n the course of my research I have collected over a hundred references to the existence of secular British organs in the seventeenth century. Most refer to small chamber instruments of the various consort types (chest, table, cabinet and claviorgan) but a few are known to have been larger church-style instruments in secular settings, such as the well-known extant example at Adlington Hall, Cheshire. The type is identified wherever possible in the list. I have, as at present, chosen to omit references to organs in domestic chapels, although it is clear from some references that some of these were actually consort organs. An extant example is that in the estate church at Staunton Harold, Leicestershire: below the dummy church organ case is a c1630 consort organ.

Primary sources are quoted wherever possible, or otherwise the earliest known secondary source. Dates refer to the reference and not necessarily the construction of the organ.

The situation at the court is obscured by the fact that the surviving references are complex, incomplete and often imprecise. The frequent movement of organs within and between the London palaces, together with the difficulty of distinguishing between references to liturgical and secular organs in the accounts, complicates the picture further. Nevertheless, it seems that a ‘pool’ of some four to five instruments was available to the Lutes, Viols and Voices prior to the Civil War, and a similar number was provided for the Private Musick after the Restoration. A number of other instruments are listed in the apartments of various court officials at Whitehall and St James’s but were presumably for their private use.

The list is inevitably incomplete (information regarding additions would be gratefully received) and the surviving references probably represent a fraction of the instruments that once existed.

References to consort organs from the long seventeenth century
Date	Location		Source
1598	Whitehall		Groos, G. (Ed.), The Diary of Baron Waldstein (London; Thames and Hudson, 1981), 45
Baron Waldstein described the organ as inlaid with mother-of-pearl and bearing a Latin inscription extolling the virtues of Elizabeth I.
1598	Secret Jewel House, Privy Gallery, Whitehall		Ibid.
Waldstein’s description 'on which two persons can play duets' suggests something more than two people playing at the same keyboard: perhaps it was a claviorgan with keyboards set in different sides of the instrument. The instrument was seen again in 1612 (see below). The Secret Jewel House was a chamber in the Privy Gallery in which a number of the instruments in the Henry VIII inventory were recorded in 1547.
1599	Whitehall Palace		Williams, Clare (Ed.), Thomas Platter’s Travels in England 1599 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937)
Thomas Platter of Basel observed in his diary that there were ‘small positive organs’ in some of the apartments.
1599	Hampton Court		Williams, Clare (Ed.), Thomas Platter’s Travels in England 1599 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937)
Thomas Platter described ‘ instruments, positive organs, and organs of which Her Royal Majesty is a great lover and connoisseur’. What was the difference between these categories, in his eyes?
1599	Presence Chamber, Greenwich Palace		Williams, Clare (Ed.), Thomas Platter’s Travels in England 1599 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937)
Platter was allowed to play a ‘positive organ’ here during his tour of the palace.
c1600	Blackfriars Theatre, London		F. Gershow quoted in Lindley, D., Shakespeare and Music (London: Bloomsbury, 2006), 92
The upper story of the tiring house at the theatre was divided into three boxes, one of which was used by the musicians. Gershow reported hearing an organ in a pre-performance entertainment in 1602, and it was specified in several of the plays staged there, such as Marston's Triumph of Sophonisba (1606).
c1600	St Paul's Theatre, London		Taylor, M. (Ed.), Thomas Middleton: A Mad World, My Masters, and Other Plays (Oxford: OUP, 1995), 16
An organ was specified in some of the plays presented here, such as Middleton's A Mad World, My Masters , which includes a scene featuring an organ and organist as a symbol of excessive wealth.
1601	Chatsworth, Derbyshire		Thomas Lawson-Tancred, Records of a Yorkshire Manor (London: Arnold, 1937), 175-83
An inventory listed ‘an instrument with virginals’ in the high gallery
1602	Hengrave Hall, Suffolk: chapel		John Gage, The History and Antiquities of Hengrave Hall, Suffolk (London: James Carpenter, 1822), 32
An inventory recorded a table organ in the chapel: ‘one payer of little orgaynes, w th a board w h they stand on’
1603	Hengrave Hall, Suffolk: music room		Gage, J., The History and Antiquities of Hengrave Hall, Suffolk. (London: James Carpenter, 1822), 21-2
The inventories of the Kitson family include lists of the instruments and repertoire used at Hengrave. The 'wind instrument like a virginall' appears either to have been a chest organ, or perhaps a claviorgan in a rectangular case.
1605	Thorndon Hall, Essex		Hatfield House, Cecil Papers cxci ff.272r-273v
Thorndon supported an impressive musical establishment at which Byrd and Mico served. The organ may be that supplied by Robert Brough, Byrd's brother-in-law, for £50 in 1585, although another organ was also listed in the chapel. Byrd was heard playing the organ here in 1605.
1606	Earl of Suffolk’s chambers, Whitehall		Salisbury MSS bills 33
A portative organ. One of several organs recorded across the century in the rooms of noble occupants of chambers at Whitehall.
1607	Austin Friars, London: Sir Fulke Greville		Hulse, L., The Musical Patronage of English Aristocracy, c.1590-1640 (Unpublished PhD Thesis, King's College, London, 1992), 114
Greville patronised Martin Peerson, but little is otherwise known about musical activity at his house. The reference refers to the loan of an organ to Salisbury House.
1607	Holborn: Mr Brownlow		Hatfield Hoouse: CFEP Bills 14
An instrument was brought to Salisbury House from here on 30 October, set up and tuned by Thomas Dallam, and then returned and retuned the following day, each time for 5s plus 18d porterage. This was probably Richard Brownlow (1553-1638).
