A fundraising drive to renovate the organ at St John the Baptist Church, Eastnor, is just £500 short of its target.

Work on the £38,000 restoration will start in October next year and should take around take three months.

The appeal received a boost in the summer, with a £23,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Other grants and donations have also been received.

Work on the organ will include revoicing the reed stops, overhauling the soundboards and re-leathering the bellows.

The instrument will then be used for a series of recitals, to be held on a quarterly basis.

Major Humphrey Britton-Johnson, Eastnor PCC treasurer and secretary, said: "The total amount should see the organ in fine fettle for the rest of the century, notwithstanding twice-annual tuning and regular maintenance, for which we have to budget about £1,000 per year."

The organ was originally built by Nicholson and Company (Worces-ter) Ltd in 1887 and it was presented to St John the Baptist Church as a gift from the 3rd Earl Somers of Eastnor Castle.

It was partly rebuilt after the First World War and has remained unaltered, apart from the introduction of an electric blower.

The restoration of the organ will be the culmination of a remarkable period of fundraising and improvements at the church.

The roof has been releaded and refurbished in recent years and new heating has been installed at a total cost of £40,407.

Major Britton-Johnson said: "Miracles do happen. We got a Lottery grant of £10,780 and another of £1,455 from the Listed Place of Worship Scheme and raised the rest ourselves over a couple of years or so."

A further improvement was the repair of the church clock and the installation of an automatic winding system, at a cost of nearly £5,000.

Before this, the clock had to be wound manually.