New Victoria Centre

In early March we were informed that the Trinity Methodist Chapel in High Street, Howden-le-Wear was to be offered for sale, and the building was inspected to decide if it was feasible to install the Wurlitzer there.  By the end of the month, it was decided that the organ would go in, and that the building had great potential, but numerous obstacles would have to be overcome if such a project could be undertaken.  After considering planning requirements, fire regulations, rates, insurance, energy costs, provision of a power supply for the blower, etc., etc., etc., the committee felt that the size and scope of such a project made it a little too much to take on.

On 2nd April, a party set off from Durham, in the rain, to look at the new Civic Theatre at Consett.  We arrived at the former Empire Theatre to find six inches of snow on the ground, and a blizzard raging - we managed, however, to fight our way into the building to meet Council officials.  Preliminary plans were produced, but in the end there was not adequate space for the organ without encroaching on areas required for other purposes.  Back at Howden-le-Wear an approach was being made to the Wear Valley District Council for a grant towards the purchase/running costs of the chapel, and a planning application for the change of use of the building was also submitted.  The Council decided in July to offer £3,000 (at a favourable rate of interest) to assist with the purchase of the chapel.  The Association's committee thought long and hard about the situation, and decided in principle that purchasing the chapel was the best option, and that we should proceed as soon as we were able.

The overalls came out of mothballs on Saturday, 11th March 1977, and at last after a year of uncertainty and hard work behind-the-scenes, we had become the first group in Europe to acquire their own premises specifically for the installation of a theatre pipe organ.  In embarking on the project, we had considered it to be primarily for the preservation of our Wurlitzer theatre organ, which is, after all, a little piece of the cultural and musical heritage of our Nation.  We thus did some soul-searching before deciding to carry out certain modifications to the specification of the organ.  Now came the detailed planning of how to fit a Wurlitzer organ into a former Methodist Chapel, and how to adapt the rest of the building for our needs.  The building was measured up and drawings of the proposed chambers produced.  It was broadly decided to have two levels, with the pipework at ground level and the percussions above.  Then began the difficult task of working out how to fit each individual piece of the organ into the available chamber space in a way that would produce correct musical results as well as permitting reasonable access for tuning and maintenance.  We decided to install the organ on a lift and the sitting of this had to be carefully worked out.  It had long been our contention that the way in which an organ show was presented rated a very close second to the musical quality of both the performance and the instrument.  Our thoughts now turned in this direction.  Curtains were to be installed inside a proscenium arch to lend a theatrical air to the building, and a control / projection box was to be built in the balcony to allow the showing of films (silent and sound) and slides, and control spotlighting, etc.

For the next few months we mixed and mixed and mixed concrete and more concrete.  First it was the foundations for the organ chamber wall, then (having first dug a large hole) the base and sides of the pit for the organ console lift, now the floor for the organ chamber, and a new floor for the vestry, not forgetting, of course, the boiler house and blower room floors.  By September concreting was finished, then the mixer was providing mortar for the building of the organ chamber front walls which were well under way.  Three large steel joists were brought to span the swell shutter openings and provide support for the floor of the upper chamber.  Whilst one team was busily fitting the upper floor boards and the ceiling below, another was starting with the re-wiring of the building - all the lighting circuits were replaced, a ring-main installed for power sockets throughout the building, and lights installed in the organ chambers as construction progressed.  We removed the pews from the chapel and replaced these with tip-up cinema seats which we acquired from disused cinemas at Esh Winning and Spennymoor, Co. Durham. 

As 1978 dawned the organ chambers were being plastered, the console lift was now built up, and, following an inspection by the Fire Prevention Officer, we put in a 5ft wide emergency exit door - this entailed cutting through the 2' 6" thick side wall of the chapel.  On Saturday, 1st April 1978, the first wagon load of organ parts arrived at Howden-le-Wear.  In next to no time the entire floor of the building was full.  Quite soon the swell shutters were being fitted, and by the end of the summer the front of the upper chamber was erected, the chamber heating system finished, and the painting of the chambers well advanced.  November saw the arrival of the Electricity Board to connect our new three-phase supply - a cable was brought all the way from the sub-station, about 200 yards away.  The newly restored ex-cinema lights were fitted, then the exit signs and emergency lighting system were put in.  By the following April the lift was wired up and running, the downstairs floor relaid in places, the rake of the balcony altered to give improved sightlines, the projection box was under construction and the front platform and surround for the console lift fitted.