1607	Ruckholt, Essex		Wiggins, M., British Drama: A Catalogue 1533-1642 Vol. V (Oxford: OUP, 2015), 400
John Bull was recorded playing this instrument whilst James I dined privately at a banquet at the Merchant Taylors Hall in 1607. It had been loaned by Sir Michael Hickes from Ruckholt, and transported thence for £2 18s.
1608	Hatfield House: Robert Cecil		HMC Salisbury MS Bills 33
Thomas Dallam supplied the organ, previously sited in the Earl of Suffolk’s chambers at Whitehall, for £24, though it is not certain that he made it.
1609	Salisbury House: Robert Cecil		HMC Salisbury MSS Accounts 9/5
The organ was supplied by the Dutchman John Haan as part of a consignment of luxury goods, though it is not certain, and probably unlikely, that he built it. There is no clear evidence to suggest that it was sourced from overseas. It was gilded by Rowland Buckett in 1611 for £26 4s 3d, by which time it was at Hatfield House. It was recorded in the larger of the two Great Chambers, built for a visit of James I, in 1612.
1609	Hatfield House: Robert Cecil		HMC Salisbury MSS Accounts 160/1 f.139.
Another organ sourced through Haan for £35. Thomas Dallam set up and repaired this instrument in 1610.
1611	St James's Palace: Prince Henry		D-Kl ms68 f70
Landgrave Otto, Prince of Hesse-Kassel visited London and saw an organ bearing Prince Henry’s arms and decorated with mother-of-pearl (an origin in Dordrecht, as reported by Roy Strong, is not recorded in the source)
1611	Whitehall Palace: Queen Anne		D-Kl ms68 f70
Landgrave Otto recorded ‘ A positive of silver. A beautiful organ, mostly of silver parts, which when wound up played itself, and [figurines of] Mary and the Christ child upon it went around by themselves. Emblems were found painted upon shields, representing the knights’
1612	Privy Gallery, Whitehall Palace: Secret Jewel House		Horace, Earl of Orford (ed.), Paul Hentzner’s Travels in England (London: Edward Jeffery, 1797)
Paul Hentzner recorded an organ 'on which two may play at the same time' as one of his top-ten attractions at Whitehall’. It appears to be the same instrument seen by Waldstein in 1598.
1612	Salisbury House, London		Hatfield MSS, Box C/40
Salisbury House was built for Sir Robert Cecil and completed in 1602. The 1612 inventory listed the following organs, though not the rooms in which they stood. The 'greate Organ in a Case of Wainscott' may possibly have been housed in the chapel. See also entries for 1629 and 1646.
A 'ffaire greate wynd Instrument the Case of Wallnutree curiously inlayed'.
A 'greate harpsicall wynd Instrum't with virginall in it, in a Case of wood painted'.
A 'litle Organ in a Case of wainscot with a frame to stand uppon'.
1613	Whitehall Palace: Queen Anne		Neumair von Ramsla, Johann Wilhelm. Des Durchlauchtigen Hochgebornen Fürsten und Herrn Herrn Johann Ernsten des Jüngern Hertzogen zu Sachsen ... Reise In Franckreich Engelland und Niederland (Leipzig, 1620), p.176
Duke Johann Ernsten the Younger of Saxe-Weimar saw ‘An artwork from [?by] Cölla; below, a positive, which played itself: above stood twelve trumpeters who blow, and a little figure that danced and bowed before two people placed in the middle under a throne’. Evidently there was a clockwork mechanism and automata in this organ.
1613	Whitehall Palace: Queen Anne		Neumair von Ramsla, Johann Wilhelm. Des Durchlauchtigen Hochgebornen Fürsten und Herrn Herrn Johann Ernsten des Jüngern Hertzogen zu Sachsen ... Reise In Franckreich Engelland und Niederland (Leipzig, 1620), p.178
Duke Ernsten recorded ‘ There also stood a positive, crafted very beautifully in black ebony, in the middle of this gallery; one could operate it so that it played by itself; in the middle on top the holy three kings went in and out’. This suggests clockwork and automata, but possibly also an organ that could be played manually.
1615	Lord Arundel's House, Greenwich		Letter 23 Feb 1614/15, quoted in Hervey, M., The Life, Correspondence & Collections of Thomas Howard Earl of Arundel (Cambridge: CUP, 1921), 93
Arundel instructed: 'let the organ be removed into the lower dininge Chamber'.
1615	Sir Arthur Ingram’s house in Bow, London		WYL 178/14, 25
An organ (first recorded in 1614) was brought from the Ingrams’ London house to Sherriff Hutton Hall in Yorkshire. This and several other organs appear regularly in the household accounts (see below passim).
1616	London, Ware Park, Warwick Lane: Sir Henry Fanshawe		Lee, S., 'Sir Henry Fanshawe' National Dictionary of Biography 18, (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1888), 183-4
John Ward, patronised by Fanshawe, mentioned a 'great Winde Instrument' in 1616 with reference to a now lost organ book to works for viols and voices in Tristitiae Remedium
1618	Buckhurst Park, Sussex: parlour		Town, E., 'A House Re-edified': Thomas Sackville and the Transformation of Knole 1605-1608 . (DPhil thesis, University of Sussex, 2010), 197
Buckhurst was the ancient seat of the Earls of Dorset, the first of whom owned the extant Knole organ of c.1600. It is unlikely that this is the Knole organ, which appears to have remained in use at Knole after the dissolution of the first earl's musical establishment there in 1608, but it is not impossible.
1619	Hedon, Yorkshire		CW Bolton MSS book 98 f.84v
The young Hingeston, in the service of the Earl of Cumberland, sent two musicians from Skipton to inspect this organ in 1619.
