Kent County Organists’ Association Patron: The Lord

In Partnership with St Bartholomew’s Church Choir Otford, An Outing to

PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL & St John the Baptist, Parish Church

SATURDAY 18TH MAY 2013 St Bartholomew’s Choir, augmented by KCOA members and friends, directed by Kevin Grafton, will be Singing Evensong at the Cathedral. Nicholas King FRCO, will be playing the Organ.

The Kent County Organists’ Association is affiliated to the Incorporated Association of Organists’ Registered Charity No: 269986

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Facing west from the Choir to the Nave. Itinerary 08:00am Coach 1 departs, Charing (Parking by Old School)

08:30am Coach 1 departs, Wrotham. 08:30am Coach 2 departs, Otford Pond 11:00am Arrive Peterborough.

11:30am Welcome and an opportunity for members to play. There will be a playing list. (See notes.)

01:00pm Lunch period

01:00pm Choir practice in Beckets Chapel, if required.

02:00pm St John the Baptist, the Parish Church of Peterborough, Cathedral Square. Organ demonstration, with and an opportunity for Members to play.

02:00pm- 03:00pm Choir rehearsal in the Cathedral Choir Stalls.

03:30pm Evensong

04:15pm Final Flourish

05:00pm Coaches 1 & 2 Depart Peterborough

07:30pm Coach 1 arrives, Wrotham 07:30pm Coach 2 arrives, Otford Pond 08:00pm Coach 1 arrives, Charing.

Page 2 of 13 PETERBOROUGH – introduction by Colin Menzies Peterborough grew up around the great Benedictine monastery that had been founded by the King of Mercia c.650; after interruptions and destruction by Danish invaders, it was re-founded c.965. The town was all but destroyed in 1070, and the church was burned to the ground in 1116 (by accident rather than in warfare). The town, however, managed to keep going somehow and gradually grew throughout the Middle Ages. The Benedictine , ever shrewd businessmen as well as devoted and prayerful, recognised good building stone when they saw it and developed the large-scale quarries at , about 7 miles to the north. Their own new Abbey was built of that stone (known to geologists as oolitic limestone), as was much of , and Barnack stone soon became regarded as one of the finest building stones in the country: architectural historians today tend to regard it as the best stone anywhere in the country, and the quarries were worked extensively and successfully for centuries, finally becoming exhausted the best part of 300 years ago. The town prospered further after 1541 when the great Abbey became the cathedral of a new , but even by the early 19th century it was no more than a small market town with around 3,500 inhabitants.

As so often in 19th century , it was the coming of the railways that transformed that (until then, the principal town in the area had been Stamford). The first line was actually the east-west line of the London & North-Western Railway, running from Euston as a branch via Northampton and Oundle, which arrived in 1845; it was closed in 1972, but the final few miles were re-opened in 1977 as the privately-owned “heritage” .

Two new lines opened only a few months later, in 1846. The Eastern Counties (later part of the Great Eastern) opened its line (still in use) as a direct continuation from the new LNWR station through March and Ely to Cambridge. The Midland opened a line from Leicester (also still in use) through Melton Mowbray and Stamford.

In 1848, the Great Northern opened its line from Peterborough north-east to Spalding, Boston and Lincoln; the southward extension to King’s Cross opened in 1850, and in 1852 the company opened its line northbound to Grantham, Newark and Doncaster.

In the space of seven years, Peterborough had become a major railway junction town, with good connections to London, the East Midlands, East Anglia, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. The scale of the capital involved in so much construction is staggering. The vast growth of London was outstripping its ability to produce enough building bricks, and the new railways allowed the London Brick Company to buy huge tracts of land to the south and south-west of Peterborough from which they extracted clay and on which they built countless kilns to produce bricks – nearly all of the activity has ceased but only a generation ago the approach to Peterborough from the south was through a forest of tall, brick chimneys stretching almost as far as the eye could see. The railways also permitted the establishment and rapid expansion of a successful engineering industry in the city (names such as Brotherhood and Perkins were famous the world over by the turn of the century).

Page 3 of 13 By the 1960s, the economic base of the city, by then with a population of over 80,000, was beginning to change and the Government decided that the city should expand rapidly and that new industries should be encouraged; other New Towns of the period were greenfield sites with perhaps only an existing village or two (as at Harlow, Milton Keynes or Skelmersdale) and Peterborough was unique in being the substantial expansion of an already sizeable conurbation. The Government’s hopes have largely been realised and the city has expanded both in population and in prosperity.

