Part of the Welte Philharmonic reproducing pipe organ at
Broomhill, or "Sir David Salomon's House", at Speldhurst near
Tunbridge Wells, spoke out again for the first time in nearly 60
years recently.  The organ was heavily rebuilt from a "No 10
Orchestrion" as a combined Orchestrion and Pipe Organ with double
tracker bars in 1914 by Steinway & Sons as Welte agents, using
their own staff plus one interned Welte craftsmen from Freiburg
trapped in England during the job, and is believed to be the
largest roll-playing organ anywhere still on its original site.

The organ has never been under threat, as the 1896 "Science
Theatre" - the first all-electric one anywhere - at the back of
whose stage it is placed, has been preserved as a time capsule
ever since the Salomon descendants left the house "to the people
of Kent" in 1937.  This did not prevent the stage wiring being
robbed for its copper during WW2.  But with the use of the house as
a convalescent home, a temporary hospital during the war and a
National Health Service conference centre since 1976, the outlook
for restoration looked bleak.  I saw it on several historical
tours run by the Institution of Electrical Engineers and neglect
reigned.  The auditorium's rather stark wooden folding benches
were stored in numerous basement rooms which remained
undecorated and gave the impression, up to 1990, of staterooms of
a Titanic run aground on Namibia's rainless Skeleton Coast and the
space used for a badminton court.

Then, in 1991, the Theatre was taken over as an opera school by
the Broomhill Trust and restoration started with modern seating.
To help raise funds, several extremely successful local music
festivals have been held there, overflowing into large marquees on
Broomhill's lawns.

The Welte needed complete rebuilding and a new blower - of the
original complicated arrangement of 110V DC motors and 67.5 Hz AC
generators and motors, the enormous 5hp AC blower motor survives
and is to be rebuilt as a separate exercise - and had to take a
back seat until the Trust could come round to it.  This happened
late in 1994 and a slow rebuild has been put in the hands of Peter
Wood & Sons of Harrogate.

The rebuild priorities have naturally been blower, pipes, manuals
and roll-playing module, which is detachable.  Since about 90% of
the original rolls were auctioned off in 1937, there now remain
only a sample 280 or so (rather over half of them reproducing
rolls) so as well as restoring the roll equipment Wood are
converting the Welte into a digital record and playback instrument
using computer disks.

By January this year they had rebuilt the roll-player but retained
it in Harrogate in order to put all the rolls onto disk as well,
using the existing contacts on the Welte pouch board.  A Windows
sequencer program (to judge from a local videotape, I would guess
SeqWin) is being used.

According to Peter Wood there had obviously been attempts to run
the Welte in poor condition as some of the rolls have bad tears
down the edges.  This possibly explains why they failed to sell in
1937 and suggests that they may be the most popular rolls from the
original collection.

By November 1995 enough work had been done to provide a temporary
double-manual console and connect it and the computer input to the
"echo organ" at the back of the hall.  This hidden and hitherto
mysterious installation is revealed by the videotape (showing it
being tuned) to be no less than the guts of the original
Orchestrion No 10, with the louder ranks removed to produce a
fainter and more silvery sound than the main organ.  Some similar
ranks have been reinstated and a Conacher organ has been loaned to
bulk out the sound while the restoration of the main organ
proceeds.  Sixty years of idleness in a 80-year-old organ show in
pipes that have not been "got at", so the tuner had an easy task.

Despite these fairly drastic steps taken to provide the Broomhill
Theatre with organ facilities of some sort, the eventual intention
is to restore the original three-manual console and roll player in
their hidden position and rebuild the Welte as specified in 1914,
but with the echo organ augmented as now and a additional modern
console more suitably placed for operatic and orchestral
performance.  The pitch is modern (A = 440 Hz) and there are over
2000 pipes.

We can now be pretty sure that as long as there are Welte organs
anywhere, the Broomhill Orchestrion will remain the largest in its
original setting.  After many years of uncertainty and decay, this
is a wonderful outcome, not just for the district but the world of
mechanical music as well.  The Broomhill Trust (c/o Sir DS House,
Kent TN3 0TC) deserve our warmest congratulations.

Location: Sir David Salomon's House (but not the Theatre now it is
a school) is on the local tourist circuit as it contains a small
museum dedicated to the house's history, which is open Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays only.  Take the A21 from London, take
"Tonbridge (S)" exit, head for Tunbridge Wells for 2 miles to
Southborough, then follow English Tourist Board brown road signs
west towards Speldhurst.

Dan Wilson