The organ at the former St Mary’s Church in Bangor will be used to repair and restore an identical organ at the St John the Evangelist Church in Barmouth.

 

The Grade-II listed St Mary’s Church on Garth Road closed in 2014 after nearly 150 years and will be transformed into an arts, culture and community hub dedicated to young people by Frân Wen theatre company.

Funding of £3.21m has been secured to transform the church. The project has been allocated £1.8m from the National Lottery, administrated through Arts Council of Wales, £1.2m through Cyngor Gwynedd by Welsh Government’s Transforming Towns programme, £200,000 from the Garfield Weston Foundation and £10,000 from The Pennant Foundation.

An update on the challenge to create a new life for the organ at St Mary’s was recently provided on the Fran Wen website. The statement said: “Following a thorough stage of development, unfortunately it has emerged that it is impossible for us to keep the organ in our new creative hub for young people in Bangor.

“Once we recognised this, we reached out to the original makers of the organ to help us find a new home. The organ was built in 1899 by Nicholson & Co.

“With their help an appeal was established, and we were put in touch with St John the Evangelist Church in Barmouth who were interested in the organ. We did not receive any other practical expressions of interest.

“They have an almost identical instrument, built by the same manufacturers in the same period, but it needs to be repaired and restored in the near future so they will be able to give new life to the instrument thanks to our organ.

“We recognise that keeping and restoring the organ intact within the building would have been the best option but, following a thorough development process, this proved impossible. We are delighted to be able to give new use to the instrument and it means that we are bringing another organ back to life.

“We retain the façade of the original organ because we are keen to celebrate the original qualities of the building. It will be given a new life as part of an innovative sound art installation that will be an accessible way of guiding people around Nest.”

Open Day

The site on Garth Road, will be opened up on Thursday, 29 July to give the public the opportunity to see the plans for the new centre.

The plans for the building will be displayed at the open day and will include a large state-of-the-art performance and rehearsal space, a smaller cellar studio, office space and flexible gathering spaces.

Nia Jones, Frân Wen Executive Director, said: “We understand how important this building is for the local community so It’s really important to us that people have the opportunity to see the building before the work starts to get a sense of the transformation planned.”

You must pre-register in advance through our online booking form ( https://forms.gle/BjEz6cU8D7zveJvn9 ) or by calling 01248 715048. Please select a suitable time slot to help control numbers.

Please note Frân Wen will be following Covid-19 rules and restrictions. We will be limiting the number of people for each slot and we will ask everyone to wear a face covering unless they have a valid medical reason not to.

NYTH OPEN DAY (LL57 2RW)

Thursday, 29 July

11am – 7pm

Booking: https://forms.gle/BjEz6cU8D7zveJvn9 or Phone: 01248 715048.