{"id":22394,"date":"2026-03-15T05:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=22394"},"modified":"2026-03-15T05:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:44:17","slug":"pipe-organs-could-be-extinct-by-2070","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=22394","title":{"rendered":"Pipe organs could be extinct by 2070"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n \u00a0(Photo: Unsplash\/Eric Mok)<\/span><\/p>\n

Pipe Up, a charity devoted to the preservation of organs, has warned that every year over 400 church organs are going unused or even being scrapped every year.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the group said, “A cultural catastrophe is staring Britain in the face: the imminent loss of its pipe organs,” reports the BBC.<\/p>\n

According to the charity, a survey suggested that every week five organs are being dumped in landfill, while four organs fall into disuse every week due to lack of maintenance.<\/p>\n

The chairman of the group, George Allan, said that many organs were being needlessly thrown away. It is possible to restore \u201cnearly playable organs\u201d in a few days and at a cost of less than \u00a31,000.<\/p>\n

Allan said that, even when his group was able to save organs, they often ended up being shipped abroad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s a Catholic priest there [in the Philippines] who seems to be populating the whole country with redundant British and American organs,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The use of organs has massively decline in the last 100 years. In 1915 it is believed there were 40,000 of them in Britain, a figure now believed to be closer to 15,000. Of those 15,000 only around half are playable and among those only half are regularly used.<\/p>\n

The decline in organ use is closely related to the decline in churches, many of which are struggling or even face closure due to extensive repair bills. Recent changes to a government funding scheme for historic places of worship has added to concerns that some churches may face insurmountable financial challenges.<\/p>\n

Allan said, “If this trend continues by 2070, Britain will have no pipe organs left, outside cathedrals, Oxbridge colleges, a few concert halls and some well-supported churches. We hope to lead a sort of crusade. We can’t do much about church closures, but what we can do is we can revive the motivation to keep organs working.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0(Photo: Unsplash\/Eric Mok) Pipe Up, a charity devoted to the preservation of organs, has warned that every year over 400 church organs are going unused or even being scrapped every year. A spokesperson for the group said, “A cultural catastrophe is staring Britain in the face: the imminent loss of its pipe organs,” reports the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[7430,7429,2830],"class_list":["post-22394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-extinct","tag-organs","tag-pipe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}