1620	Skipton Castle, Yorkshire		CW Bolton MSS bk. 99, f. 223v
A 'virginal with a wind instrument in it' that was one of several organs that Hingeston was responsible for in the Cliffords’ northern residences.
1620	Normanby Hall, Lincolnshire		CW Bolton MSS book 98 f. 252.
This represents the loan of the instrument from Lord Sheffield to the 4th Earl of Cumberland for a visit of Emmanuel Scrope to Londesborough in 1620. It was transported via the Trent and Ouse for 18s.
1621	Barley, Herts		DNB Vol 61
Andrew Willett, Rector of Barley, played on 'a little organ which he had in his house'
1622	St James’s Palace	Craddock	SC6/Jas.I/1685 (RECM IV, 225)
This instrument was for the use of 'Coperario's Musicke' at the court of Prince Charles. It cost £44 and took 5 months to make (the wording of the document suggests a repair, but the price and time scale suggest otherwise). Many of the consort works written by Coprario and Gibbons for it may be identified. Given the influence of this repertoire, it is a pity that nothing more is known of the instrument.
1622	House of Sir Henry Belassis, York		Wombwell MS 112
Sir Henry’s will listed, in the chapel, ‘one paire of organs set upon a cupboard’, which rather suggests a consort instrument
1624	Gilling Castle, Yorkshire		Peacock, (Ed.), Inventories made for Sir William and Sir Thomas Fayrfax, Archaeologica XLVIII pt.1 (London: Society of Antiquaries, 1885), 138-9
Listed in the great chamber. The nomenclature 'rigalles' here suggests that this was an old instrument of one of the types represented in the Henry VIII inventory.
1624	Sheriff Hutton, Yorkshire: Sir Arthur Ingram		WYL MS TN/SH/A4/15
A payment of £20 to Brownlesse and Mashrother for setting up and painting (by ‘Ric the painter’) an organ at Sherriff Hutton: it isn’t clear which of the Ingrams’ instruments this was (it was not the one from the York house): it may have been for the house’s chapel. We may note that Ingram purchased bought gold leaf from Rowland Buckett.
1624	Londesborough Hall, Yorkshire		Hulse, L., John Hingeston, Chelys 12, 23-42 (VdGS, 1983), 27
Mashrother and Brownlesse rebuilt this organ in 1624, replacing metal pipes with wooden ranks. This is an interesting alteration that may have been intended to render it more suitable for use with string consorts. Mashrother is also recorded as a maker of viols.
1624	Salisbury House, London: chapel		MA MSS Box C/4
The upper chapel had a ‘paire of organs upon a frame’, suggesting a table organ.
1627	Stonyhurst, Lancashire: the hall		Sherborn, C., A History of the Family of Sherborn (London: Mitchell & Hughes, 1901), 40
Richard Sherborn left a 'paire of organes standing in the hall' and other instruments to his son.
1627	Music School, Oxford		Och MS Mus. Sch C203*(R)
A 'Harpsichord with a winde instrument of two stops' was recorded in an inventory of instruments and associated furniture in 1627. This instrument served until c1665 when it was replaced by an organ by Ralph Dallam.
1627	Glamis Castle, Scotland: Great Hall		Glamis Archives MS NRA(S) 0885/257(1). The organ was mentioned again in an inventory of 1648 MS NRA9S) 0885 256/1(2)
This 'Ane pair of Organes' is one of only three references to secular organs in sources from Scotland from the whole of the century.
1628	Cawood Castle, Yorkshire: Archbishop's Palace		Althorp papers Bl/39/l.
An 'Organ with a harpsicall'.
1629	Denmark House: Queen Henrietta Maria		Pro SC6/ChasI/1694 (RECM V, 5)
This source, recording the tuning of an organ by Burward, dates from before the construction of the neighbouring Catholic chapel, so is likely to be a secular organ in style, although it might have been used in the temporary chapel set up within the house in 1626.
1629	Salisbury, Choristers’ House, Parlour		Payne, I., The Will and Probate Inventory of John Holmes (d.1629): Instrumental Music at Winchester and Salisbury Cathedrals Revisited, The Antiquaries Journal 83, 369-96 (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 2003)
The inventory of John Holmes, organist of Salisbury Cathedral, recorded an organ and 'table board and 6 joyne stools' in the parlour of the choristers' house in 1629. These were evidently used for consort playing by the boys.
1629	Salisbury House, London		Salisbury MSS Box C/8
The 1629 inventory of the house listed organs in the great chamber and great withdrawing chamber. See also entries for 1612, 1624 and 1646: some of these entries will refer to the same organs.
1629	Canterbury Cathedral Deanery		DCcITA37
The Dean Bargrave table organ at Canterbury was made by John Burward for £22 and installed for 48s.
c1629	Chelsea House: Great Chamber		KAO U269/K293
The house was owned at this time by the politician and military leader the 1st Duke of Hamilton, but little is known of the musical activity there despite the presence listed here of two domestic organs.
1629	Chelsea House: Dining room		KAO U269/K264
The second of the Chelsea House organs.
1629	House of Leonard Jeffries, Earls Croome		Malcolm Wanklyn Inventories of Worcestershire Landed Gentry 1537-1786 (Worcestershire Historical Society new series vol16 1998), 153
An inventory listed a ‘paire of organs’ in the parlour.
1630s	Kirby Hall, Northants		Wainwright, J., Musical Patronage in Seventeenth-Century England: Christopher, First Baron Hatton (1605-1670) (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997),25-6
This organ was associated with the significant collection of consort MSS amassed by the Hattons, much of which is extant. The organist and composer George Jeffreys was a member of the household.
c1630	Little Gidding Manor, Cambs.Great Chamber		Blackstone, B., (Ed.), The Ferrar Papers (Cambridge: CUP, 1938), 29
The household of Nicholas Ferrar is interesting for the strict and regular domestic devotions that took place there on the hour from 8am to 6pm every day. Many of these involved the organ in the accompaniment of psalms. See also c1637.
