[2] He left Mander Ltd. in 1987 to work for J. W. Walker & Sons Ltd in Brandon in Suffolk, where he worked on projects for Oriel College, Oxford, a one-manual chamber organ for the quire at Carlisle Cathedral, and the parish church in Kesgrave, near Ipswich.
[2] He was directly involved with the design and construction of some of the most significant recent new instruments to be built in Britain.
In 1986, he collaborated with his architect brother Julian Bicknell on the casework of the organ at Magdalen College, Oxford.
[4] He contributed essays to the annual BIOS Journal and to other publications, and read papers at conferences in Britain, France, Germany and the USA.
[4] In 1996, Cambridge University Press published his 400-page The History of the English Organ, a work which has received wide critical acclaim.
[2] Outside work, he enjoyed gardening at the house in London Fields, Hackney that he shared with Jon Vanner, his partner of 11 years with whom he had entered a civil partnership in 2006.