PAINTERS are ensuring York Minster’s Grand Organ will be beautiful as well as harmonious when it returns to the cathedral.

The 5,403 pipes of the enormous instrument are currently undergoing a once-in-a-century £2 million renovation to enable it to play for the next 100 years.

All of the 102 pipes visible on the outside of the organ are elaborately painted and a few of them have had to be completely replaced.

So conservation experts Robert Woodland and Debra Miller have painted their exteriors to match the rest of the pipes

The painters have also been working on restoring the decorations on the retained pipes to their original glory.

A Minster spokesman said the plan is for the organ to be back in action by the end of this year.

The organ was installed in 1830 and replaced the organ destroyed in the 1829 Minster fire.

All but the very largest pipes of the organ were removed and taken to organ specialists Harrison and Harrison in Durham in October 2018.

Most are normally out of sight behind the decorated ones.

Those that can be renovated are being restored, but a few have had to be replaced completely.

Since the organ left, an electric organ has provided music for Minster services.

The Minster authorities hope the pipes will return to the cathedral later this summer.

That will require a scaffold to be installed and removed.

After then, the pipes will have to be tuned to make sure that the organ is in harmony with itself, a lengthy operation which is expected to take place in the autumn.

The £2 million project also includes creating a new music library underneath the organ.