Introduction

The city of York has had a rich history of organ-building and organ-playing. At its height in the nineteenth century, the city contained over one hundred pipe organs within its historic city walls alone!

Despite the ravages of time, the city can still boast seventeen pipe organs within its historic city walls and thirty-nine instruments outside the walls. Since 1996, the City of York Council has been a unitary authority and it now comprises twenty-one electoral wards. The boundaries of these twenty-one electoral wards constitute the legal boundary of the city of York.  In total, therefore, there are fifty-six pipe organs within the current legal boundaries of York.

The following list of pipe organs has been compiled using these electoral ward boundaries. However, the city centre of York has been traditionally defined by its perimeter walls. Therefore, the following list has been divided into two categories: 1) any buildings containing pipe organs that lie within the historic city walls (or physically built into the ruined abbey walls e.g. St Olave’s Church) and 2) any buildings that lie outside the city walls. This is an important distinction for historical comparison.

Only the pipe organs that are contained within ‘public’ buildings have been included. Any pipe organs that are contained within private residences have been excluded. The façade of the organ in the Baptist Church, Priory Street has not been included, because the rest of this instrument has been destroyed. The barrel organs in the Castle Museum have also been excluded. However, the instruments in Q Church, and Duncombe Place Masonic Hall have been included. These instruments are not currently playable, however all of their pipework is still in situ.

Within City Walls

Outside City Walls