A Merseyside church is being converted into luxury apartments but original features – including the organ – will remain.
Liverpool firm EW Developments are converting St John's Church, near South Road in Waterloo, into 10 luxury apartments, with an overall value of £3m. The firm committed to retaining original features of the church, including stained glass windows, the pulpit and 130-year-old organ all being refurbished for use within the building, which is set for completion later this month.
St John's Church was built in 1865, on the island at the end of St. John's Road, and was in operation for more than 100 years, before it moved to new premises on Picton Road, Wavertree, in 2006.
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EW Developments enlisted the support of specialist firm David Wells Organ Builders, founded in Liverpool, to completely dismantle the original church organ, providing a complete refurbishment of the remaining organ case, pipes and console. It was then reinstalled in a new area of the building, which will frame the entrance to several apartments.
It would have cost up to £2m to build a completely new organ and that could have taken up to two years to create from scratch. Instead, the job took two weeks, which included removing animal waste and infestations and a full clean.
EW Developments successfully converted the Our Lady of Good Help Church in Wavertree into 16 luxury apartments in 2023 following their 2019 renovation of an abandoned Victorian building into the Phoenix Hotel in Kirkdale.
James Winters, who is co-owner of EW Developments alongside architect Rob Edwards, said: "We are delighted to have partnered with David Wells Organ Builders to refurbish this stunning church organ, which obviously holds a lot of history and meaning for the local community.
"To have built this organ from new would have cost up to £2m and taken two years, so we are incredibly grateful to David Wells Organ Builders for their support on an intricate and complicated job. We believe the results speak for themselves with the organ looking as good as new."
"The organ will frame the entrance to the building perfectly and Rob and I are so pleased to keep these original features. The stained glass windows are damaged in places, which we are in the process of repairing sympathetically, while the pulpit is also being refurbished.
"The 10 finished apartments will be a brilliant blend of history, modernity and luxury and will breathe fresh life and memories into the area."
Nigel Huntington of David Wells Organ Builders said: “We were very pleased to work in conjunction with EW Developments to restore what remained of the 1894 Abbot and Smith organ.
"The development of the listed building and the relocation of the organ has returned a derelict and vandalised building and organ to a stunning residential conversion and safeguarded both a historic building and beautiful instrument.”
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