1630	Hunstanton Hall, Norfolk		Accounts quoted in Dunan-Page, A., and Lynch, B., (Eds.), Roger L'Estrange and the Making of Restoration Culture (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 150-1
A highly significant survivor. The very low price of £11 prompts speculation that it was purchased second-hand and thus predates 1630 – or did more money come from another account? Associated with the extant and extensive L'Estrange MS collection (esp. works by Jenkins, who was resident) and probably played at Hunstanton by Thomas Brewer.
1630	?Hammersmith: Earl of Mulgrave		Bolton MSS Book 161
The Sheffield family also owned Normanby Hall (see above) but little is known of their musical activity.
1631	Temple Newsam Hall, Yorkshire
The organ mentioned at Sheriff Hutton Hall above in 1624 was moved to Temple Newsam by George Brownlesse.
1631	Fawley Court		WMI Whitelocke Papers, v24 f239
An organ was used with other instruments in a gallery at the back of the chapel, concealed behind a curtain.
1631 and 1635	Workington Hall, Cumberland		Audrey Douglas and Peter Greenfield (Eds.) REED Cumberland/Westmorland (University Of Toronto Press Toronto 1986), 45, 53
The accounts of the Curwen family recorded repairs to an ‘instrument’ in this year, another repair to the ‘organs’ was made in 1635.
1633	Harefield Place, Middlesex		Hastings MSS Misc box 1
An organ tuned by Burward. Harefield was home to Richard Newdigate, Lord Chief Justice, but nothing is known of any music practised there.
1633	Edinburgh		Maitland, W., History of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Hamilton, Balfour and Neill, 1753), 66
An organ was set up on a stage in Edinburgh High Street as part of a pageant to celebrate the visit of Charles I. It was played by Andrew Sinclaire in an ode entitled Caledonia by Stephen Tulliduff. This one of only two secular organs identified in Scotland in the C17.
1634	Old Thorndon Hall		CF D. DP. F. 224
An inventory mentions ‘an old organ chest’ in the long gallery.
1634	Chester, Richard Newbold		Legg, L. (Ed.), A Relation of a Short Survey of 26 Counties in a Seven Weeke Journey (London: Russell Press, 1904), 46-7
Newbold was organist of Chester Cathedral. His 'domesticke organ' was played to his visitors.
1634	York residence of Sir Arthur Ingram		Lbl Lansdowne MS 213 f.320
Members of the Norwich military company saw the organ here which they valued ay £500. The various entries relating to organs in the Ingram residences suggest that it could have been a particularly elaborate one, but £500 still seems a implausibly large amount for a domestic instrument.
1635	Wrottesley Hall, Staffs: parlour		Inventory of Sir Hugh Wrottesley: https://ereed.library.utoronto.ca/records/staff-ridm46169824/
The detailed inventory of Wrottesley mentions no other instruments apart from a virginals; the organ is listed in conjunction with prayer books and a bible in the parlour, suggesting that its principal function may have lain in domestic devotion.
1636	Welbeck Abbey, Derbyshire: Long Gallery		Inventory quoted in Hulse, L., The Duke of Newcastle and the English Viol, Chelys 29, 28-43
William Cavendish maintained a large musical establishment at Welbeck. 'Mr Tomkins' was organist. It is interesting to find this 'Organ and harpsicall, to geather' in the relatively private Long Gallery rather than the Great Chamber: Cavendish himself played the viol recreationally. Another organ, possibly a consort instrument,, was used in the chapel.
c1637	Little Gidding Manor, Cambs.		Izaak Walton, Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich’d Hooker, Georg Herbert &c Vol II (London: Richard Marriott, 1670), 336 fn24
Walton reported that, soon after Sir Nicholas Ferrar’s death, his organ was burnt by Parliamentarian troops to roast a sheep.
1637 (and 1641)	Haddon Hall		G. le Blanc Smith, Haddon, the manor, the hall, its lords and traditions. (London, 1906)
An inventory recorded a 'gilded orgaine' in the gallery in 1637, along witt three harpsichords . It was repaired in 1649. There was also an organ by Burward in the chapel, although it is not known if this was a consort or liturgical type organ although the price of £82 8s and weight of 18 hundred weight and 21lbs suggests the latter.
1638	Tawstock Court, Devon		MA U269/A518/5, 226
The earls of Bath maintained liveried musicians at Tawstock. This 'pair of organs with virginals' was listed in an inventory in the Parlour in 1638 and in the staircase hall, together with other instruments, in 1639. It may also be the 'old organ' listed in a bedchamber in 1655.
1639	Tawstock Court, Devon: Great Chamber		MA U269/A518/5, 219
A 'fair organ' valued at £100: an expensive instrument, which may therefore have been unusually large or lavishly decorated.
1640	Denmark House: drawing room		Pro SC6/ChasI/1704 (RECM V, 17)
Queen Henrietta-Maria's withdrawing room was the last in a sequence of chambers leading to her Great Bed Chamber, wherein she received visitors in the French manner. This 'newe cabinet organ' may be the instrument sold in 1650 for £10.
1640	Somerset House, queen’s chapel		AB Wynnstay MS 185 (Declaration of the accounts of Sir Richard Wynn 1639-40)
Robert Dallam tuned a ‘new cabinet organ’ here four times for £6: the organ was placed in the gallery beyond the altar in which the queens Capuchin friars sang.
c1640	Londesborough Hall, Yorkshire: Great Parlour		CW Bolton MSS bk. 100, ff. 196-97
Another reference to the organ rebuilt in 1624 (see above).
