Rosneath: St Modan’s Parish Church
Hill & Son, 1873 — organ surveyed May 2022
Technical summary
The spacious south chancel chamber provided for the expanded instrument of 1894 allows for a generous setting-out, in which many of the less favourable practical logistics of tuning and mechanical regulation do not present themselves.
At impost level, the clamp-appended 1873 Great soundboard (chromatic planting down to F#19, thence downward in sides) is separated by an admirably deep passage-board from the 1894 Swell soundboard (planting in sides with basses in the centre) and an expression box of the classic ‘cottage’ profile (with no fewer than four hinged access panels set into each side) and which takes full advantage of the prevailing height in the chamber.
Immediately below the key and slider transmissions for the two soundboards is the substantial 1894 double-rise reservoir and feeders (these partially blocked up—although in a remarkable state of preservation).
Framing either end of the Great soundboard, and at a slightly lower level, the original Pedal Bourdon rank is accommodated on two fifteen-note soundboards (C/C# sides respectively). Horizontal roller boards (wooden rollers) mounted below each soundboard, with offset arms attached to the pull-down wires, control the pallet opening. The added Pedal Open Diapason stands completely unimpeded on its floor-level chest (planting in sides, basses at the centre) at the rear of the chamber, and connected by the longest direct tracker run of the whole instrument. The ventil controls for both Pedal ranks are activated via ‘ramps’ fitted at the extremities of their respective trace-rods.
All metal pipework in the organ is plain in composition, other than the 1894 bass octave for the Swell Open Diapason, and those pipes which form the front, which are of zinc.