© Maggie Kilbey & Marcel Glover 2026
St Bartholomew, Brightwell Baldwin (Oxfordshire)
Barrel Organs in English Parish Churches
Stop list: Double Diapason 16’, Open Diapason 8’, Stopped Diapason 8’, Principal 4’, Fifteenth 2’.
Restored in 1963 by R.H. Walker & Son, Chesham. Tunes recorded in 1996. BIOS Historic Organ Certificate awarded 2013 (Grade I).
Three green carriage-mounted barrels x 10 tunes including two slightly different versions of ‘Sicilian Mariners’. The handwritten tunelists
for barrels 1 & 2, pasted to the casework, are now illegible. There is no tunelist for the third barrel, so it may have been a later addition.
References: Country Life (15 Aug. 1903) 255; K.V. Carter, ‘Church Barrel Organs’, The Sunday Times (13 Aug. 1939); MacDermott (1948);
Boston (1959); Boston & Langwill (1967); Letter, The Times (13 Jan. 1988); NPOR, N01037.
Barrel organ, the engraved keyframe reads: ‘Joseph Walker, Maker, London, 1843’. Possibly secondhand from Watlington.
The organ stands at the west end of the north aisle. It is operated from the rear and blown by pedal. The oak Gothic case has three flats of
gilt dummy pipes (3-7-3) backed with cloth.
BARREL 1
GREEN
Tune
Metre
BARREL 2
GREEN
Tune
Metre
BARREL 3
GREEN
Tune
Metre
© Maggie Kilbey & Marcel Glover 2026
Barrel Organs in English Parish Churches
St Bartholomew, Brightwell
Baldwin (Oxfordshire)
Stop list: Double Diapason 16’, Open Diapason 8’, Stopped Diapason
8’, Principal 4’, Fifteenth 2’.
Restored in 1963 by R.H. Walker & Son, Chesham. Tunes recorded in
1996. BIOS Historic Organ Certificate awarded 2013 (Grade I). Three
green carriage-mounted barrels x 10 tunes including two slightly
different versions of ‘Sicilian Mariners’. The handwritten tunelists for
barrels 1 & 2, pasted to the casework, are now illegible. There is no
tunelist for the third barrel, so it may have been a later addition.
References: Country Life (15 Aug. 1903) 255; K.V. Carter, ‘Church
Barrel Organs’, The Sunday Times (13 Aug. 1939); MacDermott (1948);
Boston (1959); Boston & Langwill (1967); Letter, The Times (13 Jan.
1988); NPOR, N01037.
Barrel organ, the engraved
keyframe reads: ‘Joseph
Walker, Maker, London,
1843’. Possibly secondhand
from Watlington.
The organ stands at the
west end of the north aisle.
It is operated from the rear
and blown by pedal. The
oak Gothic case has three
flats of gilt dummy pipes
(3-7-3) backed with cloth.
BARREL 1
GREEN
Tune
Metre
BARREL 2
GREEN
Tune
Metre
BARREL 3
GREEN
Tune
Metre