ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From: Stan Krider, March 2011
The Buttermarket Theatre/night club venue is currently closed
The Wurlitzer was first installed in the Ritz cinema at Chatham in Kent and was opened by Harold Ramsay,
the then Musical Director of Union Cinemas, on 22nd March 1937.
Wurlitzer files show 12/17/36 as date on organ shipping.
When the cinema closed the organ was placed in storage for several years.??
The Shropshire Theatre Organ Trust brought the organ and installed it in the Buttermarket in 1988.?
The console is one of only three Wurlitzer organs to have the glass illuminated surround designed by Beard.
The organ was re-opened on Sunday 4th December 1988 by Dudley Savage.
The organ originally had 8 ranks when at Chatham.
The installation at the Buttermarket was by David Pawlyn in late 1980s.
'De-luxe' Union Wurlitzer designed by Harold Ramsay, featuring double-bolster stop rail,
fully-unified three manuals, comparatively rare Wurlitzer 32' resultant pedal stop and when installed in the
original cinema there was a phantom piano installed on its own lift.
The organ has recently been enlarged to 10 ranks with the addition of an English Horn and Kinura
The organ has a full three manual console with ten ranks of pipes -
Gamba, Gamba Celeste, Flute, Diapason, Tibia, Clarinet, Saxophone, Trumpet, Kinura and English Horn.
From: Ian McIver, March 2011
Unless it has subsequently been changed, there is no French Trumpet 16, but a #2 Trumpet 8ft (61 pipes).
Chatham was the first of the Union full 3/8s, and was the only one of them not to have a French Trumpet.
It had a grand piano on its own lift in the pit beside the console, which had the simpler and narrower fancy illuminated surround.
There were more than four Wurlitzers with the fancy surround (pillar and vase) -
Barnsley, Aldershot, Chatham, Luton, Hastings, Stockport and Richmond, the later ones with wider pillars than the others.
The earliest Union Wurlitzers at Huddersfield and Ipswich had the "Rainbow" style of illumination.