1640	Arthur Ingram’s House, York		WYL 100/EA/13/30 f71v
George Brownlesse was paid for repairing two organs for Ingram, and for dismantling the organ in the Great Chamber at the York house (mentioned in 1634 above).
c1640	Skipton Castle, Yorkshire: parlour		CW Bolton MSS bk. 99, f. 223v
One of the instruments played by Hingeston during his service at Skipton.
1640	Whitehall Palace: queen's apartments		Lpro LR5/67 (RECM VIII, 127)
This is presumably one of the two Denmark House organs recorded above: it seems to have temporarily replaced the organ from the queen's privy gallery at Whitehall which itself was temporarily in use in her chapel at Whitehall whilst the organ there was repaired.
1640	Knowsley, Merseyside: 7 th Earl of Derby		WOo MS xxv f.47
Little is known of the musical activity in this prominent Royalist household.
1641	Tawstock Court, Devon		MA U269/A518/5, 185
Extensive correspondence on the purchase of this organ, made for £55, and the interaction with Robert Dallam survives. It was built by him whilst, or just after, he was working on his Gloucester Cathedral organ, and transported to Tawstock by water where it was inspected by John Lugge, organist of Exeter.
1641	Barnard's Castle, London		Bolton MSS Book179
The London home of the Earls of Pembroke. Lady Anne Clifford lived here from 1641 after her marriage to the 4th Earl: she is noted for her ability in music, tuition by Jenkins, patronage of Henry Lawes etc.
1642	Ingram, York House		WYL178/14, 125
Brownlesse was paid for taking down the organ in the Great Chamber of the Ingrams’ York residence.
1643	Croydon: Archbishop Laud		Laud, W. The History of the Troubles and Tryal of Archbishop Laud (London, Chiswell, 1645), 455
Laud left a number of instruments to his organist, John Cobb.
1646	Bath House, London		MA U269/A518/1
Although the account entry for this organ is amongst items for Tawstock Court, it seems more likely that the London-based Burward built it for the Bourchiers' house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It cost £20.
1646	Salisbury House, London		Salisbury MSS box C/4, 5, 8, 9
Organs were recorded in the great chamber, upper chapel, and Lady Lisle’s bedchamber. There is probably some crossover with the entries for 1612 and 1629
1648	Haddon Hall, Derbyshire
Thomas Thamar (of Peterborough) was paid £7 for repairing an organ and harpsichord
1649	London: Edward Norgate		Will of Edward Norgate, 5 October 1649. Pro PROB 11/215
We may assume that Norgate, organ maker to the court, built this organ for himself.
1649	Dorset House, London		MA U269/E79/3
The London home of the Earls of Dorset had an organ 'upon the stayers'.
1649	Wimbledon Palace, London		Inventory of household furniture of Charles I, 5th October 1649, quoted in RECM VIII, 133
The organ in the hall was valued at £6 – a paltry sum for what was described as a ‘fayre and riche payre of organs’.
1649	Hampton Court		Millar, The King's Goods, 178
The description and condition (a Paire of Portaves broke to peeces 2s.) of this and several other organs in the catalogue of royal instruments sold off during the Interregnum suggest that it may have been a survival from the 1549 Henry VIII inventory.
1649	Hampton Court		Ibid. 178
A 'Regalls in an old case' 10s. Many of the Henry VIII instruments were 'regals' that combined a regal stop with flue pipes.
1649	Hampton Court		Ibid. 178
A 'paire of Portaves covered with sattine 2s'. A number of the Henry VIII instruments were described as covered in Bruges Satin, a combination of satin and wool.
1649	Hampton Court, Kitchens		Ibid. 184
A 'pr of broken Organs' £2
1649	Whitehall Palace: Jewel House		Ibid. 385
One old Clocke to make an Organ goe' 10s. This appears to be a clockwork mechanism to play an organ automatically. It may have been similar to those made by the Dallams, such as that incorporated into the famous gift to Sultan Mehmet.
1649	St James's Palace: Major Legg's quarters		Ibid. 364
Valued at £20, this appears to have been a privately owned organ rather than a court instrument. Is this William Legge, Groom of the Bedchamber, or William Legge, Keeper of the Wardrobe?
1649	Haddon Hall, Derbyshire		G. le Blanc Smith Haddon, the manor, the hall, its lords and traditions (London 1906)
Thomas Thamar of Peterborough was paid £7 for ‘repareing & setting in order both the orgaines & Harpsicall’
c1650	Kirtling Hall, Cambridgeshire		North Family Account Books, quoted on the Loosemore website accessed 18 January 2018
Henry Loosemore (organist of King's College, Cambridge) occupied himself during the Interregnum as Lord North's semi-resident organist. The use to which this instrument was put is described in detail in Roger North's various reminiscences.
c1650	Whitehall Palace: Cockpit Theatre		Anthony Wood quoted in Hulse, L., John Hingeston, Chelys 12 (VdGS, 1983), 28
Designed by Inigo Jones, the Cockpit Theatre staged the lavish masques of Charles I's court, but no organs are recorded in conjunction with these. Wood claimed that Cromwell had the organ placed there (from elsewhere in Whitehall?) and Hingeston was employed to accompany Dering's Latin motets on it for his entertainment.
1650	Chelsea, Danvers House, residence of Sir John Danvers		Will of Edward Norgate Lna PROB 11/215 q.9
The will of organ builder Edward Norgate mentioned ‘my greate Organ remaineinge with my honoured freind Sir John Danvers of Chelsey in trust for my son Thomas Norgate’ Aubrey recorded that Danvers was a patron of Christopher Gibbons. See also 1652.
