On the Pipes: Caring for the Tabernacle Organ
It has 11,623 pipes — wood, tin, lead, zinc — and it has been speaking continuously since 1867. Keeping it in voice is a quiet, year-round craft.
By Andrew Unsworth · Wednesday, February 4, 2026
The Tabernacle organ is not one instrument. It is a small city of instruments — 206 ranks of pipes, gathered into divisions, each with its own character.
Most of the time the work of keeping it sounding is invisible. A technician walks the chambers in the morning, listens for a pipe that has wandered slightly out of tune, climbs into the case, and brings it home with a hand-shaped tuning slide.
Once a year the whole organ is given a longer service. Mouths are inspected, leathers checked, electrical contacts cleaned. By Sunday morning the case is closed and the pipes are speaking again, and most listeners never know the difference.