Following a preliminary meeting with officers from the local Planning Department, an application was submitted in May 1980 for the addition of a refreshment area and toilet facilities on the land we owned to the side of the chapel.  Planning and Building Regulations approval was granted in August.  All hands turned toward the new extension with debris cleared from the site, then it was marked out and the foundations for the extension dug.  Concrete floors for the toilets, kitchen, lobby and outside area were required and there were walls to be built for the toilets and entrance lobby.

A quick calculation by the Treasurer showed that we had, to date, raised (and spent) around £10,000 - food for thought!  Now we found problems with dampness affecting the lower part of the organ chamber walls.  This brought unwelcome delays as time and effort were diverted into effecting a cure: some plaster had to be removed before fitting the Newtonite sealing lath to the affected areas and then re-plastering took place.

In readiness for the re-building of the organ console, some parts were sent away for re-plating, and a start was made with cleaning down the first parts of the organ which would be installed in due course.  By summer 1981 we had completed the insulation and internal walls of the extension, plastering of the toilets was well under way, skirting boards and doors were then fitted, lights and power points, too, and the tiling of the toilet floors was started.  A platform was now made to accommodate the grand piano to the right of the organ console.

Whilst the expanded metal mesh which was to form the grille in front of the percussion chamber was hoisted into place, the base boards of the Solo organ chamber building frame were going down, the main wind trunk from the blower was started, the Vox Humana pipe chest was overhauled and fitted on the wall and the wind regulators for the Solo chamber were being overhauled and repaired as necessary.  By the end of 1982 the overhauling of the large 5-unit Solo pipe chest was started, the Solo regulators and Tibia bass off-set chests installed and the relays fixed in place with the cables layed out to the chambers.  The console was now completely dismantled with all keys, pedals, stop tabs and the actions being removed.

As another year dawned the numerous small pneumatic motors which form the stop combination action were being re-leathered, and stripping of the paint from the console started.  Essential repairs were now needed to the roof of the chapel, and a contractor came in to do this work.  The heating system extension for the toilets and tea room were finished and working, and the plumbing work completed.  May saw the 5-rank Solo chest complete and installed, and the task of re-shaping the numerous smaller wind trunks under way in  that chamber.  As the base-boards were going down in the Main chamber, the console casework was repaired and primed, and Arthur Ridler moved into the relay room with a soldering iron and seventeen miles of fine wire to start the mammoth task of altering and adding to the relays.

After taking time off in October to give a presentation to members of the Cinema Organ Society in London about the project, it was full steam ahead again.  The 5-rank chest from the Main chamber was now overhauled and in place, followed soon by the remaining off-set chests.  In 1984 Eric Armitage took up the task of completing the wind trunking for the Main and Percussion chambers whilst all of the remaining wiring was soldered into place.  Walkways were constructed above the myriad of trunks and cables criss-crossing the organ chambers.  The Weber piano was sent away for a complete restoration, new gutters fitted to the main hall, the action current wiring fitted throughout the organ and the transformer-rectifier unit set up to supply the low voltage action current which controls the operation of the whole organ.  As the organ's three keyboards were rebuilt after having the keys cleaned and polished, we started to bring the main bulk of the pipework out of storage.  New actions were fitted for the extra stops in the relay room, and after polishing all of the stop tabs and preparing new ones for fitting, the stop sweeps were taking shape once again.  All of the stop contacts were renewed and new wiring harnesses made up to connect these to the test board at the rear of the console.

On 22nd September 1984, co-incidentally fifty-four years to the day after the opening of the organ in Bradford, the last wind trunk was screwed into place, the blower run up, and wind was put onto the organ for the first time at Howden-le-Wear.  By February 1985 the piano was returned and we were now experimenting with the connection of the tremulants - a process which continued, on and off, for nine months in conjunction with the adjustment of the wind regulators, until we were pleased with the effect produced.  As the console became operational, the testing of the stop and key actions and the wiring began.  June saw all of the pipework in place, and now Paul Reamsbottom got to work giving the organ a first tuning.  The moment of truth came, and the verdict? - it sounded very promising!  Now it was a matter of playing the organ, adjusting and regulating, and finding numerous small faults - a dead magnet here, a broken wire there, a primary valve to adjust somewhere else; until gradually the feel and sound of the instrument came closer and closer to what we wanted to achieve.

Thanks to the support of the Trustees, many local organists (who gave their services free of charge to play at fund raising concerts and musical garden parties) and a dedicated team of volunteers it all came together in the end. Sadly, two members of the team passed away before the project was completed. Joe Marsh Snr, a professional organ builder and great perfectionist, did much to set the project along the right lines and Bill Peel, our ever willing and cheerful member, who worked under the most difficult of conditions on the heating system and organ wind trunking. Their contributions are gratefully acknowledged and will always be greatly appreciated.

