Henry II granted a charter to Peter de Bermingham in 1162 to hold a weekly Thursday market in the Bull Ring. Over 800 years later, the Bull Ring is still at the commercial heart of the city which bears the family name.
Resolute through war and peace, poverty and prosperity, and at the very hub of the Bull Ring, stands the Grade II listed church of St Martin.
Post-war modernist architecture around the church has been swept aside to make way for the new £350 million development with St Martin’s at its focal point – the only church in the country to be at the centre of a shopping mall. As part of the Bull Ring development in 2003, the church was also cleaned and repaired.
The organ at St Martin’s was originally a three-manual instrument built on the north side of the chancel by Harrison & Harrison in 1907. In 1954 it was restored and rebuilt in the north transept as a four-manual organ with an electric console, by the John Compton Organ Company of London.
Over 45 years of grime and water damage had taken their toll so Nicholson & Co. was commissioned to carry out a renovation of the organ in 2000.
Nicholson & Co. is proud to have played its part in the renewal programme by returning the organ to first-class order so that it can serve for many generations to come.
