March & April 2024 – Before planning your visit, please check our ‘Visitor Notices’ for accessibility updates and one-off changes to opening times. Click here to view.

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NEWCASTLE CATHEDRAL
A BEACON OF LIGHT

  • OPENING TIMES

  • Saturdays and Sundays
    8am-5pm
  • Mondays to Fridays
    8am-6pm
  • Café 16
    Mon-Sat 10am-4pm
  • FREE ENTRY

Opening times

  • Saturdays and Sundays
    8am-5pm
  • Mondays to Fridays
    8am-6pm
  • Café 16
    Mon-Sat 10am-4pm
  • FREE ENTRY

Our organ

The Cathedral organ accompanies daily choral services and large-scale special services and features in our weekly Monday lunchtime Organ Recital Series – one of the country’s few examples of a series that continues throughout the year.

Every Monday at 1:05pm, the Cathedral hosts organ recitals that are open to all. No pre-booking is required; simply find a seat in the Nave and enjoy. While attendance is free, we encourage those who attend to consider contributing in-person or online to our retiring collection.

Click here to contribute a suggested donation of £5.

For more information about organ recitals across the country and further afield, visit organrecitals.uk.

Organ recitals

March 2024

Monday 4 March, 1:05pmIan Roberts, Newcastle Cathedral
Monday 11 March, 1:05pmSteven Maxson, Middlesbrough Cathedral
Monday 18 March, 1:05pmMichael Dutton, Former Assistant Organist at Newcastle Cathedral
Monday 25 March, 1:05pm Michael Haynes, Hexham Abbey

Please contact Tim Cranfield, Music Administrator, if the current month’s programme is unavailable on this page.

April 2024

Monday 1 April, 1:05pmIan Roberts and Kris Thomsett, Newcastle Cathedral
Monday 8 April, 1:05pmAndrew Robinson, Durham
Monday 15 April, 1:05pmAndrew Caskie, Worcester
Monday 22 April, 1:05pmMagnus Williamson, Newcastle University
Monday 29 April, 1:05pmPeter Locke, Gateshead

This page is updated by the first recital of the month; please check back soon for April’s music programme and May’s guest organists.

About the organ

The history of Newcastle Cathedral’s organ is rich and diverse. Initially built in 1670 by Renatus Harris with only Great and Choir divisions and 17 stops, the instrument has undergone several transformations. The Harris double-fronted casework remains, with the distinctive east case design now forming the central section of the current transept front. The Harris west front has been repositioned to face east into St George’s Chapel.

Over the years, notable modifications were made, including a rebuild by Snetzler in 1767, and significant work by Wood, Small & Co. of Edinburgh (1814), Bruce (1839), and John Nicholson of Newcastle (1844). Around 1880, Lewis essentially created a new organ, resulting in a substantial four-manual instrument with 58 stops and tubular pneumatic action.

In 1911, just 31 years after we were elevated to Cathedral status, Harrison & Harrison reconstructed the organ in Edwardian style, making further adjustments in 1954. The present state of the instrument results from a significant reordering by Nicholson & Co. (Worcester) in 1981, resulting in a four-manual instrument with seven divisions and 110 stops. Tonally enhanced and featuring substantial upperworks, the organ received a second console (movable, three manuals) in the transept in 1991.

The organ, essentially comprising two distinct entities – the Main Organ (Great, Swell, Chaire, Bombarde, and Pedal) in the North Transept and the Choir Organ (Great, Swell, and Pedal) in the Quire – is complemented by the primary console located adjacent to the Choir organ, in the westernmost bay of the north Quire arcade.