir organ. As can be seen, the original Choir organ was enclosed in one of Fenton Wragg’s red swell boxes. The box was dismantled (apart from two walls) in the Henry Willis rebuild of 1964, when the Viola, Piccolo and Sext were added. The longest pipes of the 8′ Keraulophon stop are bent over to fit inside the old swell box. Another Pedal flue pipe can be seen in the background on the left. |
This picture is taken from in front of the Swell box shutters, looking west. The floor of the Great organ is a foot or so lower than the main part of the chamber. The pipes of the “Snetzler” case are dummies, but the picture shows the speaking pipes of the Large Open Diapason which line the three sides of the case. The Great mixture sits just behind the case (on the left) and the other ranks of pipes run back under the arch. The Great/Pedal reed rank flanks the other ranks on each side, the lowest octave on the right and the rest of the rank on the left.
The Swell box, with its shutters open. It is painted red, a trademark of the firm of Fenton Wragg who undertook the blending of the two sets of pipework during the rebuild of 1952.
This picture is taken looking east. The arch into the chancel is to the right and the side of the Swell box to the left, behind the lowest octave of the Choir Viola. The second octave of Viola pipes can be seen in the background, and to the left of them is the main part of the Choir organ.Organists
Now read about the organists of St Peter’s Church.