Dr. L.G. Hayne and the Organs of Bradfield and Mistley

By D. McLachlan, M.A. (1992)

Any history of the organs of Bradfield and Mistley churches is inextricably bound up with the career of Leighton George Hayne, Rector from 1871 to 1883.

Leighton George Hayne was born at St. David’s Hall, Exeter, the third son of Richard Hayne, D.D., on February 28 1836 and educated at Eton and Queen’s College, Oxford. In 1856 he received his Mus.Bac. with a performance of his cantata “Praise the Lord O my Soul” as the exercise, and in 1860 proceeded to his Mus. Doc.

In 1857 he was appointed organist at Queen’s, and in 1860 precentor. In the same year Harry Sargent, fellow of Merton College and a personal friend of Hayne, asked him to redesign the organ of Merton Chapel. L.G. Hayne had developed an interest in organs when he came under the influence of Sir George Elvey, organist of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, while at Eton. Organ building was a hobby he was able to indulge to the full as a result of his parents’ wealth. As an undergraduate he had subscribed to the first edition of Hopkins & Rimbault, The Organ, published in 1855, and later to subsequent editions.

Queen’s College Chapel organ provided Hayne with plenty of scope for his activities, and he was soon redesigning it, adding ranks of his own pipes to the instrument and carrying out alterations. He did not stop at this. He also took a dislike to the light colour of the organ case, if the story is true, and accordingly, with the help of a college servant and a tin of boot polish, proceeded at dead of night to darken it. Although Hayne improved the standard of music at Queen’s it is possible that the College authorities found some of his activities a little trying. Indeed, wherever he went, everything seems to have taken second place to his mania for organ building. Certainly Hayne left the College with a fine chapel organ, or at least part of a fine organ. It is almost certain that when he left he took with him those ranks of pipes that were his own property. The end result of this may not have been regretted, as the instrument had about 70 speaking stops, which would have been overwhelming in such a building. And at that time would have caused problems with a steady wind supply.

Having been ordained in 1861, he resigned as organist and became chaplain. 1864 saw Hayne addressing the Church Congress at Bristol, urging every church to have an instrument of sufficient power to support unison congregational singing. Also in 1863 he had been elected Coryphaeus to the University, a post which he held until his death in 1883, and which must have lent further weight to his proselytising.

In 1866 he was appointed to the living at Helston in Cornwall. The patron was Queen’s College, Oxford. Eaton Faning, the composer, was born there in 1850, and it is not inconceivable that he came into contact with Hayne before he went to the Royal Academy of Music. Certainly it was while he was there that Hayne wrote his controversial pamphlet, Hints on the purchase of an organ, published by Novello in 1867. The end of the book is signed “The Vicarage, Helston, Cornwall, July 1867”. In this he advocated, amongst other things, the use of very large scale pipes, for which he was subsequently taken to task by a number of organ builders and other critics, not least by G.A. Audsley in his Art of Organ Building. No doubt they regarded him as an amateur interloper in a craft that belonged to professionals. However many of his specification show him to be very much in advance of his time, and it must be remembered that his detractors were criticising him at a time when the art of organ building was at a transitional stage.

Hayne stayed in Helston only for a brief period, for in 1867 he was appointed “succentor” of Eton College, his old school. Musically he was obviously highly regarded both as a musician and for his knowledge of organ building. The Chapel organ was in a poor state, as also was music generally at the College. Eton had no choir of its own before Hayne arrived, and such musical performances as there were, were provided by festival choirs conducted by Sir G.J. Elvery of St. George’s Chapel. Hayne’s predecessor had hardly been a competent organist, and as he had only used a few of the stops on the Gray and Davison organ in the Chapel, when Elvey came on one occasion he found the other stops impossible to draw from disuse.

In 1869 Hayne saw to the building of a Music Room, in which he had a large five manual organ set up in 1870, possibly incorporating some of the ranks of pipes he brought with him from Queen’s College. The concert room was 65ft long by 30ft wide and nearly 40ft high, and could seat an audience of 400, besides an orchestra and a chorus of 100. The organ, according to the Windsor and Eton Express, had three manuals, and was built by Schreider. It also had a carved front by Grinling Gibbons. Presumably he must have added to the instrument at Eton after this date. If we are to assume that the organ did not grow to its full size at Eton, then perhaps Pearce is right in saying that Hayne collected his pipes from Queen’s sometime in 1872. On January 21, 1871 the same newspaper says of a performance of the Messiah in the Music Room: “Dr. Hayne will accompany on the fine organ erected in the room, thus adding an additional grandeur to the performance not available at any other of our concert rooms”, implying that the instrument was by then exceptional. The work was done by the organ builders Morten & Taylor. I have only been able to discover one other organ built by this firm in reference works. This was the large instrument of 36 speaking stops (1876) in St. Nicholas, Colchester. Unfortunately this church, a restoration of an earlier church by Gilbert Scott, was demolished in 1955. The site is now occupied by St. Nicholas House in the High Street.

