Pipeline Press
  • HOME
  • Books
    • Organs and Organists
    • Organ-isms Anecdotes Book
    • Organist at your service
    • Puzzle Book >
      • Grids
      • Puzzle Images
      • Errata
      • Solutions >
        • Alphabet soup
        • A-mazing tuner
        • Crosswords
        • Letter Ladders
        • Plain Difficult
        • Ring the Changes
        • Logic Problems
        • Spot the difference
        • Sudoku
        • Tricky Passages
        • Word Search
    • Looking Up
    • The Organ's Prayer
    • Olivier Latry in conversation
    • Paradisus Musicus
  • Recordings
    • Resounding Aftershocks CD
    • Organ Capers
  • Organists In the kitchen
    • RECIPE INDEX >
      • Gillian Weir
      • Hannah Parry
      • Birger Petersen
      • Marie-Louise Langlais
      • Thierry Mechler
      • Nina De Sole
      • Martin Setchell
      • Roberto Bertero
      • Carson Cooman
      • Ronald Watson
      • Katherine Dienes-Williams
      • Grimoaldo Macchia
      • Alexander Kellarev
      • Dorothy Young Riess
      • Andreas Willscher
      • Katelyn Emerson
      • Agnes Armstrong
      • Michael Barone
      • Claudius Winterhalter
      • Titus Grenyer
      • Alison Clark
      • Paul Spicer
      • Christiane Sauter-Pflomm
      • James Kibbie
      • James Flores
      • Inoue Hiroko​
      • Barry Jordan
      • Gareth Perkins
      • Thomas Ospital
    • Notes on weights and measures
  • Newsletters
  • Gifts
  • Articles & Reviews
    • Book & CD reviews >
      • Bevington
      • Booths of Wakefield
      • The Organ of Saint Sulpice, Paris
      • Messaien - Pierre Pincemaille
      • The Music of Ripon Cathedral
      • The Nordic - Baltic Organ Book
      • A Life in Music
      • Franck played by Pincemaille
      • Mystical vision
      • Noëls of Louis-Claude Daquin
      • Homage à Daniel Roth
      • Bach's complete works
      • Organ works of JPE Hartmann
      • The Box of Whistles ​by John Norman
      • Kristiaan Seynhave plays César Franck
      • Bach Orgelwerke played by Michael Radulescu
      • Le Grand Cavaillé-Coll de la Cathédrale d’Angers
      • The Organs and Organists of Ludlow Parish Church
      • The Hakims at Sacré Coeur
    • 2002 >
      • Alfred Hollins
      • Snetzler-1
      • Snetzler-2
      • Organ Voices
      • Organ Blowers 1
      • Organ Blowers 2
      • Organ Blowers 3
      • Organ Cases
      • Organ Cases 2
      • Organ Cases 3
    • 2003 >
      • Organ Cases 4
      • Architects and organ builders
      • Plain vanilla or chocolate?
      • Canterbury Cousins
      • Blenheim Palace and elsewhere
      • Ornament - applied and misapplied
      • Of hats and arms
      • Invisible organs
      • Organ Anthology
      • Organ Anthology Part 2
      • Ghosts
    • 2004 >
      • Spanish Fly
      • The Wonderful Woofyt
      • Mine's bigger than yours
      • Flames, frets and fiddles
      • Angelicals
      • Telegram from America
      • Booth's Puffs
      • Barker Lever
      • Bettering Barker
      • Alternative Hymn Book
      • Tale of Two Organs
      • Tale of Two Organs (continued)
      • Guitarists do it better
      • Music for the feast of Christmas
    • 2005 >
      • The art of improvisation
      • Records and Reminiscences
      • The Case is Altered
      • Fashion Notes
      • Two town Halls - Sydney & Reading
      • The organ that time and men forgot
      • Edward Heath
      • Tin Whistles
      • Secrets of the Opera
      • Singing in the train
      • Buttoning up
    • 2006 >
      • Automobile blues
      • Pipes and packing cases
      • Harry remembers
      • Harry remembers 2
      • Bismarck and the pipe organ
      • Harry remembers 3
      • Playing Aids 1
      • Playing Aids 2
      • Connections
    • 2007 >
      • The birthday Present
      • Harry Remembers 4
      • Playing Aids 3
      • Wonder of Gascony
      • Gilding the Lily
      • A Most Eloquent Music
      • Seeing Double - Part 1
      • Seeing Double - Part 2
      • Humble Relations - American branch
      • Humble Relations - French branch
      • Tops, Noils, Shoddy and Mungo
      • Tops, Noils, and Handel's Messiah
    • 2008 >
      • Neanderthal Hymn Writer
      • Brindley and Foster Byway
      • The demise of Brindley and Foster
      • Flying High
      • Dorothea, Queen of Denmark - and an organ​
      • Time's Ever-Rolling Stream
    • 2009 >
      • Giving them names
      • Dudley Savage
      • Three organ cases
      • Henery's finest hour
      • Sneezes from the Organ Loft
      • 20th Century Organists
      • Philip Marshall Part 2
      • Part 2 20th Century organists
      • More sneezes from the organ loft
      • Country church curiosity
    • 2010 >
      • The Italian Face of Salzburg
      • Ladies at the Console
      • Gothic organ cases
      • Gothick organ cases
      • Orders and decorations
      • Organs-in-fiction
      • Christmas-recipes
    • 2011 >
      • Oddments and Oddities
      • Memorials and Monuments
      • A Cunning Player - King David
      • Facing the Music
      • Celestial Bands
      • Look-Up
      • Durham-Degrees
    • 2013 >
      • Archibald McIndoe
      • Brigadier-Wagthorpe
    • 2017 >
      • Transports of Delight
  • JIGSAW PUZZLES
  • Competitions
  • Sheet music
  • Photos
  • Calendars
  • Links
  • Blog
  • About Us - and other info
    • Contact Us
    • Search
    • NZOrgan
    • Part 1 of Jenny's earthquake story
    • Part 2 of Jenny's earthquake story
    • Shipping >
      • Returns & refunds
      • Privacy policy
PREVIOUS
REVIEWS INDEX
NEXT

