Activities

Our volunteer-led archival research project is uncovering the fascinating histories of the men to whom the organ is dedicated. This research has informed many of our other activities.

As well as funding the organ restoration, the grant from the National Heritage Lottery Fund supported a six-month trainee placement in organ restoration with the organ builders, based just outside Canterbury in Kent.

Through the St Mellitus Music Scholarship programme, children from local schools who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity are receiving piano lessons.

In April 2021 a filmmaking workshop gave local young people the opportunity to interview two of the volunteer archive researchers and learn about the story of the organ and the men commemorated by it.  Using their newly aquired skills they created a documentary about the soldiers and individual films reflecting on their own experience of living through a pandemic.

A programme of musical events and activities is central to the Hunter memorial organ restoration project.

Like many, we had to cancel live events during the pandemic and move them online. You can see see these, including a song series on the theme of ‘home’ and our centenary event on 13th December 2020 on our YouTube channel

School children and young musicians have been participating in workshops taking the memorial organ as inspiration, which led to the creation of the Objects as Memorials soundscapes and accompanying animations.