In 1869, while at Eton he also redesigned the chapel organ. Hayne had apparently fallen out with Gray and Davison and employed Hill & Son to carry out his grandiose scheme. The previous instrument, by Gray & Davison, stood on the south side of the Chapel. Hayne enlarged the organ and had it moved to the wooden screen at the junction of the Choir with the Ante Chapel. Although the specification of this rebuilding survives, most of the organ was lost in a disastrous fire in Hill’s factory on October 7, 1882, when the organ had been taken down for a further rebuild and enlargement. Like all of Hayne’s organs, the then state of organ building technology was unable to cope adequately with his ambitious specifications, even though use was made in this case of Barker’s pneumatic lever action (1832) to lighten the touch. Some of the wooden pipes were made by Hayne himself along the lines he had recommended in his pamphlet. Only the largest pipe had been made as a pattern by Ledgley & White of Windsor. These pipes proved well suited to the size of the Chapel, and were praised as complementing the soft stops of the Swell and Choir. The organ also boasted what some considered the best double open diapason (32ft) in England. Unfortunately in order to get the pipes upright it proved necessary to cut holes in the ceiling of the Ante Chapel. This rank had been made abroad, (possibly by Walcker of Germany who was experienced in the making of many large organ pipes) and having been transported in sections, the pipes were soldered together on the Chapel floor. The suggestion that they were lowered through holes cut in the Chapel roof (W.L. Sumner) is, I think, incorrect. Dr. Ferdinand Hiller of the Cologne Conservatory praised the full tone of the organ. Hiller paid a number of visits to England and on 1 May, 1871 conducted his march written for the opening of the International Exhibition. He returned to Cologne on 3 May, and it may have been on this visit that he played the Eton Chapel organ (The Choir, Sat 6 May 1871).

Edmund Chipp of Ely Cathedral, however, told Hayne that he would not play the organ for £1,000 a year. Certainly the heaviness of the pedal made the playing of the preludes and fugues of Bach a major feat. Dr. MacLean, Hayne’s successor at Eton, is reputed to have damaged his left foot attempting a Bach fugue on the instrument.

However the variety of stops, their effectiveness and their tone made for a very fine instrument even though some, especially the larger reeds, were only prepared for. Detractions were the noisy actions, the difficulty of drawing the stops, the heaviness of the pedal action and the failure to adopt the radiating pedal board, although Willis was already effecting improvements in this area.

Why Hayne left Eton for Bradfield and Mistley in early 1872 (Eton College Chronicle, March 20, 1873), is not certain. It may have been because of his failing health. The Eton College Chronicle for May 2, 1872, announcing the appointment of C.D. MacLean as Hayne’s successor, implies that it was his father’s death, leaving him to take on the living of Buckland Monachorum, of which his father had been the patron. It may be also that the College was dissatisfied with the cumbersome and unfinished organ, which Hayne was constantly tempted to modify. This was a tendency which manifested itself with all the organs he designed and made any definitive specification impossible. A letter to the editor of the Eton College Chronicle of 13 February, 1873, complaining about the state of the organ and Maxwell Lyte’s description of the instrument in his History of Eton (4th Ed., p. 358) lead one to this view. Perhaps the holes in the Ante Chapel ceiling may have had something to do with his leaving. That he left the legacy of a fine instrument and a much improved standard of music cannot be questioned.

In 1872 Hayne left Eton to take up the living of Mistley with Bradfield, succeeding his father Richard Hayne (1860-71). Notice of his resignation from the post at Eton appeared in the Musical Standard for 23 March, 1872. Mistley was an obvious choice. His father had raised the money to build a new church at Mistley on land given by the Rev. C.F. Norman. Bradfield provided a quiet backwater where Hayne could indulge his mania for huge organs without causing too much embarrassment. Besides the new church needed a suitable instrument.