Bevington & Sons : Victorian Organ Builders​

The life and times of four generations of the Bevington family.
As told by Tony, Jill & Romana Bevington. Preston House Publishing (2013) ISBN 978-0-9576655-0-7
The book can be purchased on Amazon and will cost from £18.20
Picture
Followers of this website will remember the ongoing support given some years ago to the project to rebuild the splendid Bevington Victorian pipe organ given by Holmer Church Hereford to St Mary's Hay-on-Wye across the border in Wales. It is now two years since the installation was completed and many people, local and visiting, have seen the amazing gilded light oak case and, if lucky enough, have heard it played.

I was delighted to receive a copy of the book recently published by several descendants of the Bevington family. Out of over 2,000 instruments built by the Soho firm, the Hay-on-Wye organ has been chosen to grace the cover of this comprehensive history of the family and their business from its inception. Tony, Jill and Romana Bevington are to be admired for the dedication which has resulted in this important publication. They write with love and humour about the early years of the family from the first link with organ building in the late 1700s. They give us all the local Soho colour and a huge amount of information on topics including the insurance of workshops such as theirs in the days before Fire Regulations and Health and Safety legislation. Fire seemed to be everywhere with rare woods, chemicals and hazardous materials regularly rising as smoke into the skies above their Rose Yard venue. There is esoteric information such as that of the production of the distinctive Bevington rolled pipes which we learn included, in their special metal, ground up beer bottles no less. (Don't ask, but if you have to know, get the book.) No corner has been left unturned with endless family wills, death certificates and order books being examined and every baby who died in infancy given a respectful mention making the book at the same time personal as well as scholarly. The book contains a full 3 or 4 pages about the Hay organ and also includes the small Bevington at Llaneigon and the obligatory picture of the iconic standard poodle Curate Jimmy with his companion Father Richard.

Picture
Father Richard and Curate Jimmy at the console of the Hay-on-Wye Bevington (Photo: Jack Tait)
It is good to recall that one of the first people to play the organ after its installation was New Zealand's own Professor Martin Setchell who had first made its acquaintance many years ago when it was still in Holmer church. He honoured us by performing during a timely visit to Europe and choose a wonderful programme of pieces that might well have been played when it was commissioned for the Italianate Music Room of Hagley Hall Cambridgeshire in the late 1800s. Before Martin, only the inaugural recital had been performed by Dr Roy Massey. Martin was followed by Roger Judd who has retired to the Hay area after many years as organist to St George's Chapel, Windsor.
A large section of the book deals with Henry Bevington's spinster daughter Elizabeth who devoted her life to "good works" culminating in the founding of the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic in Queen's Square Soho, now the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University College London. Recently their archives have been made available and the writers were able to benefit from access to long lost papers which have given much detailed information on the role of the Bevingtons in setting up what is now recognised as an internationally acclaimed centre for research into Neuroscience and Neurosurgery.
I do recommend this book to all who are interested in the Victorian pipe organ and its background.

Rita Tait
Hay-on-Wye, December 2013
Picture

looking for SOMETHING?

Books
Recordings
Printed music
​
Photographs
Gifts
​Calendars
​Blog
​
Links

Puzzle book grids and solutions
(Free registration & log in required)
GENERAL INFO
Contact
About Us
​
Search
​


Our earthquake stories

Support

Shipping
Returns and refunds
Privacy and Cookie declaration

© COPYRIGHT 2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.