The pipe organ in All Saints is located in the southeast corner behind the choir stalls, in an elevated position such that the organist has a good view of the building interior. The entire instrument is contained within the one case, with the possible exception of the Pedal reed, which is on its own frame extension at the rear.

Most of the instrument is the one originally constructed for this church by Hele & Co of Plymouth in 1894 at a cost of £750.  At that time, the Choir and some slides on the Great and Swell were only “prepared for”.

In 1926 it was given a clean and overhaul by Henry Speechly & Sons of London, who also added the Choir stops and soundboard, the reed stops at 16' and 4' on the Swell, 8’ on the Great, and 16’ on the Pedal.  They also installed the electric blower to replace the hand blowing apparatus previously used.

In 1950, Roger Yates of Michaelstow cleaned all the pipe work, and added the Swell Tremolo, the Pedal 4' Nachthorn, and the pneumatic relay to enable the Pedal Quint to be derived from the Bourdon/Bass Flute rank.

The organ remained this way until 1980, when Lance Foy of Truro undertook a complete restoration, which included the provision of a balanced Swell pedal, and replacement of the pneumatic action to the Choir and Pedal with electric solid state switching.  The Trombone was re-voiced; a 2' Fifteenth displaced a 16' Double Diapason on the Swell (some of which was used to provide the top octave for the Pedal 4' Flute); on the Choir a Larigot 1⅓ replaced the Viol d'Orchestre 8' which was moved to the Great, where it displaced the Claribel.  Although this in turn found its way to the Choir to replace the original Gedact, sometime after 1980 the Gedact pipes were re-instated although the stop knob still reads Claribel.

The organ was cleaned again in 1997, with minor repairs, re-voicing and regulation carried out by Lance Foy.  He did further work in Lent 2008 to re-leather the bellows, further cleaning, and other minor repairs.

Current Specification

• Registration Aids: (pedals only - in order from bass to treble)
• One reversible pedal for Great to Pedal coupler.
• Three composition pedals to Swell (Sw 1, 2, 3) see note 4 below
• Three composition pedals to Great (Gt 1, 2, 3) see note 4 below
• Balanced Swell pedal (replaced the former trigger pedal in 1980)
• Manual compass = 56 notes: CC to g³
• Pedal compass = 30 notes: CCC to f
• All stops are full compass (except the Pedal Bourdon extensions).
• Keyboard action is: Great = Barker leaver; Swell = tracker; Choir = electric. 
• The Pedal-board action is tracker, pneumatic, and electric.
• Stop action is a combination of mechanical and electric.

Compiled by Roger King – former Organist and Director of Music.

Additional notes from Daniel Shermon, Organist and Director of Music and Fr John Gilbert, Parish Priest, St Mary's Roman Catholic Church Helston.

Acknowledgement: author History of All Saints' Falmouth Jory Bennett

In the autumn of 2015 the organ was awarded with a Grade II listing and certificate from the 'British Institute of Organ Studies'

To see the certificate listing please click here: NPOR

Shortly after the certificate was granted, the Parochial Church Council decided to engage the services of Henry Willis and Sons to maintain and service the organ.

Being one of the oldest organ building firms in continuous existence it was felt that the skills and expertise of the firm would be invaluable to the preservation of the Hele organ here at All Saints'.