It also resulted in quite a radical change in local government. The (the Old English word means an area of jurisdiction) had become the smallest county in England, and two of its neighbours (Huntingdon and Rutland) were only slightly larger. Peterborough was merged with Huntingdonshire in the 1960s before the New Town concept had been formulated; only a few years later, the merged county was swallowed up by a redefined .

The City Centre and the Cathedral I have already said a little about the city in my introductory notes and don’t propose to say much more now. The very centre contains the best of the relatively few buildings of architectural interest. The Old Guildhall, between the parish church of St John the Baptist and the cathedral gateway, is of 1671 with the open ground-floor and Italianate arches that were typical of such buildings.

Either side of the Abbey gatehouse are two refined and rather good early 20th century banks. Palmer & Holden, a firm that specialised in bank work and did mostly very creditable work in many parts of the country, designed what was the National Provincial Bank in 1928. What was Lloyd’s Bank was designed in 1913 by Alan Ruddle (yes, I think he was part of the Rutland brewing family). The gatehouse itself was built around 1190 (from which the arches date) but was much altered in 1300 when the western façade of the main arch was altered and the upper parts were added.

That takes us into the precinct: although it does not hang together as one composition, as at Norwich or partly at Durham, it is a wonderful private space with an overall sense of ensemble that completely transcends the disparate architecture and the lack of any really outstanding buildings (apart from the cathedral itself, of course). The extent of the precinct is large and fascinating, especially to the south of the cathedral; those with long memories may recall that it was used about 30 years ago as the setting of the Proudies’ palace in the delightful television adaptation of Trollope’s Barchester Chronicles.

Before going into the cathedral, we may pause to look at its odd west front. The interior, as we shall see, is a huge Romanesque vessel with a wide nave and narrower aisles; what we see on the outside is spikily Gothic, with the proportions reversed (the aisles appear wider than the nave). The story is too complicated even to attempt to précis. Basically the Norman architects ended their work with west towers either side of the nave (think of Ely). Then, probably around 1180, it was decided to lengthen the nave (still in Romanesque) and to provide western transepts (but in very early Gothic), and to heighten the existing

Page 4 of 13 incomplete towers. After that, it was decided to add the bold and incredibly large arches to the west, some of the decorative work being of Alwalton marble, and also to add new west towers (although only the north one was ever built, adding a further lop-sided element to a beautifully executed but confusing façade): that was all finished by 1238. Finally, around 1390, a new west porch was popped into the centre arch – it matches it in width but not in height.

And now we go into the cathedral itself and find ourselves in one of the great Romanesque interiors of England, which has strangely failed to have much impact on the public’s awareness outside the immediate area. The monastery had been founded by the King of Mercia c. 650 but had been destroyed by the Danes a couple of centuries later; it was re-founded about a century after that, but was almost totally destroyed in the great fire of 1116.

The present building was begun in 1118. The chancel, and probably the crossing, was in use by 1143, and the nave was finished around 1180; the total length is over 450’. The west front (just described) came next.

13C font is on a 19C pedestal. The wave-like floor pattern is of local marble and 20C

The original round-headed Romanesque windows were almost all enlarged between 1400 and 1500 with tracery. The new building at the east end was begun soon after 1500 and may well have been designed by John Wastell, the man responsible for the chapel of King’s Cambridge: it may not be particularly large but it is certainly beautifully delicate.

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The New Building, 1496-1508 in the Perpendicular style with fan vaulting

This large and powerful Benedictine community, like all other monastic institutions, was dissolved by Henry VIII in the 1530s; he distrusted their wealth, he saw their unshakable allegiance to their superiors in Rome as a threat to his creation of a new English church, and he was very short of money. The monastic properties were effectively nationalised without compensation, and Henry sold off the land and buildings to assist his own financial weakness. In six cases – of which Peterborough was one (the others were Westminster, Bristol, Gloucester, Oxford and Chester) – he retained the monastic church and made it into a cathedral. His reasons for sparing those six buildings were twofold. The first was that he also distrusted the size and power of some of the mediaeval bishoprics; by creating new , he would reduce their influence and would also have the opportunity of appointing sympathetic men as the new . Secondly, he was very conscious that it was not much more than fifty years since the Tudors had won the English crown so, by sparing buildings that had strong connections with previous kings, he felt he was strengthening his historic links to previous dynasties (a tenuous argument maybe, but one that he undoubtedly held). His first wife, Katharine of Aragon, had been buried here in 1536 and he may have been fearful of the bad publicity of demolishing the building in which she had so recently been laid to rest.

