General Description of the Organ
The organ in Newcastle City Hall was built in 1928/29 by Harrison & Harrison of Durham, to a design typical of the firm, drawn up in consultation with the City Council’s Advisory Committee. The case was designed by the Hall’s architects. It has a central section inspired by 18th century classical English cases, flanked by pavilions with a wooden lattice instead. The front pipes are gilded.
This organ may well be the last and largest example of the superlative tubular-pneumatic action for which
H & H was famed, and one of the last organs in which their unparalleled top-quality high wind pressure voicing is to be found before the winds of change blew through the organ world after the Second World War. It is also a rare example of an H & H concert hall organ. Its smaller sister, with 52 stops, was built for the Caird Hall in Dundee in 1923 and restored in 1992. New concert hall organs being built between the wars were rare things – most had been built during the great boom in town hall building in the 1860s-1890s.
This organ is also highly unusual in that it is unaltered. Almost all other important Harrison organs have been added to, tonally revised, or had their tubular-pneumatic action replaced by electro-pneumatic. This one stands as originally built, deterioration apart of course. It is in fact an icon of its era, and in recognition of its merits the British Institute of Organ Studies awarded it a Grade 1 Historic Organ Certificate in 2003.
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