The Lincolnshire bagpipes are a type of bagpipe native to Lincolnshire in eastern England. The instrument was extinct in the modern era, with a 1901 commentator noting that it had become defunct by 1850.[1] Later researchers identified the last traditional piper as John Hunsley, a 19th century farmer in Manton, near Gainsborough. Around 2000, a reproduction of the pipes was created by a pipemaker in South Somercotes.[2]
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Descriptions as early as 1885 refer to these pipes as having only one drone,[3] and the modern reproduction maintains this attribute. The two carvings which the reproduction were based on strongly physically resemble the Spanish gaita.
The pipes were often noted in period literature as a simile for unpleasant noise, and an 1875 commentator noted that in his time the term "Lincolnshire bagpipes" was a local colloquialism for the croaking of frogs.[4] A 1933 publication also describes them as "a particularly clumsy instrument emitting a doleful and monotonous sound."[5]
The instrument was not always described negatively, and several commentators note the enthusiasm of the Lincolnshire people for the pipes. The 1817 A Complete collection of English proverbs, predating the believed extinction of the pipes, notes of the "Lincolnshire bagpipes" that they are so named because
| “ | Whether because the people here do more delight in the bagpipes than others, or whether they are more cunning in playing upon them; indeed the former of these will infer the latter.[6] | ” |
The pipes are famously mentioned by the character Falstaff in William Shakespeare's play Henry IV, Part 1 (c. 1597) in which he likens his melancholy to their sound: "Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib cat or a lugged bear...Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe."
Around the start of the 21st century, the Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire commissioned pipemaker John Addison of South Somercotes to re-create a set of Lincolnshire pipes based on local church carvings. The instrument was described as very large and difficult to play, and though it was used in a 2002 performance, it was then consigned to a storage box at the Trust's offices.[2]