The contribution of the Victorian restorers here has been self-effacing and, to my mind, helpful. The area around and above the high altar was restored around 1860 by Sir Gilbert Scott, who employed his protégés, the newly-established partnership of Clayton & Bell, to paint the ceiling. The main restoration was undertaken in the 1880s by J.L.Pearson: his proposals for a soaring central tower were never implemented, but the baldacchino over the high altar is his as is the beautiful Cosmati-inspired marble floor of the chancel. The Victorians were also remarkably restrained in the amount of they installed, making this a particularly light interior: among the windows they did commission is one in the south transept designed in 1862 by D.G.Rossetti and made by

Page 6 of 13 and thus one of the firm’s very earliest stained glass designs. A very prominent 20th century addition is the hanging in the crossing space (the figure is of aluminium), designed in the 1970s by and made by Frank Roper. The beautifully-illustrated Pocket Guide, on sale in the cathedral and a snip at £2, will tell you more.

A large-scale restoration was undertaken from the 1990s into the early 2000s under the direction of Julian Limentani. One of the focal points of the work was the restoration of the nave ceiling, completed around 1250 and one of the largest-scale survivals anywhere in the country of mediaeval decorative work. With the work only a week or two away from completion, after a gruelling fund- raising campaign and overcoming many unexpected difficulties and challenges, an arsonist concealed himself in the building when it was locked up for the night; he later piled up a bonfire of plastic chairs in the north transept and eventually managed to set them alight around 20.30 that evening. By great good fortune, a walked past not long afterwards: having initially been surprised at the strange reflection of the sunset in the transept windows, he suddenly realised that he was seeing flames, and called the fire brigade. The flames were extinguished before really catastrophic damage was done, but the thick oily smoke from the burning plastic had laid a coat of corrosive filth over every surface. The forensic specialists who examined the building during the night were confident that the temperature of the timbers of the irreplaceable mediaeval ceiling of the nave had been so high that a further ten minutes would have seen them spontaneously burst into flames. As it was, much of the painstaking work of the past few years had been undone and a re-restoration process had to start all over again.

The ORGAN

It is often difficult, when dealing with large cathedral organs, to assign a date from which the present organ dates. As at many places, Peterborough’s organs

Page 7 of 13 have evolved on the solera system, with no completely new organs but rather a series of instruments that were largely new but retained bits and pieces from the previous instrument. The important point was that the older components were not retained for their own sound but rather because they were of good-quality materials that could be adapted to fit with the conception of the new work. I’m happy to settle for 1871 when Hill built a three-manual organ (admittedly with some older pipework). In 1887 they were asked to estimate for a four-manual enlargement but it took several years for the project to get off the ground and the work was not undertaken until 1894. What was provided was in fact one of the largest cathedral organs in England, planned and built by much the same team as had a few years earlier built the organ for Sydney Town Hall, the largest organ ever built in England at that time. As was typical of the Hill philosophy then, there was plenty of upperwork and the intonation was sharper than normal. Having had to remake reed ranks on several recent organs because they were judged to be insufficiently powerful (for example, the pedal reed at St Augustine, Penarth had had to be expensively rescaled by no less than five notes at their expense), Hill made sure that the same complaint could not be laid here. The organ and its console were sited in the north triforium above the choir stalls, where the Norman masons had produced a structure so strong that the weight of a big organ was no problem and a space so extensive that nothing had to be crammed in. Initially there was no case but in 1904 the present case was installed to the design of the company’s chairman, Dr Arthur Hill, who had trained with Scott as an architect; it is one of his later works but undoubtedly among his best.

There was a major rebuild in 1930 by the successor company, Hill Norman & Beard. Unusually for that time, they did little to the tonal side of the instrument; instead they took advantage of the unlimited space in the triforium to add quite a number of “high romantic” ranks, including a fat tuba and a 32’ flue to the Great (a stop whose potential musical use somewhat baffles me). New electro- pneumatic action was installed, wind pressures were nudged up, and a new console was installed opposite the organ in a new gallery above the south choir stalls.

