I would be so very grateful to receive a good diagram or photos of a Nag's Head Swell. Is there a kind soul who can help me? Do E-mail or drop a message to make contact. More the merrier. I am on a learning curve!

Many thanks,

Nigel

I believe that there is a line-drawing of a Nag's-head Swell in The Organ Today, by John Norman.

However, I cannot check this at present, since I am currently in school - I will look later.

As far as I can remember, it consisted of two frames with, if you will, fixed shutters (flush to the face of the frame) These frames were, in turn, placed on the front of a three-sided box. One frame was positioned vertically in front of the other, and was arranged so that it could be raised or lowererd, thus altering the co-incidence of the horizontal openings, creating more, or less egress for the tone to emerge. I believe that there was a counter-balancing device, to assist in moving the weight of the frame.

My apologies for the somewhat convoluted description - I have not seen the drawing for a long time. I hope that this is 1) helpful and 2) correct!

There is a photo on page 42 of the November 2005 issue of Organists' Review of the new Goetz and Gwynn reconstruction for a single manual Avery organ in the context of Paul Hale's "something old, something new" column.

Best wishes,

BAC