nic hamilton photography

For Keys of Gold 2025, Thomas Heywood wrote:

The first new pipe organ to arrive in Greater Bendigo for over 115 years – since 1910 – is the George ‘Grandfather’ Fincham organ in the Lauriston Chapel at Langley Estate. The Langley organ was built in Melbourne 150 years ago in 1875 for the grand ballroom of ‘Findon’ in Kew – the mansion owned by the legendary 19th-century Australian banker and politician, The Hon. Henry ‘Money’ Miller. However, the instrument was never installed in Miller’s mansion and, instead, remained in Fincham’s Richmond organ factory as an exhibition instrument, where it was regularly demonstrated and used for practice by a teen-aged Dame Nellie Melba, who was having organ lessons at the time.

150 years later, with a replacement value of $1.8 million, the instrument has been restored and enhanced by Daniel Bittner and his team at Australian Pipe Organs in Melbourne, and this magnificent pipe organ now sounds as good as it looks! and the spectacular gold on the facade pipes is returning home as, believe it or not, the gold leaf sourced in 1875 came from the Bendigo Goldfields!