1651	St James's Palace: Col. Hamand		Millar, The King's Goods, 419
It is not yet certain which of the various Hammonds who were involved in the Civil War this refers to: presumably one of those on the Royalist side as his property is being confiscated. The organ was sold for £10.
1650s	London: Mitre Tavern		Wilson, Roger North, 107-9
According to North, the organist Phillips played on this 'chamber organ' in a lane behind St Paul's to an audience of smoking and drinking shopkeepers and foremen. The repertoire was mainly drawn from Playford's collections of catches. (North did not approve of music houses).
1652	Chelsea, Danvers House		BL Egerton MS 1997 ff68 r-v
On the 10 March Lodewijk Huygens heard Christopher Gibbons play on a chamber organ at the house of Sir John Danvers – presumably this was Norgate’s organ.
1652	London: Davis Mell		Holman, P., Mell, Davis in Sadie, S. and Tyrell, J. (Eds.) The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians: Second Edition XVI, 348-9. (Oxford: OUP, 2001)
Mell had led the court violin band for Charles I, and was recorded playing with various other former court musicians at his house.
1658	Kimberley Lodge, Norfolk: music room		Will of Sir Thomas Wodehouse, quoted in Earl, J., The Wodehouses of Kimberley (n.p., 1887)
Sir Philip Wodehouse inherited his father's extensive collection of instruments, including an organ, in this year. It was at Kirtling that John Jenkins spent his final years.
1655	Tawstock Court, Devon		MA U269/A520/4.
John Loosemore looked after the instruments at Tawstock and also undertook general maintenance duties, reflecting his dual role of organ builder and Clerk of the Works at Exeter Cathedral. This organ was made for £21.
1660	Whitehall Palace: Earl of Sandwich's apartments		Pepys 9 November 1660
Pepys described this organ as 'an ugly one in the form of Bridewell'. It is not clear what he meant by this.
1660	Whitehall Palace		Pro LC 3/2 ( RECM I, 3) Pro E351/546 f.25r (RECM V, 113)
This organ was ordered for Christopher Gibbons within months of the Restoration, demonstrating the importance placed on re-establishing the Private Musick after the Interregnum.
c1660	Whitehall Palace, John Hingeston's chambers		Läó»Estrange, R., Truth and Loyalty Vindicated... (London: H Brome and A. Seil. 1662), 50
Roger L'Estrange (a prominent Royalist activist, as well as a fine violist) was alarmed to be visited by Cromwell when playing consorts to the organ in Hingeston's chambers during the Interregnum. Cromwell listened awhile, but left without comment. This was possibly the two-manual organ mentioned in Hingeston’s will (see 1683).
1660s	Jesus College, Cambridge: chambers of John North		Lbl Add. MS. 32.514 f.28, 253
Roger North recorded that the noise of the bellows of his brother John's organ kept the student in the room below awake at night. The neighbour responded by playing bowls indoors in the early hours.
1660s	Oxford: William Ellis's music meetings		Kiessling, N. (Ed.), The Life of Anthony Wood in His Own Words (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2009), 47-9
Ellis, formerly organist of St John's College, played the organ at the influential meetings held in his house. Anthony Wood was a member and left a detailed account of the context in which this instrument was used.
1661	Cambridge: Henry Loosemore		Anon., Organ Building at Cambridge in 1606, The Ecclesiologist. Vol. XX No. CXXXV, 395 (London: Masters, 1859)
Loosemore, the organist of King’s College, loaned his own chamber organ to the chapel whilst the Dallam organ was being repaired. Henry was brother to the organ builder John, although no connection between him and this instrument is known.
c1662	Cubberley, Herefordshire: Parlour		Ward, R (Ed.), Thirteenth Report Part II: The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland, Preserved at Welbeck Abbey, England Vol. 2. (London: Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1891), 296
Thomas Baskerville remarked on this ‘fair organ’ and other instruments in the parlour of Mrs Castlemain of 'Coberly Hall'.
1662	St James’s Palace: Musique Room		Pro LC 5/138 (RECM I, 49)
The provision of organs at St James is obscured by confusing and incomplete references in the records. This organ was procured by Hingeston for the queen's private Catholic chapel at St James's in 1662, but was almost immediately removed to the adjoining music (rehearsal) room. It then appears to have been moved back to the chapel again in 1663 where it acted as a secondary instrument to the one acquired from Mico's residence (see below); the provision of two organs was a feature of the royal Catholic chapels at this time and its role in the music room was taken over by an organ moved from Whitehall (also see below).
1662	Hampton Court		Pro LC 5/138 (RECM I, .49)
Hingeston was paid £155 for two organs (the other for St James's) and a harpsichord. The sum suggests the two organs must therefore have been chamber instruments.
1663	St James's Palace,		Pro LC 9/375 (RECM I,.43)
This organ was moved to St James's from Whitehall for the 'French musique' to replace the chapel organ of 1662 that had been temporarily used in the music room (see above).
1663	Greenwich: Unidentified music house		Pepys, 21 August 1663
An organist named Arundell, whose services Pepys had secured for the Earl of Sandwich, was heard playing 'a fine voluntary or two' here.
1663	St James's Palace		Pro LC 9/375 (RECM I, 3)
An organ moved 'from Mr Micoes' (who was by now dead). It was described as a 'larger organ' than the other consort organ referred to in this entry (see above) and appears to have been used as the main organ in the Queen's chapel at St James's. It could be the organ in Jan Kip's engraving (c.1688) and thus a liturgical instrument.
