The small village of Ruan Minor lies off the beaten tourist trail, nestled on the Lizard Peninsula. Its two churches both have organs of historical significance that were built by once-industrious Cornish firms.
The parish church of St Rumon, with its ivy-clad tower, has its origins in the 13th century and was enlarged some two centuries later. On the north side of the chancel there is an organ dating from 1887 that was built for the church by Brewer & Co of Truro. The firm was probably started by Thomas Henry Brewer in Pydar Street, and it built famously robust and well-made organs, though it existed for only a relatively short period of time. William ‘Billy’ Brewer later joined the firm as a voicer and tuner. The earliest examples of Brewer instruments that have come to light are from the late 1870s / early 1880s. The firm was taken over by Heard & Sons of Truro in 1895 after going bankrupt, and became the Cornwall Organ Factory, though Thomas Brewer continued to work as foreman until his death in 1906 and Billy continued as a tuner and voicer until he too died in 1920. Many of Brewer’s organs have been lost and the few that remain have suffered, to a greater or lesser extent, from later intervention at the hands of others.
The St Rumon organ is a fine example of Brewer’s output, dating from the firm’s latter period. Everything about the instrument speaks of quality and robustness, with all of the fixtures and fittings surviving in original condition. The tonal specification is fairly typical of the period but is, none-the-less, complete and colourful, with a bold principal chorus, telling strings and a small reed that works musically as a solo stop as well as lending some excitement to the full ensemble. A feature of so many of West Cornwall’s parish churches is the low height of the roof, which affords very little acoustic help for the organ, making the quality of the voicing crucial. ‘Billy’ Brewer is acknowledged as a fine voicer and his work at St Rumon bears this out, even though the organ is hemmed-in at the end of the north aisle.
It is a rarity to find an example of a Brewer organ of this quality surviving in such an unaltered condition. The instrument is regularly tuned and maintained. It was fully overhauled without any alterations around 1952 by Hele & Co (another Cornish organ building firm that started out in Truro in the mid-1860s) but without any alterations, though tuning-slides were probably fitted by Hele at that time. The organ was last cleaned in 1983 by Lance Foy of Truro, but was not altered tonally or mechanically. Such is the importance of this instrument to the organ heritage not only of Cornwall but nationally as well, that it was awarded a Grade II* Historic Organ Listing by the British Institute of Organ Studies in 2023. Technical details of the instrument are as follows: –
Pedal Compass C to f1 30 notes
Bourdon 16’
Great Compass C to g 3 56 notes
Open Diapason 8’
Stopped Diapason Bass 8’
Clarabella 8’
Dulciana 8’
Principal 4’
Wald Flute 4’
Swell Compass C to g3 56 notes
Open Diapason 8’
Lieblich Gedact 8’
Gamba 8’
Voix Celeste 8’
Gemshorn 4’
Piccolo 2’
Oboe 8’
(A note played on any stop labelled 8’ corresponds in pitch to the same note played on a piano. A stop labelled 16’ will sound an octave lower, and one labelled 4’ an octave higher).
Couplers
Swell to Great
Swell to Pedal
Great to Pedal
Mechanical key and stop actions
5 combination pedals ( Swell 2 Great 3)
Lever swell pedal
Hand pump
A very short stroll from St Rumon through the centre of the village brings you to Ruan Minor Methodist Chapel. An engraved stone above the window in the rear wall of the building bears testament to it having been built in 1888 as a United Methodist Free Church. It is probable that the musical needs of the church were served in the early years by an harmonium, as was often the case at the time in smaller places of worship. The pipe organ that is there currently was built in 1905, originally for the United Methodist Church at The Lizard, and was the work of Charles M Fleetwood of Camborne. It seems that instrument found its way to Ruan Minor in 1933, when it was gifted to the Methodists prior to the closure of the chapel at Lizard, and was installed there by George Osmond & Co of Taunton, another West-Country organ building firm that is no longer in existence.
Charles Fleetwood trained and worked with Sweetland in Bath before moving to Cornwall and setting up his own business in Carnarthen Road, Camborne some time around 1882. He had two sons, Augustus and Ernest, both of whom carried on the work of the firm after Charles’ death. By far the bulk of Fleetwood’s work was in the Methodist Churches of West Cornwall, an area that provided rich pickings for organ builders in the mid-to-late 19th century with the ever-expanding building of new Methodist places of worship.
The Ruan Minor instrument is an example of the firm’s work from shortly after Charles’ death. When Osmond relocated the organ, he rebuilt it exactly as it was in 1905, and the last significant work, other than routine tuning and maintenance, was a clean and overhaul in 1988 by Lance Foy of Truro, who also made no tonal or mechanical alterations to the instrument. It can still be seen and played today as it was in 1905, albeit in a different location.
Although Fleetwood’s output in terms of the number of new organs built was modest, there can be no doubting the quality of his work. The mechanical action at Ruan Minor, with wooden rollers that were not commonly in use by 1905, is extremely robust and was still performing well when I visited the organ some 40 years after the last overhaul. The tonal scheme is ideally suited to the instrument’s role in leading the worship of a small chapel, with boldly voiced principals, a beautifully smooth stopped flute and a gentle dulciana. While Fleetwood might not be considered on a par with the bigger national and larger regional companies of the time, his work is not short on quality or durability, and the survival of his Ruan Minor instrument is important to the history of local, Victorian/Edwardian organ building in West Cornwall. Significantly, this is almost certainly one of the last Fleetwood organs that remains unaltered and in a playable condition. This was recognised with the award of a Grade II Historic Organ Listing from the British Institute of Organ Studies in 2024. The technical specification is as follows: –
Pedal Compass C to c1 25 notes
Bourdon 16’
Great Compass C to g3 56 notes
Open Diapason 8’
Stopd Diapason 8’
Dulciana 8’
Principal 4’
Couplers
Great to Pedal
Octave Coupler
Mechanical key and stop actions
Attractive stencilled front pipes
(I am indebted to Lance Foy for supplying information that has enabled me to fill some of the historical gaps in my preparation of this article.)
Jeffrey Williams
Director of Music, St Ives Parish Church
Organs Advisor to the Diocese of Truro
Historic Organs Co-Ordinator for the British Institute of Organ Studies