Our Æolian Pipe Organ was originally installed in a house in Torquay, and it contained twelve ranks of pipes plus Harp and Chimes.
It was moved several times, ending up in a chapel, and was partially vandalised, before it came to the museum. A number of pipe ranks were re-voiced, or exchanged for others more suitable for church use. We have been able to replace some of these pipe ranks with original sets salvaged from other Æolian instruments which have been scrapped.
As well as the standard Æolian console which plays the basic 116-note organ rolls, the museum also has a Duo-Art Pipe Organ player mechanism. This Duo-Art system automatically reproduces the playing of famous organists who recorded the rolls during the 1920s. All the individual notes of tempo and phrasing, the stop changes, and the swell effects of the original performance are encoded in the music rolls.
