St George's Anglican Church

Dapsang Drive, Tamborine Mountain

W.J. Simon Pierce, Brisbane, 1993
Additions 1997-2000 W.J. Simon Pierce, Brisbane
1 manual, 11 speaking stops, mechanical action

St George's Anglican Church, Tamborine Mountain
[Photograph by Rodney Ford (September 2014)]

Historical and Technical Documentation by Geoffrey Cox
© OHTA 2012, 2014 (last updated October 2014)

Tamborine Mountain is a plateau that forms part of the Darlington Range, encompassing the settlements of Eagle Heights, North Tamborine and Mount Tamborine. The area was first opened up by loggers in the late nineteenth century, and rainforests and euchalypt forests have now been conserved in national parks. The present St George's Church was opened in 1992, replacing an earlier timber church dating from 1938,¹ which now functions as the Hall.

The contract for the instrument was signed with W.J. Simon Pierce of Brisbane in 1989,² and the initial stage was completed in 1993 as the builder's Opus 1, comprising just five stops.³ The organ was designed initially for the timber church, and was moved to the present church soon after it was opened.

The first stage of the W.J. Simon Pierce's organ, Opus 1 completed in 1993
[Photographs by Howard Baker (c.1994)]

Additions were made in stages as finances permitted until the instrument was completed in 2000. The pedals stops were added in 1999, although the pedalboard had been installed earlier. The organ is dedicated to the memory of Christopher Fulcher (died 5 March 1988), onetime chorister of St John's Cathedral, Brisbane.

The completed W.J. Simon Pierce organ,
showing the pedal stops added at the side of the instrument
[Photographs by Rodney Ford (September 2014)]

The case is of Tasmanian Oak and the red silkwood carvings are by Colin Blumson,⁴ incorporating Australia motifs such as gumleaves and possums. Blumson, along with his father, was responsible for the decorative carving on the choir stalls and swell organ screen at St John's Cathedral, Brisbane. The pedalboard came secondhand from St John's Cathedral.

Detail of casework carvings by Colin Blumson
[Photograph by Rodney Ford (September 2014)]

The organ builder's own account of the instrument provides insight into some of the models that inspired its style: scaling and voicing based on English nineteenth-century models, suspended mechanical action and the provision of upperwork based on late twentieth-century models, and technical aspects such as soundboard construction adapted to the Queensland climate.⁵

The completed W.J. Simon Pierce organ
[Photograph by Mark Quarmby (September 2014)]




Console, showing the suspended mechanical action
[Photograph by Howard Baker (c.1994)]

The specification, showing the dates of additions, is as follows:

Attached draw-stop console
Double-rise bellows
Slider soundboards
Compass: 61/30
Mechanical (suspended) action.⁶

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1 Glenda Murrell, Anglican Records and Archive Centre Guide to Records - http://www.anglicanarchives.org.au - accessed January 2004.

2 Organ Society of Queensland Newsletter, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1989), pp. 52-53.

3 OSQ News, vol. 1, no. 3 (May 1994), p. 3; The Organ Voice, vol. 21, no. 2 (Spring 1993), p. 79.

4 The Organ Voice, vol. 21, no. 2 – vol. 22, no. 1 (Spring 1993 - Autumn 1996), back covers.

5 Simon Pierce, "The Organ at St George's Anglican Church, Tamborine Mountain," The Organ Voice, vol. 26, no. 4 (December 2000), pp. 15-22.

6 Specification noted by G. Cox, August 2001; Various details drawn from personal communications to G. Cox from W.J. Simon Pierce, 1997 and 2001; The Organ Voice, vol. 24, no. 1 (March 1998), p. 31; The Organ Voice, vol. 26, no. 2 (June 2000), p. 24; W.J. Simon Pierce Website http://www.piercepipeorgans.com.au/new-organs/st-georges-anglican-church-tamborine - accessed September 2000.