All Saints Church Woodham
564 Woodham Lane, Woking, GU21 5SH
Music at All Saints
The Choir
All Saints has a small SATB choir, which rehearses every Friday evening at 8.00 and enriches the worship at our weekly Sunday morning services.
The choir sings mainly traditional liturgical repertoire, from the music of the sixteenth century to the great Romantic masterpieces of the nineteenth century. It is also not averse to being challenged with more modern music in a range of styles.
In addition to its core Sunday-morning function, the choir sings at many of the great Christian Festival services throughout the year. And we maintain a regular sequence of Sunday evening Choral Evensongs.
The choir has many friends across our part of Surrey and is often joined for major choral services by guest singers. On Good Friday this year we were joined by The Loveday Singers and the soloist, Anna Loveday, for a performance of Elegy, an English setting of the Stabat Mater by the contemporary composer, David Perkins.
In addition to being dedicated to its musical contribution to All Saints’ liturgy, the choir is a very socially friendly outfit. We frequently finish Friday evenings at a suitable local venue to put the world to rights over a drink!
New members are always welcome.
Please contact the Director of Music, Jeffrey Gray, at music@allsaintswoodham.co.uk .
The Church Organ
All Saints is home to one of the finest organs in the diocese of Guildford.
The church’s first organ was a small J.W. Walker and Sons instrument, purchased from an unspecified church in London and installed in 1894 for the princely sum of £35. This organ was enlarged and moved into a new chamber on the north side of the chancel (the organ’s current location) in 1912. This instrument deteriorated rapidly and became unusable in the 1920s.
A new organ was built and installed in 1928 by the renowned Durham firm of Harrison & Harrison, using many of the pipes from the early Walker instrument, but substantially enlarging it. It was completely revoiced by Harrison’s ‘top team’, supervised by Arthur Harrison himself. The superlative quality of their work is evident in the organ that exists to this day.
The organ has been periodically cleaned and refurbished in the intervening decades. The last and most significant work took place in 1991 at a cost of some £50,000. Funds at this time came from many sources, including – eccentrically – £1,000 from US President Ronald Reagan!
It is now 33 years since that work, and some of the leathering is significantly older still, going back to 1962 or even, in some cases, 1928. The organ now needs further work to protect its integrity and quality for future generations.
You can find out more about our plans to refurbish our fine instrument or kindly donate by contacting admin@allsaintswoodham.co.uk