With him Hayne brought the five manual instrument he had built in the Music Room at Eton which, as has been stated, probably contained a number of ranks from Queen’s. The organ was still in the Music Room at Eton well into 1871, as the Windsor and Eton Express previews several concerts in this year at which Hayne officiated on this fine instrument. It is likely that the organ was not moved until 1872. In addition, in 1861 his father, the Revd. Richard Hayne, D.D., had purchased the organ from St. Albans Abbey, which had originally come from the church of St. Dunston-in-the-East in London. This consisted of a great organ by Father Smith, and a swell and choir organ added by Byfield in the 18th century. The great was missing the open diapason, which was retained at St. Albans and incorporated in the new instrument there. This organ Revd. Richard Hayne had presented to Bradfield Church. The Essex Directory for 1862 says of Bradfield Church, “a very superior organ, of three rows of keys and twenty stops, has recently been placed in it”.

According to one account the five manual from Eton arrived in ten of the railway’s largest trucks and was apparently unloaded at Mistley, as the station at Bradfield was unable to handle such a large cargo. It was moved to Bradfield by cart. The work was organised by a farmer called Green, and the transport consisted of three farm wagons and a douglas cart. There are various farmers called Green listed under Bradfield in the Essex Directory for 1862: John and Thomas Green of Ragmarsh and John Hellen Green of Bradfield Hall (People’s Warden 1863). Green pressed his son and his men into service during the harvest of 1872, while Hayne supervised the unloading at Bradfield. There are several facts which lead one to discount this. Firstly the journey from Windsor by rail would have been very laborious as it would have involved several railway companies, possibly with different gauges. To find trucks long enough for the largest of the pipes would have been difficult, and even under a tarpaulin the organ would have been subjected to sparks and cinders from the locomotive. However loading the organ, which weighed seventy tons, onto a barge at Windsor and taking it down the Thames and up the Essex coast would have been straightforward. Even with the dues payable on the Thames it would have been considerably cheaper than the railway. The organ of St. Nicholas, Harwich, was brought by this means. Accounts say that the barge landed its cargo at Jacques Hard. Carts could easily have managed this short journey. The tortuous road from Mistley to Bradfield with 32ft pipes is hardly conceivable.

Hayne built a large chalet to house his organ, known as the “Rector’s Room” behind the stables. The Rectory was then in what is now Bradfield Place. The idea that he converted the area above the stables known as the “Village Room” for his organ must be discounted. The height of this room was inadequate, and it is doubtful whether the old building would have stood the weight and vibration. However there is evidence that this building was used to store the parts of the organ, and its imminent collapse apparently spurred Hayne to go ahead with building his instrument.

The building he constructed to house his organ was similar to the one in which Holmes had his huge organ installed, at Regent’s Park by Bryceson, (1872-5), though less grand. Hayne’s building survived long after the organ was stripped out, being used for concerts and other functions. The organ was probably worked on by J. Rayson Senior, organ builder of Ipswich, and a pupil of Willis. Hayne seems to have had a good relationship with him although he paid him poorly. Rayson certainly made some additional stops for the organ.