1663	Arundel House, The Strand		de Beer, E. (Ed.), The Diary of John Evelyn (Oxford: OUP, 1955), Vol III, 310
Evelyn heard French and English musicians playing on viols, theorbos and organ here.
1663	Scampton Hall, Lincolnshire: High Gallery		Inventory quoted in Fleming, M. and Bryan, J., Early English Viols: Instruments, Makers and Music (Oxford: Routledge, 2016)
Scampton was the seat of Sir Robert Bolles, who employed Simpson and was acquainted with Jenkins and Locke. Valued at £60.
1663	Westminster: Dean's residence		Pepys, 3 August 1663
Pepys heard Christopher Gibbons play this organ when it was up for sale but considered it too big for his music room.
1663	Cambridge: George Loosemore:		Payne, I., George Loosemore at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1660-1682, Proc. Cambridge Antiquarian Society, lxxvii (Cambridge: CAS, 1988), 146
George was brother of Henry (and John) and, like Henry, loaned his chamber organ to his College chapel (Trinity) whilst repairs were effected.
1665	Oxford: Music School	Ralph Dallam	Hawkins, J., A General History of the Science and Practice of Music IV (London: Payne & Son, 1776), 375
£10 was given for the old claviorgan (see above). The new organ, made for £48, was painted and gilded by a Mr Taylor for £1 10s and placed between two cupboards housing the extensive university MS collection, most of which survives. It was rebuilt by Green in 1774 although much original material survives behind the case front. Since 1937 it has been housed in Worcester Cathedral. A number of sources detail the context and repertoire associated with this organ at Oxford.
c.1666	Exeter: Cathedral choir school	Loosemore	Hopkins, E and Rimbault, E., The Organ: Its History and Construction (London: Robert Cocks & Co., 1855), 51-2
This organ included a 4ft flute, a stop that, on the consort organ, was particularly associated with vocal repertoire.
1666	Oxford: Exeter College: Narcissus Marsh's chambers		Hawkins, History, 793
The repertoire and extant sources associated with Marsh's meetings indicate that he had a consort organ at his disposal at Exeter College.
1667	Whitehall Palace: choristers music room		Pepys, 16 November 1667
In the choristers' music room Pepys heard the 'best and smallest organ go that ever I saw in my life', played by Captain Henry Cooke, for many years master of the Chapel Royal boys.
1667	Whitehall Palace: Privy Lodgings		Ob MS. Malone 44 f105v
Made for £40, no further information is known about this instrument.
1667	St James's Palace, Lord Aubigney's apartments		Pepys, 23 January 1667
A claviorgan that Pepys considered purchasing, but he described it as 'but a bauble, with a virginall joining to it'.
1668	London: Albertus Bryne		PROB 5/2825
Bryne was organist of St Paul's. The organ, together with other instruments, were valued at £30 at his death.
1669	Hanham Court, Bristol		PROB 11/329/118
Sir Henry Creswicke's will recorded ‘on Organ and virginalls’ in the great parlour, suggesting that it was a claviorgan.
1669	Chichester	Craddock	PROB 11/133/136
Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, left 'a cabinett organ made by Craddock' in his will.
1669	John Aubrey		J.E. Stephens (Ed.), Aubrey on Education: A Hitherto Unpuplished Manuscript by the Author of Brief Lives (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), 43
Aubrey specified an organ with a diapason, flute and fifteenth as an ideal instrument for accompanying singing in schools, although it is not certain if he ever had it made.
1670	Eton College		Keri Dexter A Good Quire of Voices: The Provision of Vhoral Music at St George’s Chapel, Windsor (Routledge, 2009), 34
John Heaver, Canon of Windsor, left an organ for 'the Organists Chamber for the better bringing up of the choristers in Musick'.
1670	Will of Robert Taunton, organ builder
Taunton (builder of Wells Cathedral organ 1664) left an organ to his wife, and a large organ to his son. The former may have been a consort instrument although the latter possibly wasn’t.
1674	Whitehall Palace, Banqueting House		Pro LC 5/141
Bernard Smith hired the organ for an unspecified occasion. Smith gave three days of his time for setting up and dismantling, including the event itself, for which he charged £4 plus 18s for porterage, representing roughly one and a half days' work for four men. Smith's house was located near Charing Cross and his workshop was also evidently close to Whitehall. Assuming the organ was required for a day's use, this suggests that a consort organ could be set up and tuned in less than a day when required.
1674	London: John Playford		Playford, J. (Ed.), Cantica Sacra, The Second Sett (London: Playford, 1674).
That Playford had an organ at his house is indicated by the preface to the second volume of his Cantica Sacra in which he described 'some noble Friends Seeing and Hearing perform'd (at my House) several Choice English Anthems of like nature for Two Voices to an ORGAN'.
1675	Dublin: Christ Church Cathedral choir school,		Boydell, B., A History of Music at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2004), 83
Bishop Fuller of Lincoln bequeathed this instrument to Dublin Cathedral in 1675. It had stood in his Lincoln residence.
1676	Cambridge: Thomas Mace		Mace, T., Musick's Monument, or a Remembrancer of the best Practical Musick (London: Mace, 1676), 243
Mace described and illustrated his 'table organ' of 8 stops in detail. It was designed specifically for consort playing, with music desks that could be folded down to reduce the volume and a specification that included reeds. That Mace was unfamiliar with some very similar continental examples, or with earlier English chest organs, is demonstrated by his claim that the design was of his own invention. It seems unlikely, though, that he actually built it himself as he claimed. Mace had a second similar instrument in his possession.
