The organ is used for all the music for two sundays wthin the month, the remainder being covered by the worship bands. It was constructed by a local company, "Hele and Co." at the end of the 1800s shortly after the church was opened. Iinitially it was hand pumped although later converted to use an electrial "discus" blower. Consisiting of two direct, mechanically coupled manuals and pedals it enables a large selection of organ music to be performed with careful selection of the stops.
The Swell organ has mainly 8' stops consiting of: Oboe, Diapason and Dulciana, in addition a 4' principle stop is also provided. Unfortunately the Swell organ was never completed and hence the lower 1+1/2 octaves are coupled permenantly to the Great, Stopped Diapason Bass. The Swell Pedal is still the original push lever giving a full open or closed effect unless the pedals are not required.
The Great organ consists of: Stopped Diapason Bass and Treble and Open Diapason 8' stops, a 4' Principle and a 15th stop. The lack of a flute is rather restrictive forcing coupling to the Swell Dulciana with Stopped Diaps to simulate this.
The Pedal organ has one stop, namely a 16' Bourdon which is fine for general use although requires coupling for any pedal solos. Here another problem is encountered with a lack of Swell to Pedal stop, the organ only giving Great to Pedals and Swell to Great. Despite these deficiencies, however a wide selection of music can be performed from Early and Baroque through to Victorian and Modern.
As stated above the organ is used for normally two services a month. The normal music selection during these weeks is the mainstay of hymns from one of either "Songs and Hymns of Fellowship" or "Hymns and Psalms", the new Methodist hymn book introduced in the early 1980s. Throughout the year we have a group of visiting organists who play on a regular basis, on loan from another church in the circuit, Torpoint. In terms of incidental music this is a matter of personal choice from either playing a selection of hymns or Victorian organ pieces. The general standard of playing is fairly high, but unadventureous.
Our main organist, Charles Sparey, is, due to being away at college throughout the term, only availible to play during some weeks in the holidays. When availible he is very keen and enthusiastic player. In terms of music as well as playing hymns in an imaginative, fast and inspiring way he also actively encourages the use of all forms of music within worship. In the last year this has included the use of voluntries from Byrd and Morley; Bach and Handel; Parry, SS Wesley, Bennett, Stanford and Wood; Howells and Sumsion both written for organ and adapted from Choral works. For the annual carol service and other special events the organ is used in tandem with the music groups both indervidually and together as a massed "orchestra". The result of this was highly impressive and imaginative music using a selection of special arrangements created locally for the event or, in the case of the carol service, modified from Carols for Choirs.