Having grown in size from the time it was at Eton, the organ was blown by a device consisting of a horizontal wheel driven by three donkeys, transmitting its power through bevel gears to a horizontal crank working the feeders. Hayne probably adapted a similar device for grinding corn. When extra wind was needed to supply the full organ, the donkeys apparently were tempted by carrots hung ahead of them on the wheel! Such organs were not uncommon among people of means in the 19th century. Holmes’s organ has already been quoted, and Hayne must surely have known of the instrument with five manuals (for three players!) which Sir Richard Vyvyan set up in the music room at Trelowarren near Helston in 1829. An indication of the size and date of completion of the Bradfield organ is given by the fact that when news of the Albert Hall organs completion by Willis (1871) reached Hayne and he learned that it contained two more stops than his organ, he promptly added another four stops so that he should not be outdone. As the Albert Hall instrument contained 111 stops, one can get an idea of the size of the Bradfield instrument. Of course the array of stops on Hayne’s organ may have been a little misleading. Whereas the stops on the Albert Hall organ represented full ranks of pipes, many of Hayne’s ranks may have been divided, that is some ranks represented by two stop knobs, one operating on the bass of the keyboard, and another on the treble. These were often qualified as “tenoroon” on the stop knobs. We know that a number of these existed on the Bradfield organ that he designed late. This division meant that one could play on the top part of the manual in close harmony, while accompanying this with a “noble bass” on the lower part of the keyboard with different stops. It is known that Hayne was a devotee of this technique, even though Hopkins and Rimbault in their book on the organ regarded it as bad practice. Thus the number of pipes in Hayne’s instrument was almost certainly considerably less than that in the Albert Hall organ. Further confirmation of this is that three donkeys could never have provided power equivalent to the eight and thirteen horsepower steam engines used to blow the latter organ. It will probably be impossible to know the exact specification of Hayne’s organ, since he was constantly modifying. Many of the organs he designed had problems of wind supply and the lack of adequate blowing equipment for his huge instrument may have caused him to cut it down to manageable proportions himself, using the pipework for Bradfield and Mistley church organs. It seems likely that the organ had a Campana stop (carillon) as Rayson of Ipswich showed W.L. Sumner the pipes of Campana stop he made for Hayne. It is said that Hayne claimed to have invented this stop. In fact it had existed on the continent for some time before he used it. Rayson, it is fairly certain, was responsible for breaking up the remains of the five manual organ after Hayne’s death in 1883, when the parts were sold by auction and used to provide pipework for a number of organs throughout East Anglia. I think it likely that it provided the basis of Bradfield Church organ which Hayne complete to his design in 1875, as the tablet still on the present organ testifies. It is unlikely that he used any pipework from St. Albans for this purpose, as this organ seems to have gone entire to either St. Peter’s, London Docks, in Wapping, or possibly a church on the Isle of Dogs, presumably some time after 1876 when the new organ was inaugurated. The source of the latter destination was Rayson Jnr.

When Hayne arrived Bradfield Church had only a small instrument mounted on a wooden staging at the west end. I am convinced that this was the organ that his father, Richard Hayne, had purchased from St. Albans Abbey in 1861 and gave to the Church. Before this services had been accompanied by a clarinet. It is hardly surprising that this instrument fell below Hayne’s idea of an adequate organ and that he should set about designing one worthy of the choral services he had introduced. It is ironical that in his paper to the Church Congress at Bristol in 1864, he had said: “I do not for one instant think that in our village churches it is necessary to erect organs of great size … ”!

Having approached Rayson for help in building it, he was turned down. The organ builder objected, quite rightly, that such an enterprise would be to the detriment of the church. Hayne however went ahead, and committed his worst act of vandalism in the name of organ building. Finding that there was not enough room for his large pedal pipes in the organ chamber he had built on the north side of the chancel, working at night with the aid of a local builder called Abraham Puxley and a boy to labour for them, he excavated a trench from the organ chamber into the chancel to house his pipes. He then covered this with a deal floor and encaustic tiles, supported on rough brick piers. Unfortunately in doing this he damaged the memorials to the Grimston family, actually incorporating some of the slabs in his piers. The pipes however, not surprisingly as they were underground, failed to function properly, and more seriously caused damage to the fabric. They were removed soon after. It is interesting that Mistley Church has a similar, but far larger, cavity under the north side of the chancel extending under the choir stalls. Here too part of the pedal ranks were laid and remained functioning after a fashion until the organ finally packed up in the early 1960’s. It seems that Forsters had a hand in building the organ, as the penultimate entry in Hayne’s notebook is “Forsters bill for Bradfield”. From its position the date must be 1875/76. Forster travelled the south-east seeking business, which may have brought him, opportunely in view of Rayson’s refusal, in contact with Hayne. In September 1885 a plan for reconstruction of the organ by Bishops was approved. The estimate amounted to £225, of which £180 was raised by subscription. The organ was reopened on 6 January, 1886. It was preserved in its original form but “decayed portions” were renewed and ventilation improved.

Sometime after Hayne’s death Bradfield Church organ was reduced in size, apparently being used to supply additional ranks at Mistley. The third manual (choir), however, and the dishonest stop knobs remained until the 1940’s. It is very unlikely that the organ incorporated pipes from the organ of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, as has already been mentioned. Andrew Freeman says, incorrectly I think, in The Organ (Vol. 5, No. 19, January 1926) of this organ: “Some pipes now in Bradfield Church” and in his book on the organ builder Father Smith (1926): “It now forms part of the three manual instrument designed by the late Dr. L.G. Hayne”. The specification of this organ from St. Dunstan’s was recorded by Henry Leffler in 1800, and quoted by C.W. Pearce in Notes on Old London City Churches. In fact some time before Freeman was writing, Hayne’s instrument had ceased to be a three manual, though the choir manual itself remained, eventually being boarded over before it was finally removed, with its dishonest stop knobs. These stops were: Tenoroon Bourdon, 16ft; Tenoroon Fagotto, 16ft; Posaune, 8ft; Trumpet, 8ft; Octave, 4ft; Flute Harmonique, 4ft; also the choir couplers, and two mixtures on the swell, which may now form the mixtures on Mistley organ. The stop knobs and redundant manual were removed some time in 1947. They seem to have been in place in August 1946 when A.F. Wright visited the church. When W.L. Sumner came in 1947 they had disappeared. The tenoroon bourdon stop may have been of Hayne’s own manufacture, perhaps being the pipes that Bishops removed from Mistley when they rebuilt that instrument in 1965, and generally known as Hayne’s tubs.

