Abraham Jordan Organ
St George’s is home to a very special and unique church organ: the best surviving example of an 18th century Abraham Jordan organ in the world.
The organ was built in 1723 and originally housed at St George Botolph, a church in the City of London designed by Sir Christopher Wren. When this church was demolished in 1901 the organ was moved to the newly built St George’s in Southall.
If you want to see or play it yourself, either come on a Sunday morning or contact us to arrange a visit.
You can listen to a piece played on our organ by Tom Bell. It was written in the 18th century by John Stanley and it's called 'Trumpet Tune'.
You can also listen to a fun piece composed by Bernie Gardner with local school children combining Asian style music with the organ. It's called 'See-Yo!'
The Story of our Organ
To read the whole story you can download our booklet for free.
But in summ
ary: following a lot of hard work we made a successful application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for money to restore the organ to its original condition which was undertaken by Mander Organs in 2009. You can read Mander Organs' Restoration Report with photos of the organ before, during and after restoration, plus technical drawings of the organ.
To make sure the organ becomes an asset for our local community we have run an education project with local schools about the science, history and music of the organ.
To see our presentation of the history of the organ 'Through the eyes of our organ' click here.
To see a presentation of archive material about the organ click here.
To see pictures of the organ in the workshop during the restoration click here.
Poetry
We held a competition for poetry about the organ. Read all the entries.
School Resources
A teachers' pack of lesson plans and resources is available to download:
Introduction and Contents of Teachers' Pack
Organ Introduction Workshop (Music & R.E.)
Write an Account of Visiting the Organ (Literacy)
City of Sound (Art)
Preparation for Organ Performance (Music)
Pitch I (Science)
Pitch II (Science)
Repeating Images (ICT)
Sound Matters (Science)
Through the Eyes of the Organ (History & Drama)
Using Moving Air (Science)
Timeline Activities (History)
Timeline Starter (History)
Timeline Spreadsheet (History)
Activity Sheets