EOA Summer Social in Thaxted

Eight people travelled to the pretty market town of Thaxted in order to participate in the EOA Summer Social. We began at Thaxted Parish Church (dedicated to St John the Baptist with Our Lady and St Laurence) where we were made most welcome, with refreshments provided upon arrival.

Following a brief Extraordinary General Meeting (to approve the Independently Examined accounts) the six players present each played the lovely little one-manual, electro-pneumatic action, 8 stop organ at the west end of the church. Built by local builder Cedric Arnold in 1952, the case and most of the pipework is by George Pike England and dates from 1795.

We then moved across to the historic Lincoln organ, which was awarded a Grade 1 Historic Organ Certificate by BIOS following restoration work by Goetze & Gwynne in 2014. This three manual, tracker action, 23 stop organ with a straight flat pedalboard and 1/6th comma meantone tuning, was originally built by Henry Lincoln in 1821 for the church of St. John, Bedford Row, Holborn, London, where Theophania Cecil was the organist. The organ was moved to Thaxted Church in 1858. Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan-Williams would have played this organ, as have many well-known organists in more recent years (including Anna Lapwood, Thomas Trotter and Iain Farrington) as part of the Thaxted Festival.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for anybody to play the three-manual Makin digital organ as we needed to walk to Thaxted URC in order to play the two-manual, tracker action, 15 stop instrument therein. Originally by Peter Conacher and installed in 1883 (according to NPOR) or 1889 (according to the church website), the highly decorated pipework is visually stunning and dominates the church. It is hoped that the URC will find the necessary funding in order to sort out the problems caused by cone tuning.

Following our visit to the two Thaxted churches, six people, plus two people from Thaxted Parish Church, made their way to the India Villa restaurant for a very enjoyable and sociable meal.

The EOA is very grateful to both churches for making us so welcome, and to Committee members Michaela Cottee and Andrew Stevens for their help to make this event possible.