THE wardens of Owslebury church pulled out all the stops to rescue a 150-year-old vintage wooden organ from the scrapheap.

The Victorian instrument was discovered on auction site eBay earlier this year and faced an uncertain future until church organist Colin Harvey persuaded St Andrews to support his rescue plan.

After months of fundraising and renovations the organ has been restored to its former glory and has been officially unveiled.

Mr Harvey said: “The organ is just the right size so it was a rare opportunity. I then had to persuade the church wardens to support my ‘hare-brained idea’ and I thank them greatly for their support.”

Rev Jonah Watts added: “St Andrew’s has been blessed with the opportunity to obtain this recycled organ and we are very grateful for the work of all those who have brought the instrument back to life and to the church. This ‘king’ of instruments will inspire us and certainly contribute greatly our worship.”

The organ was originally installed in the Primitive Methodist Church, Farnham in 1915 and was moved to Emmanuel Church, Farnham in 1936.

Emmanuel Church tried to sell it on eBay in 2013 and would have thrown it in a skip if they did not find a buyer. There was interest from Italy, Denmark, Germany, the US and Holland.

Mr Harvey said: “We had been looking for an organ for a while so acted quickly and secured it for the village church. Our old ‘electric-action’ organ had been failing.”

The organ was restored by Geoff Griffiths – the bellows were re-leathered and the handle for hand-blowing restored to full operational order. The casework was restored to its original finish and all the mechanisms cleaned and overhauled.

The brass desk light above the music stand was rescued from Winchester tip by Mr Harvey (Winchester recycling centre).

The church was given a grant of £6,500 from Churchcare, the Church Buildings Council, to help fund the purchase and restoration.

The 320-pipe organ was built in 1864 by William Hill & Son.

Hill was the leading organ builder in the 1860s and was a pioneer organ builder, developing the organ from the elegant Georgian style instruments into the large, impressive romantic Victorian organs, echoing the development of the Symphony Orchestra.