The New Victoria Centre Wurlitzer was formally opened with three "Sold Out" concerts on 2nd, 15th and 16th March, 1986. Our President, Nigel Ogden, played the second half at all three concerts, with the first halves being played by Joe Marsh (Sunday, 2nd), Robbie Ions and Norman Green (Saturday, 15th) and Bill Thomas and Alan Dorward (Sunday, 16th). Organists and audience alike were thrilled with the Wurlitzer and we immediately embarked upon a concert season of regular monthly concerts. Such was the favourable response that the BBC recorded two special feature programmes by Joe Marsh and David Lowe for broadcasting on the weekly BBC Radio 2 show "The Organist Entertains" and recordings were issued by a number of well known organists. The first was issued on our own label and was recorded by one of Australia’s finest players, Neil Jensen.

The NETOA has always been recognised as a forward thinking Association, looking for new ways to promote the use of its facilities and to improve and develop what is has at its disposal. So it was with the Wurlitzer which continued to develop after it was opened in 1986. It had long been the wish of the Committee to restore back to the specification the two ranks of pipes that were removed back in the 40’s. The Vox Humana had already been added before the opening concerts and the opportunity came in 1992 to restore the Kinura rank when the ex Plaza Theatre, Piccadilly Wurlitzer was starting to be broken up for parts. We were successful in purchasing the Kinura pipework from that organ, together with a two rank Wurlitzer chest from the New Victoria, Edinburgh organ. This chest was used to house both the Kinura rank and the Vox Humana rank neatly up on the side wall of the Solo chamber. As we now had a 12 rank organ, the Wurlitzer had now changed from a Style 220 Special (as originally installed in Bradford) to a hybrid Style 240 Special. To make this style complete, we therefore purchased from the USA a Deagan Marimba Harp and installed it in the Percussion chamber.

Between 1986 and 2003 the Wurlitzer was in constant use. As well as the regular monthly concert series, the organ was in big demand for private practice sessions and special hires from the likes of Women's Institutes, mystery tours, theatre organ safaris, etc. There is no doubt that the instrument was in use far more than it ever was in its original home – AND, bear in mind, it had not had any serious refurbishment since it was built in 1930. It was given a good cleaning when it was installed at the New Victoria Centre but, apart from that, it was still operating on its original leathers, felts etc.

By 2003, there were very noticeable signs that time was beginning to take its toll on the Wurlitzer. Leather covered motors were starting to fail more regularly, felts were now badly worn or flattened beyond repair and leather gaskets were no longer providing air tight seals all of which resulted in more and more missing notes, unreliable response from the chests and relays and numerous wind leaks. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there were now a number of wiring faults in the main cable connecting the console to the relays and all of the original spare wires had already been used up to correct previous faults. During 2003 more and more time was being spent chasing and rectifying those faults that could be repaired but, by mid 2003, we began to have doubts about how much longer we could carry on facing these problems. All in all, serious decisions had to be taken about the state that the organ was now in. The listening public were totally unaware of the problems that the technical team were faced with trying to keep up with the fault finding and the visiting organists themselves were starting to feel uncomfortable about the shortcomings of the instrument.

After much deliberation a full assessment was made during September and October 2003 of the work that would be necessary to restore the Wurlitzer back to full playing condition, what other upgrades and improvements could be made in order to place the NETOA Wurlitzer back at the top of the list of the finest of its size in the world and an indication of the costs involved.

Initial estimates of the costs for this major project of between £130,000 and £150,000 were greeted by the committee with chins simultaneously hitting the table all at once! While it was clear that the Association could not possibly fund such a project itself, it was fully recognised that this work was now badly needed if the Wurlitzer was ever going to return to full playing condition and satisfy our own needs and aspirations together with those of visiting organists. The trustees had already indicated their total support for the project, so the committee decided unanimously to "bite the bullet" to see if they could make it all happen.

We began the search for pipework, chests, regulators and tremulants and had some initial luck when, in November, 2003, a Brass Trumpet, complete with chest, came to our attention along with a mint condition Concert Flute. Our original Bradford Concert Flute had been badly damaged during attempts to make it louder back in its cinema days. As the damage was irreversible we grabbed this opportunity to replace it with an original mint rank. Enquiries abroad for other pipework and parts were unsuccessful initially, but Lady Luck shone on us again in November, 2003 when the residence Wurlitzer of Les Rawle in Northolt was being removed and split up. We successfully acquired all of the additional chests, regulators and tremulants we needed along with particularly fine examples of original Wurlitzer pipework, English Horn and Brass Saxophone, the 16 ft bottom octave of a Tibia Clausa and a full 85 note Tibia Clausa which would act as our second Tibia and be placed in the Main Chamber.

