Some time ago I showed you pics of the outside of the Feather market hall after it was restored. Its a place that holds many happy childhood memories for me as I used to play around in it in the days my father stil played table tennis.
Its main feature is the magnificent organ. Last night my daughter, Kayla, had her Ballroom dance compitition there so I got a chance for some pics.
A lot of people know where the Feather Market Centre is but I bet very few have seen the very impressive organ that adorns the front of the main hall. The concert hall pipe organ was inaugurated in June 1999 and cost R2,6m at the time. The organ stands 14 meters high, 10 meters wide and 4,5 meters deep, weighs 20 tons and has 5508 pipes. Pretty impressive.
The organ was designed by Prof Albert Troskie, built by local organ builder Jan Pekelharing and is a combination of old and new. The nucleus of the organ consist of the old 1892 Norman & Beard organ which was situated in the adjacent Shelly Hall. The facade of this organ is still visible in the hall. In addition to this the pipes of an 1880 Forster & Andrews organ from Durban was installed along with a significant number of new stops. The rest of the organ is all new with the organ facade's decorated wood carved panels taking ten local woodcarvers two years to complete. The organ gets used in at least 9 recitals every year by both South African as well as international organists