1678	Clerkenwell, London: Thomas Britton's music house		Hawkins, History ,790
Britton's organ was housed in the low room above his coal shop wherein he held his influential series of music meetings. After his death it was sold as being of 'five stops, exactly consort pitch, fit for a room, and with some adornments may serve for any chapel, being a very good one'.
1678	Bristol, house of John Bevill, Arms-painter		Probate Inventory quoted in George, E. and George, S., (Eds.), Bristol Probate Inventories 1657-1689 (Bristol: Bristol Record Society, 2005), 89
This record is highly unusual in recording the possession of not one but two organs by a tradesperson, albeit seemingly a successful one. A 'new Organ' valued at £20 was listed along with an 'old broken Organ' valued at £1.
1678	London, house of Silas Taylor		Andrew Clark (ed.), John Aubrey: Lives 2 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1890), 254
Taylor, a Parliamentarian officer but also a composer and friend of Locke, had 'a very fine chamber organ in those unmusicall days'.
1679	Cambridge, home of Samuel Newton		JE Foster (Ed.), The Diary of Samuel Newton, Alderman of Cambridge, 1662-1717 (Cambridge, Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1890)
‘Agreed then at the Rose with Mr. Thamar Organmaker in the presence of Mr. George Loosemore Organist for an Organ of 3 stopps viz. A dyapazon, a Flute and a Fifteenth to be delivered to me and sett upp at my house tomorrow, For which I agreed with him to pay him Eleaven poundes, of which I then gave him in parts one shilling'
1682	Oxford		PROB 11/370/400
Edward Lowe's will mentioned an organ to be sold.
1683	London, house of John Hingeston		PROB 11/375/
Hingeston left 'my organ whivh hath two Setts of Keys' to Ralph Courteville. If this was a consort organ, it was one of only two instruments known to have two manuals, the other being the extant instrument at Compton Wynyates.
1684	Farningham Manor, Kent: Organ Room		Inventory quoted in Charlston, T., An instrument in search of its repertoire? The Theewes claviorgan and its use in the performance of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century keyboard music. RCOJ 3, 24-41 (London: RCO, 2009)
The claviorgan made by Theeuwes in 1579, the remains of which are now in the V&A, was first recorded in 1684, although it was manufactured over a century earlier. The arms painted on it indicate it was made for Farningham, although it was later moved to Ightam Mote, also in Kent.
1685	Westminster Abbey		Francis Sandford, The History of the Coronation of the Most High, Most Mighty and Most Excellent Monarch James II… (London: Thomas Newcomb, 1687)
A ‘little organ’ was provided in a gallery on the south side of the choir to accompany the Chapel Royal choristers at the coronation of James II: it was probably one of the court consort organs.
1685	House of John Massey, Bristol		Probate inventory mentioned in Carl B Estnabrook Urban and rural England: cultural ties and social spheres in the provinces 1660-1780 (Manchester University Press 1998), 135
Massey was Dean of Bristol: his organ was in his parlour.
1686	Worcester Cathedral, music room		WO MS A29
Christianus Smith tuned a ‘little organ’ here.
1687	King’s School, Canterbury		CE Woodruff and HJ Cape , Schola Regia Cantuariensis (London: Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, 1908), 127
John Pease was paid for ‘wiring and tuning the little organ belonging to the school’
1689	Lutterworth, Leicestershire: house of Anthony Gore: Parlour		https://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/explore/sites/explore/files/explore_assets/2013/07/06/lutt_anthony_gore_1689.pdf
1 organ' with other goods including a harpsichord were valued at £3-10-06. Gore was a Leicestershire Justice, but nothing is known of his household.
?1690s	Rougham Hall, Norfolk: Gallery	Smith	Boydell, S., The Domestick or retired life of The Honble Roger North. (Unpublished MS, Forster Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1826)
According to North's writings, this organ was unusual for a consort instrument in possessing a Trumpet (of which North thought little). Burney praised it for its sprightly tone. North's organ was presented to the local parish church in 1785, and rebuilt in 1827 when a 4 stop Swell and a rank of pedal pipes was added to it. Three of the original stops (Stopped Diapason, Principal, Fifteenth) survive and are now incorporated in the Choir section of the current Richard Bower organ.
1690	Wapping: Mitre Tavern		Ward, E., The London Spy Compleat. (London: John How, 1703), 329
Ward's description paints a colourful picture of this music house with its 'hum-drum organ' that resembled the 'Harmonious Grunting of a Hog'.
1697	Exeter, house of Charles Rewallin		The Connoisseur 46, October 1916, 77-85
The will of the virginals and organ maker Charles Rewallin mentioned an organ and 'fower score Argon pipes'.
1697	House of Dame Mary Wintour, Huddington		Malcolm Wanklyn Inventories of Worcestershire Landed Gentry 1537-1786 (Worcestershire Historical Society new series vol16 1998), 263
Dame Mary’s will recorded a small organ in ‘my Ladyes Closett’.
1698	Worcester Cathedral		Emily Griffiths (Ed.), Celia Fiennes: Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary (London: Field and Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, 1888), unpaginated
Fiennes recorded that a ‘Little organ’ was placed by the pulpit ‘to set the Psalme’: it was probably a consort organ.
1698	Bretby Hall: chapel		Emily Griffiths (Ed.), Celia Fiennes: Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary (London: Field and Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, 1888), unpaginated
A small organ was recorded in the gallery at the chapel here.
1699	Islington, Sadler's Musick House		Ward, E., The London Spy Compleat. (London: John How, 1703)
Ward heard an 'organ and fiddles humming and scraping' here in the gallery.
1699	Rowland Sherman, Aleppo		Lna SP 110/21 f.25r
Sherman had an organ sent out to him by ship. At his death in 1748 it was valued at $111 20c in Dutch dollars.