With the large costs involved, the Committee agreed that outside funding would be required and initial ideas were thrown around until we decided to go for a combination of National Lottery and private sector funding. Following the installation of new sound and video equipment in February, 2003, we met a representative of the Heritage Lottery Fund at a promotional event and gave her an outline of what we were about to undertake. She advised the grants available and sent us an application pack in December, 2003. Our Secretary, John Robinson, began writing and telephoning numerous private funds and grant bodies to seek additional help and started to complete the application package for our Lottery funding. After much fine tuning (pardon the pun!) the committee approved the final application, which had been given the title "TURNING PIPE DREAMS INTO DREAM PIPES" and met with the representative of the Heritage Lottery Fund on 24 June 2003 to go through the paperwork and give her a guided tour of the New Victoria Centre. Joe Marsh gave a short concert on the Wurlitzer, complete with full lighting effects and she was shown the worn out parts of the organ to help in the understanding of our project. After minor amendments, the final application was approved for submission on 21st July 2004 and on 8th October 2004 we received confirmation that, of the total estimated project cost of £133,000, we had been awarded a grant of £49,800. This great news was reported in all of the local papers and national organ press and we now had the green light to begin the detailed planning.

Following their successful involvement with rebuilding and refurbishing several other Wurlitzer consoles, it was agreed to entrust the work on our console to P&S Organ Supply in Brandon, Suffolk. Clear requirements were given to ensure the adherence to Wurlitzer layouts and other practices etc. so that, when finished, our newly refurbished console would look just as if the Wurlitzer factory had built it themselves the day before.

John Heslop supervised the stripping down of the console and, with the help of the trusty team, removed all internal wind chests (these were no longer needed for our new electric stop actions), original wiring, pneumatic stop sweeps and the other myriad of parts inside a Wurlitzer console. On 7th January, 2005 Andrew Dolby, Managing Director of P&S Organ Supply, came up to survey the console, agree the detailed work schedule and plan the removal of the console.

Releathering all of the hundreds of motors, valves, gaskets and pallets on every pipe chest in the organ is nothing short of a Herculean task – far too big for us to handle internally given the mountain of other work we had to undertake ourselves. It was agreed to entrust this mammoth job to Paul Corin in Liskeard, Cornwall as he was fully conversant with all Wurlitzer components and what was needed to refurbish them properly.

We totally gutted the console in time for Shaun and John from P&S to arrive on 19th January 2005. Armed with suitable jacks and a lot of experience of doing this sort of job before, they had the console off the lift, wrapped for protection and into the van in three hours. We were able to visit the workshops a couple of times to inspect progress although regular telephone contact was made to ensure that queries were answered quickly. At all times we were impressed by their attention to detail, well organised work practices and their friendly approach to discussions and requests for guidance etc. and a generally constructive manner at every stage of their work.

David and Suzanne Kirkbride moved into the chambers in January 2005 and disconnected all of the wiring from the chests and, once we had removed all of the wind trunks, the chests were free to be unscrewed from their floor frames, lifted from their dowels and were then ready for removal. With the now empty lift platform, we had a "floor" in front of the swell shutters, so one set was removed and, with "all hands on deck", the chests were removed from the chambers. Attention now moved to the relay room. Sadly, all attempts to find a good home for the relays failed so these were removed, cables cut and everything stripped for spares where appropriate and the "left-overs" scrapped. March, April and May 2005 saw much more preparatory work. Once the damaged plaster in the organ chambers had been repaired and all dust and debris removed, Les Lee and John Robinson moved in with their paint brushes and tins of paint to paint the ceilings, walls and floors throughout. John Heslop and Joe Marsh prepared the detailed forms needed by Uniflex to set up the computer software and more parts were ordered, accumulated and despatched to P&S Organ Supply for the console refurbishment.

June 2005 saw David and Suzanne start the mammoth job of rewiring the entire organ. No original cables were being reused so this was some exercise. All of the shutter machines were done first as, once the chests were put back in, we would not be able to reach them. The newly refurbished chests for the Solo Chamber plus a few miscellaneous chests came back on 20th June, 2005. July and August saw John Heslop preparing more electrical diagrams and other chamber layouts, Joe Marsh was releathering countless flanges, regulator seals, shellac varnishing wooden pipes and stripping and releathering all of the shutter motors.

