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At the Heart of the Community Since 1069

Selby Abbey has a first class organ, the work of William Hill (1909), Hill, Norman and Beard (1950) and John T Jackson (1975). Today's organ, with 72 stops, is the successor to the earlier instrument destroyed in the 1906 fire.

The organ case is the work of Dr Arthur Hill, who was the grandson of William Hill, the founder of the London organ building company and Oldrid Scott, son of the celebrated George Gilbert Scott. Arthur Hill was trained as an architect in the office of George Gilbert Scott, where he worked alongside Bodley and Pearson - two other architects who designed beautiful organ cases. Hill's finest organ cases may be found at Chichester Cathedral, Peterborough Cathedral, Selby Abbey and Sydney Town Hall.

There is however a major refurbishment required as the organ has only four years of active life remaining. Funds are therefore also urgently needed to save it and the plans to do so form part of the overall Abbey restoration plans.

The Hill Organ

Click the sound image to the right to download part of Charles-Marie Widor's Symphony No 5 in F Minor, Op 42 No 1, the Toccata: Allegro, played by Dr Roger Tebbet, Organist and Director of Music at Selby Abbey, track 9 from a CD of French Organ Music (RLR CD 001) recorded on the Hill organ at the Abbey.

Please be aware that this extract is 5.5Mb and will take about 3 minutes to download if you have broadband and correspondingly longer if your connection is just 56Kbs.