By 1950 the organ was in a bad state, and much of the pipework was in such a bad way from bad tuning in the past that repairs were impossible. The floor beneath the pedal board was infested with dry rot, much of the woodwork had worm infestation, and the bellows (the organ was still hand-pumped at this date) had split. Negotiations were entered into with the then tuners, Wm Hill & Sons, and Norman & Beard, to carry out repairs and supply an electric blower. The organ builders virtually refused to repair it and recommended dismantling and an overhaul. They did provide estimates for an electric blower, however. Negotiations and estimates dragged on. Finally an electric blower was fitted in 1955. However the pedal pipes had long since been disconnected. The pedal board was old, outmoded and rotten. Attempts to reach a satisfactory compromise dragged on. Shortage of funds limited the work that could be done. Finally Cedric Arnold put forward a scheme in 1959, but this proved too expensive. The possibility of acquiring the organ from Long Melford Church was also discussed. Further estimates were sought in 1961 on a less ambitious scale from Cedric Arnold, Bishop & Sons, Wm Hill & Sons, Norman & Beard, and Henry Willis & Sons. The advice of W.L. Sumner was sought, who inclined to Cedric Arnold’s proposal. After many trials and tribulations in 1962, the scheme was realised, giving the Church its present organ. Te pedal open diapason 16ft was left disconnected, and apart from a small amount of pipework, the present organ incorporates most of the original organ, albeit in slightly altered form, with new keyboards, new pedalboard, and new stop knobs and jambs. The Keraulophon was revoiced as a Salicional (Swell), the Suabe flute as a Nazard (Great), and the Piccolo moved to the Swell and revoiced as a Flageolet.

As to the remains of the large organ in the Rector’s Room, as has been mentioned earlier, they were sold by auction and found their way into other organs, possibly including that at Bradfield Methodist Church. The 32ft pedal pipes were mainly sold to a timber merchant, though one languished for many years in a distant corner of Bradfield churchyard, where it was used as a table for Sunday School parties. The huge swell box was sold to Bradfield resident for use as a flour storage bin. The dimensions of this box were 16ft by 14ft and 20ft high, of three inch timber.

Mistley Church Organ

One account, written for the Standard, probably by Percy Hallam, in 1946 states that the work on building the organ was begun around 1871, by Hayne, with the help of A. Spendly, an organ builder, a Mr. Collins, an amateur, and a ship’s carpenter called Fitz. The last lodged in the Church during the work. Spendley is an unusual name, but in the Essex Directory of 1862, under Mistley, is listed a James Spendley, ship’s chandler and master mariner.

Hayne turned his attention to Mistley last. Work on building Mistley Church organ probably began faily late in the late 1870’s, as the Essex Directories before 1878 all describe the church as having an organ chamber but mention no organ. The Directory of 1878 however does mention an organ. Te organ frame was constructed along with the church, as the materials and labour (1 carpenter for a day) are itemised in the building accounts.

