Last Updated on January 10, 2024
Broadwood grand piano. The piano is in a gallery in Cardiff, easy access on floor level. Free to anyone prepared to take it away. Willing to negotiate on splitting costs for transport to a suitable home.
Details of the piano’s condition and history below.
Excepting the minor damage from hinge screws, the instrument lid is generally in good condition, its polished surface only slightly affected by age – future regular polishing should remove the slight graininess that has resulted from neglect during a long period of storage (see below). The lid normally opens unassisted to something over a foot to fifteen inches high, as it was manufactured with a relatively short prop (probably of mahogany) 13 inches high. The photo (19) shows a foot ruler leaning on the outside of the prop.
The keyboard is of six octaves and six notes, beginning C and ending A (5). Inside the piano on the lhs beyond the hammers, is affixed a further label on the metal frame, This has complex instructions and is prefaced ‘To the Tuner….’(9). I have been unable to spend the time cleaning and deciphering this. Although two or three woodworm holes are visible on the underside of the keyboard, the entire wooden action otherwise appears to be in excellent condition (10).
The action is complete (13) but the instrument now plays almost a semitone below concert pitch – not an uncommon problem with old pianos and the wires are strung singly onto a robust iron frame in which there are no obvious cracks. Although two hammers have been repaired (14), and the final five in the upper register are in need of expert technical adjustment or rebuilding – those operate irregularly – the entire mechanism is otherwise in good working order. All the straps appear to be present and work efficiently: all operate smoothly and none of the notes stick. All the hammer and action felts and pads are obviously in need of replacement to attain its original resonance (see 14). Ideally, the instrument should be re-strung and brought up to pitch for authentic contemporary sound performance. Adjusting it higher without new wires would likely many of the extant ones, all of which are believed to be originals.
The music stand (47 by 9¼ inches) slides in and out over the covered action above the keyboard. Of plain geometric design, it measures 23 by 11 inches and (now bereft of brass music retaining pins), folds flat under the piano lid when that closes. It adjusts in height and slope through on a three-notched wooden base (7). A decorative wooden ‘shelf’ panel 9 inches square is affixed on either side of the stand and forms part of this sliding mechanism. Each is fretted with decorative leafwork, and both move back and forth towards the action of the piano independent of the music stand, though on the same plane. The rhs one (8) at present a little insecure owing to one of its two grooved fixing pieces being detached and in need of glue.
The keyboard lid, which is slightly cracked (12), folds neatly behind the keyboard to expose its maker’s label. This reads Patent, John Broadwood and Sons, Manufacturers to her Majesty, Great Pulteney Street, Gordon Square, London (15). The piano number is also punched into the end of this keyboard lid, next to which GAYNOR C is also punched into the wood (4a), and the maker’s number is again chalked onto the wooden body beneath the action (4b) – probably a temporary way of identifying the component during assembly.
The pedals are possibly of ash or elm wood approx 8 inches long by up to 2 ½ inches wide. Transmission is operated through brass-covered vertically-set iron lever rods through the action board directly from below (6).
Ownership
When I bought it in 1969, the instrument was said to have belonged originally to the person or family of Charles Waterton (1782-1865) the celebrated eccentric explorer and naturalist of Walton Hall, Wakefield. Enquiries have failed to confirm that he ever owned such an instrument. And, as mentioned, although believed to have been made during the 1840s, it now appears to be of 1882. In 1969 it was transported from a council house at Crofton near Wakefield to Birstall Old Hall, W.R.Yorks. At the point of purchase it was in danger of falling through rotten floorboards into a flooded cavity, so was temporarily housed at Birstall Old Hall until Christmas 1973, when it was taken to Wales, first to Drainllwyn (1973-7), then Pwlldrainllwyn (1973-1995) in Llangwyryfon, Ceredigion, West Wales. In 1995 it came to Llwyn Deiniol, Llanddeiniol, where shortage of house space necessitated its storage in a barn until an annex could be refurbished for it 2002. This history, particularly of long storage in a barn, is rehearsed because relevant to its present condition.
- Anyone
Wales
Cardiff
CF24 3DT
United Kingdom
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