Music

When Two Worlds Collide

on Friday, 05 February 2016. Posted in Archives, Music

One week in January I took in an accession from Colerne Church. The day after it arrived I was sorting through some of the documents in the final box. One bundle I had tentatively named “Correspondence, specifications and plans relating to the Lady Chapel and the building of the organ loft”. The very last document in the file was a yellow piece of paper entitled “Yeovil, Holy Trinity – The Organ”.

It was a report from a visit to Holy Trinity Church in Yeovil, Somerset, and the visit was undertaken in 1994, whilst discussions were in place to make the church redundant. The organ was therefore being assessed for its value “as a diocesan asset”.

 

I excitedly mentioned it to my colleague Steve Hobbs, who was sitting opposite me: we are both originally from Yeovil and I thought the randomness of the document would appeal to him as well as me. At first I thought this document had ended up in the wrong place, and I was all for sending it down to Somerset Record Office when it occurred to me that the organ taken from Yeovil might have been the one that ended up in Colerne. I checked back in some of the documents and there was indeed a reference to the dismantling of the organ in Yeovil.

The coincidence of finding these documents is even more astonishing when I tell you that Holy Trinity was my old parish church. I used to attend the church every Sunday with my mother. When it was closed and became accommodation, a new church was built elsewhere in the town, and Mum is still involved with the benefice. The rector, John Bennett, who is mentioned on the yellow document, was a good friend of the family and has long since moved away. My father was a church organist and played for another benefice just outside Yeovil, but occasionally played the organ at Holy Trinity for their services. When the church was closed, there was a final service and I (aged about 8) was in the choir, and I still have vivid memories of singing in the choir on that day. Dad wrote a special anthem for the service, which was played by him on that organ on that day.

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