An orchestrion at the Brentford Musical Museum
Introduction
The photograph on this page of An orchestrion at the Brentford Musical Museum by Marathon as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
An orchestrion at the Brentford Musical Museum
Image: © Marathon Taken: 14 Oct 2022
The Brentford Musical Museum was founded in 1963 and was first housed in St George's Church nearby. The church was built in 1887 but was of poor-quality material and was never really completed. It did not offer the best conditions for housing old musical instruments. In 2007, the Musical Museum relocated to a purpose designed building which showcases the instruments wonderfully. This is an orchestrion dating from 1899 which was designed for use in a large house. This orchestrion was on display until 1966 in Imhof's showroom in New Oxford Street. Imhof had displayed an orchestrion at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park and from then and for the first few decades of the 20th century, orchestrions were popular instruments with the wealthy who, for the first time, could fill their houses with music by turning a switch.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.4878
Longitude
-0.293077