In 1981 there was a rebuild by Harrison & Harrison; the consultant was Michael Gillingham. Most of the 1930 additions were removed and new action was installed; the 1930 console was retained but the drawstops were re-engraved in a much clearer script specified by Michael. In general, the tonal character of the organ was returned much closer to its 1894 state, with many of the changes having been to the Choir organ in an effort to make it more versatile.

The “first” recent restoration of the building left little money for the organ, which was cleaned in 2001. The fire in November 2001 caused extensive damage to the Choir organ, which was eastward-facing into the north transept where the fire had been started. The rest of the organ was damaged by excessive heat and by a thick coating of oily residue. Mark Venning and a team from Durham were inspecting the damage by mid-morning the next day; soon afterwards the instrument was dismantled with some parts returned to Durham and others stored in the north triforium. The workshop was so busy that the full restoration could not be undertaken until 2004/5 with the re-opening recital by Olivier

Page 8 of 13 Latry being given on 23rd September 2005. The Choir organ had been resited one bay west (now under the main case) and slight tonal changes made.

GREAT SWELL (Enclosed) CHOIR (Enclosed) Double Open Diapason 16 Bourdon 16 Bourdon 16 Bourdon 16 Open Diapason I 8 Open Diapason 8 Open Diapason I 8 Open Diapason II 8 Stopped Diapason 8 Open Diapason II 8 Rohr Flöte 8 Dulciana 8 Open Diapason III 8 Salicional 8 Principal 4 Stopped Diapason 8 Voix Céleste 8 Flute 4 Hohl Flðte 8 Principal 4 Fifteenth 2 Spitz Flðte 8 Wald Flute 4 Flautina 2 Principal 4 Salicet 4 Flageolet 1 Geigen Principal 4 Fifteenth 2 Mixture 19.22.26 III Harmonic Flute 4 Mixture 15.19.22 III Bassoon 16 Twelfth 2⅔ Cymbal 19.22.26.29 IV Trumpet 8 Fifteenth 2 Contra Oboe 16 Full Mixture IV Hautboy 8 Tremulant 19.22.26.29 Sharp Mixture 29.33.36 III Tremulant Swell to Choir Cornet 8.12.15.17 IV Double Trumpet 16 Contra Posaune 16 Trumpet 8 PEDAL Posaune 8 Horn 8 Double Open Diapason 32 Clarion 4 Clarion 4 Open Diapason wood 16 Open Diapason metal 16 Sw, Ch, So to Great Oct; Sub Oct; Unison off Violone 16 Solo to Swell Bourdon 16 SOLO (Enclosed) Dulciana 16 Quintatðn 16 Principal 8 Concert Flute 8 Bass Flute 8 Viole 8 Violoncello 8 Viole Céleste 8 Gemshorn 4 Unda Maris II 8 Twelfth & Fifteenth II Octave Viole 4 Mixture 15.19.22 III Flauto Traverso 4 Contra Trombone 32 Piccolo 2 Trombone 16 Double Clarinet 16 Contra Posaune Gt 16 Orchestral Oboe 8 Contra Tuba So 16 Clarinet 8 Clarinet So 16 Vox Humana 8 Contra Oboe Sw 16 Tremulant Trumpet 8 Tuba 8 Posaune Gt 8 (Unenclosed) Clarion Gt 4 Contra Posaune Gt 16 Posaune Gt 8 Gt, Sw, Ch, So to Pedal Clarion Gt 4

Oct; Sub Oct; Unison off

Wind pressures range from 3” Choir; 4” Gt, Sw & Ped flues; 6” So; 7” Gt HP flues; 9” Sw reeds and HP diapason; 11½” Gt reeds; 15” Ped reeds; 20” tuba (which is enclosed in its own box).