On 10th October 2005 the newly refurbished console arrived back. Additional helpers were called in as, unlike when the console was leaving and there was plenty places to put hands for lifting, pushing, pulling and so on, this time the casework was newly sprayed and all of the ormolu had been gold leafed. Nearly all of the logical places we wanted to put our hands to lift, steer or pull were now gold leafed and, therefore, unable to be touched. The rest of October saw more framework, offset chests and trunking installed and on 31st October, 2005 the final batch of refurbished chests for the Main Chamber arrived back from Cornwall. We had originally planned to have these back over three months earlier, but it wasn’t to be so we had to carry on very much on the back foot to try and catch up – just another challenge to add to the list!

During November and December 2005 the 5 rank chest and one of the two 2 rank chests in the Solo chamber were wired up together with the offset chests for the Tibia Clausa and Harmonic Tuba and all of the magnets were tested and any dead magnets replaced. We had all earned a break over the Christmas and New Year but, come 3rd January 2006 Joe packed his pyjamas again and got back to fitting new felt and leather pads to regulator boxes, releathering gaskets, flanges and other seals. John Heslop and David Kirkbride began running cables into the console for the lift, blower and light controls together with the ribbon cable for the computer. By the end of January 2006 the Dulciana and Tibia II offset chests were in place, pipes cleaned and varnished as appropriate and installed on the chests.

In February 2006 we called the heavy squad back in again to help drop the Solo 5 rank chest onto its legs. As the blower was not yet coupled up, Joe dismantled the blowers from his home pipe organ and brought them to the New Victoria Centre so that he and Les could get wind onto the Solo Chests to test for ciphers, leaks and so on. There was much relief to find only seven ciphers on the 5 rank chest and one on the Kinura/Vox Humana chest. These were quickly dealt with and other valves adjusted for “ weeps “ ( this is a standard hazard when such rebuilding takes place ). Les drilled out the end caps to fit the new trunking layout while Joe stripped and renewed all of the felts on the pipe stays. Rick altered the top board and pipe rack of what had been a String chest to fit the Orchestral Oboe and then excitement began to rise as the Kinura/Vox chest was coupled up to the temporary wind supply and the pipes were put in place. The first pipe to speak since December, 2004 was bottom C of the Vox Humana – the road back to the sound of pipes had begun.

Finishing touches were made to the three new Solo wind regulators and the rackboards and pipe stays were fitted to the Solo 5 rank chest. More pipe cleaning and we had the Krumet, Harmonic Tuba, Tibia Clausa, English Horn and Brass Saxophone in place. On 1st March, 2006 the muscle men were recalled again to lift the Main chamber 5 rank chest through the shutter opening into the chamber. Now we really were motoring.

The rest of March 2006 was spent testing out the console, trunking up the Solo chests and wiring up the percussion chamber. David Wright joined the team for regular visits to help with the wiring up of common cables to the chamber and internal wiring in the relay panel. April, 2006 saw the Main chests wired up and the pipework cleaned and installed. We were then able to finish off the rest of the wind trunking and start final testing right through from console to pipes – at last we had something approaching "the final lap". Chasing the inevitable wind leaks and setting tremulants, tweaking the odd pipe that was reluctant to speak properly and general adjustments to the computer software all occupied April and May 2006 and we then looked forward to letting our members and the public see and hear the results of what had been eighteen months’ very hard work, £150,000 worth of costs and innumerable man hours of time put in by the small band of devotees.

The newly refurbished New Victoria Centre Wurlitzer was reopened at yet another three "Sold Out" concerts, the same as we had at the original opening back in 1986, on 2nd , 3rd and 4th June, 2006. The performing artists were Simon Gledhill, Richard Hills and Joe Marsh who all played at each concert. Gasps of delight were heard as the gleaming console rose from the darkened pit for the first time in a year and a half. All concerned with the project were justifiably proud of what had been achieved and all in attendance voiced their approval of the end result.

Lack of private sector funding prevented us from refurbishing the percussions before the reopening, but they all worked on the day and this work will be carried out at a date in the near future. We have given our Wurlitzer a new lease of life which would last for decades to come and we now looked forward to many more hours of wonderful theatre organ music, welcoming more visitors and groups to the New Victoria Centre and providing an instrument and venue right up with the best in the world for all to enjoy and be proud of.