The present organ at Mistley, originally intended to have 40 speaking stops, was a gift from Hayne in 1879, almost a decade after most of the building had been completed. The building of the instrument is ascribed to Taylor of Arlington Road, London, the partner of Morten, who had formerly been in partnership with Bryceson. It will be remembered that Hayne had employed Taylor & Morten to build the organ in the Music Room at Eton. Bryceson had built the organ at Mistley Towers in the mid-19th century, and it may have been this organ that wa transferred to the new church to accompany the services after the nave of the Towers was demolished in 1870. This may also account for the fact that Bryceson was the maker of some of the stops in the Taylor organ of 1879, the ranks simply being incorporated from the old organ into the new instrument. It may also be that some of the pipes from Hayne’s large instrument at Bradfield were used, though there is no proof of this. Other pipework was apparently was Thomas Robson, Hill & Bishop. Some pipework dates from the 18th century, but most is from 1850 onwards. There are traces of fire damage to some of the woodwork in the organ, but this may be some of the secondhand parts that Hayne purchased. The great soundboard is a converted G soundboard, obsolete in the early 19th century. The reeds were poor, though they have been improved by subsequent work. The pedal pipes were made by Rayson, who was told by Hayne to use the cheapest timber. Hayne also tried to persuade the architects to raise the roof of the organ chamber. He refused. Instead recourse was had to digging a pit which, like at Bradfield, caused problems of damp. There is no doubt that the organ chamber was too small, and Hayne had visions of advancing into the North Aisle. His untimely death however put a stop to completion of the instrument. Apart from alterations to the pedalboard and action by Forster & Andrews in the 1880’s, and the addition of a choir organ consisting of a short compass salicional by Rayson, the organ remained virtually as Hayne and Taylor built it until the Bishop’s rebuild of 1965. The parish magazines from the mid-1880’s record a number of problems with the instrument, and by 1889 it was virtually unplayable. Bishop & Son drew up a specification with an estimate of the cost of the repairs. This included repairs to the bellows (the organ was hand-pumped until the 1920’s), cleaning, regulating and tuning, and repairing the pipes. It was also proposed to add three double acting composition pedals to both great and swell. The total cost was to be £106. 10s. Frederick Bridge, organist of Westminster Abbey, inspected the organ on 4 November, 1889 and recommended keeping it. The work was finally carried out by Forster & Andrews at a cost of £236. The builders however refused to guarantee their work as insufficient funds were available for them to carry out all the work needed. In 1925 Rayson did some repairs but only £218 having been raised not much could be done. It was at this point that the choir was added. In 1965 John Budgen of Bishops rearranged the original congested layout to make more room for the large scale pedal pipes which were placed on a new soundboard with electro-pneumatic action. However, the bottom octave of the 32ft seems never to have spoken satisfactorily and Bishops have supplied the notes acoustically. The rest of the pedal organ was also electrified. The large scale Flute a Pavillon, which robbed the organ of wind, was removed, as also were some of the “tubby” pedal bourdons which were under the choir stalls. Some of the latter had to be cut to extract them from the cavity. These were apparently for many years stored in Old Hall, in Green Lane, Mistley, where they were used as Sunday School benches. However, when I contacted the present owners recently, they had no idea of their whereabouts. The third (choir) manual added by Rayson was also removed. For some years before the rebuild, the organ had been unusable, accompaniment for the services being provided by an electronic instrument.

Even after the rebuild, when various ranks were reallocated, the organ still remains substantially the organ that Taylor built, being an interesting and satisfactory instrument. One further beneficial change by Bishops was to move the blower from the original blower chamber, which was below the ground outside the church to the east of the organ chamber, to the cavity under the choir stalls. The wind was thereby drawn from inside the Church and at the same temperature as the instrument. In the old blower chamber is a vent closed by a large pallet that may once have communicated with the swell box to relieve the pressure when full organ was used with the box closed.

The old choir case of 1667 from Worcester Cathedral, with carving possibly by Grinling Gibbons, provides the front facing into the chancel. The case was the work of a local joiner in Worcester, Robert Kettle. Unfortunately during the redecoration of the Church in 1877 the carving was gilded. The gilded pipes in the front are not original, but of French origin.

Epilogue

Dr. Leighton George Hayne is buried in a family grave in Bradfield churchyard. At his death in 1883 he left a legacy which time and progress are gradually whittling away. The ability to provide three large organs was undoubtedly due not only to his family’s wealth, but also to the large income of £986 (as well as the house) which he enjoyed from the living. When a small organ could be provided for about £100 in the 19th century it is easy to see how he was able to indulge his taste for large instruments, as well as to build up a fine music library. Unfortunately the latter was sold locally for next to nothing after his death and is now so dispersed as to be untraceable. The same fate has befallen his large instrument at Bradfield. The organ in Bradfield Church is much altered and reduced in size, though retaining some of its original pipework. Only two of the organs Hayne designed remain moderately intact. The organ built by Hill at Merton College, now in the church of Ss. Philip and James in North Oxford and recently rebuilt by Walker; and Mistley Church organ which has undergone the least alteration of any of his instruments. It is therefore important that this instrument is preserved, not only for its intrinsic merit, but also as a tribute to the benefactor and eccentric who gave it.