On Make Music Day, commuters and visitors will be serenaded by The Henry Jones Organ at London Bridge Station throughout the day, with recitals during rush hour periods.
Location: Henry is at the southern end of the Network Rail lower concourse, called Stainer Street, close to its entrance from St Thomas Street, London SE1.
What’s happening?
As a contribution to Make Music Day UK on Friday 21 June, Stuart Whatton (former Director of Music at St Matthew’s-at-the-Elephant and a member of the Guy’s Chapel Choir since 2010), in association with Marilyn Harper (organist of Christ’s Chapel Dulwich), will be curating six hours worth of organ playing on ‘Henry’, the cute pipe organ on London Bridge station concourse - which remains, for now, the one and only working organ at a railway station anywhere in the country.
‘Henry’ (named after its original builder Henry Jones) has a single manual keyboard and foot pedals, with five drawstops controlling the different sounds, and is powered by its own electric bellows. The instrument originally came from the Congregational Church in Whetstone, north London, and was rebuilt by Martin Renshaw in 2022.
There will be three main tranches of performing activity on ‘Henry’ on 21 June, at morning and evening rush hour as well as at lunchtime, with a varied programme of music – from Bach and Handel to parlour songs and modern fanfares - designed to educate and entertain the public with the joy and pleasure of playing the organ. As well as being a liturgical instrument for church use, the organ can handle transcriptions large and small, popular and serious. It is also the loudest instrument ever to be built for one person to make a lot of noise on, or indeed just a little noise!
You can come and hear the organ in action from 7 to 9 am, 12 noon to 2 pm or 5 to 7 pm; the instrument is situated in the west colonnade of the main London Bridge station concourse, at the southern end nearest Guy’s Hospital, and you can read more about it at https://www.pipe-up.org.uk/london-bridge-organ.
Times:
7:00 am – 10:00 am
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
5:00 pm– 7:00 pm
Programmed by Stuart Whatton B.Mus FRCO
A Fellow of both the Royal College of Organists and the Royal Society of Arts, Stuart has been Director of Music at Esher Parish Church since 2011, where concert projects over the past year have included complete performances of Beethoven’s oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives and Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace; this summer he will be conducting a combined choirs performance of the Mozart Requiem, with visiting instrumentalists from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