(Acknowledgement and thanks to Colin Menzies, for allowing us to use this article, which was published in the Organ Club Journal 2010–1)

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Playing the Cathedral Organ Members are welcome to play the organ and we hope many of you will take the opportunity to do so. The Cathedral authorities have pointed out that they would expect to receive a fair number of visitors, being it is a summer Saturday. The organ can be quite strident in the building as the organ is located to the west of the crossing. The swell organ is the most powerful division of this instrument. The Swell reeds are devastating, bigger than the Great! Opening full swell makes a huge impact in the building, so it is recommended that this effect be used carefully. On their advice we are producing a “programmed playing list” to create a varied programme so as to avoid a repetition of ff. You will see on the invitation form that we are inviting Members to list 2 pieces that they would like to play, indicating the dynamics, whether the reeds will be employed and the estimated playing time. Your second piece may not necessarily follow immediately after your first. An improvisation is perfectly acceptable.

There are plenty of things to see and do at the Cathedral. These are some of them 1. Study the magnificent West Front. 2. View the beautiful hand-painted wooden nave ceiling. 3. Marvel at the stunning fan vaulting in the new (c.16) East end building. 4. Seek out Katherine of Aragon's grave, and Mary Queen of Scots' former resting place. 5. Observe the dramatic hanging crucifix that frames the choir stalls. 6. Reverence the imposing marble altar in the sanctuary. 7. Experience the calming . 8. Learn about the 'Story of the Abbey' from studying the Exhibition displays. 9. St Oswald’s Chapel. 10. View the colossal central tower, then brave the heights, to view the sights from on high. 11. Explore the beautiful cathedral precincts abundant with plants and wildlife 12. Take a guided tour of the cathedral. 13. Visit the Cathedral Coffee Shop with its locally produced cakes. 14. Browse in the Gifts and Souvenir Shop.

Page 10 of 13 Eating Out in Peterborough.

There are numerous eating establishments near the Cathedral. (Pizza Express, Prezzos, Ask, Pubs and Cafés)

The Cathedral coffee shop offers sandwiches, hot snacks, soup and excellent locally produced cakes.

The Cathedral grounds, West Lawn, Precinct and Cloisters are ideal for a picnic, providing the weather co-operates.

ST JOHN THE BAPTIST, Peterborough Parish Church, A couple of hundred yards to the west of the cathedral precinct is St John’s. The first Church built c.1078 to the East of the town and constructed of wood was eventually pulled down because of flooding, then reconstructed in its present location between 1402 and 1407 reusing some of the wood from the old Church. Externally and internally it is worthy a building of quite some size. It contains a 3-manual organ by Forster & Andrews, rebuilt in 1917 by Harrison & Harrison, not the best of either builder and not currently in good condition.

St. John the Baptist

Page 11 of 13 THE ORGAN 1871 - built by Forster & Andrews; 1917– Rebuilt with additions Harrison & Harrison; 1980 – Overhauled by Cousans

Pedal Organ CCC to F, 30 notes 1 Open Wood 16 (i) Choir to Pedal 2 Geigen 16 (ii) Great to Pedal 3 Sub Bass 16 (iii) Swell to Pedal 4 Octave Wood 8 (iv) Swell to Choir 5 Flute 8 (v) Swell Octave 6 Ophicleide 16 (vi) Great reeds to Choir Choir (enclosed) Manual Compass: CC to a3, 58 (vii) Swell to Great notes 7 Lieblich Bordun 16 (viii) Choir to Great 8 Viola da Gamba 8 9 Claribel Flute 8 10 Concert Flute 4 11 Viol d'Orchestre 4 12 Piccolo 2 13 Clarinet 8 Great 14 Gross Geigen 16 15 Large Open Diapason 8 16 Small Open Diapason 8 17 Hohl Flute 8 18 Stopped Diapason 8 19 Octave 4 20 Harmonic Flute 4 21 Octave Quint 22/3 22 Super Octave 2 23 Harmonics IV 24 Tromba 8 25 Octave Tromba 4 Swell

(enclosed) 26 Open Diapason 8 27 Lieblich Gedeckt 8 28 Echo Gamba 8 29 Voix Celestes 8 30 Gemshorn 4 31 Mixture III 32 Double Trumpet 16 33 Trumpet 8 34 Hautboy 8 35 Clarion 4 36 Tremulant Accessories Balanced crescendo pedals to Choir and Swell Reversible thumb piston for Gt-Pd (duplicated by toe piston), Reversible thumb piston for ch-pd, sw-pd and sw-gt (duplicated by toe piston) 6 thumb pistons to each; the Choir Organ; Great Organ; Swell Organ 6 foot pistons to Swell Organ (Duplicated) & 6 foot pistons to the Pedal Organs

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