As you can gather from the photographs above, the organ screen survived but when I visited the building the organ was gone.  However, John Gauiss wrote to me to say that his grandfather Jacques Gauss (1868-1949), "... was an organ builder who worked for Lewis & Co of Brixton, London in the early part of the 20thcentury.  At the time when organs were completed or rebuilt, he sometimes took photographs of them, but unfortunately didn’t caption them.  Over the years I’ve been able to identify most, and today someone contacted me with an identification of one he took of the organ at the First Church of Christ Scientist.  The National Pipe Organ Register states that this had a Lewis organ installed in 1909, so this is almost certainly when my grandfather would have taken the picture" (see below)

These two visual focal points on the main axis of the building were linked by decorative inscriptions running the length of the church, simple texts in a fine type-face that carried the eye to the two great features of the interior.

For over sixty years after its completion the church was kept in immaculate order, virtually exactly as designed by Wood. It was admired by many groups of visitors and especially British, American and German architectural historians. One of the latter (Dr. Wolfgang Pehnt) considered it "a true piece of Expressionism ante festum", and Sir Nikolaus Pevsner described it as "one of the most original buildings of 1903 in England or indeed anywhere" (B.O.E.S. Lancs,. 1969, p. 322). Social changes and a residential exodus left it impoverished and vulnerable. On 26 December 1971 the church closed without prior notice. Vandals immediately broke in and commenced a systematic looting of all convertible metal. After a period when its fate hung in the balance the church was bought by Manchester Corporation and has now been repaired and restored successfully under the direction of the City Architect. Much was lost but some fittings and furniture have been saved. The relics of the stained glass are now in the Whitworth Gallery, and the church's ceremonial chairs from the rostrum have been placed there also. Another fine piece of furniture, a library display cabinet designed by J.H. Sellers, has been given to the John Rylands University Library. The building itself has become an acquisition in which the city rightly takes pride.

The Edgar Wood Centre is a fine example of an architecture free from historicism, created when architects were seeking individual solutions to the problem of style that bedeviled Victorian architects. Wood's response in this widely eclectic building is poetry and artistic. In its pursuit of expression is defies rationalism but remains hauntingly memorable. It is not uncharacteristically Mancunian, but Manchester rose to the occasion in its conservation. Everyone has something to learn here, and Manchester would be an immeasurably poorer city without this building's inspiration and brilliance.