KEBLE COLLEGE CHAPEL
OXFORD, UK

Keble College is one of the masterworks of the eminent Victorian architect William Butterfield. The magnificent, lofty chapel, completed in 1876, is a riot of decorative brickwork, tiling and mosaics. The original organ was provided by William Hill; Butterfield designed its case, and is said to have personally executed the stencilled decoration of the front pipes.

In 1892 the memorial side chapel was created to house William Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World, and the organ was elevated to its present gallery position. From that time it saw a series of rebuilds and enlargements, but by the 1980s had fallen into serious disrepair. Earlier proposals for a new organ did not reach fruition, and from the chapel music relied on an electronic instrument.

The new pipe organ aims to have a consonance with its Victorian surroundings, and an important aspect of the instrument was the cleaning and conservation of the decorated prospect pipes, which have an architectural integrity with Butterfield’s magnificent chapel. The building boasts perhaps the finest acoustic in Oxford, with generous reverberation, and the organ benefits from its placement in the wide, shallow and tall transept loft.

The core departments of the new organ recognise the spirit of the late nineteenth century, enriched by the colours of the third and fourth manuals and enabling the performance of a wide repertoire, both solo and choral.

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