Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum
The Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum in Morpeth, Northumberland is the very first bagpipe museum in the UK - featuring over 120 sets of bagpipes from Spain, France, and several other countries.
Founded in 1987 in a 13th Century Grade 1 listed building, the museum specialises in a particular bagpipe not many people outside of Northumberland know about - the Northumbrian small pipes.
These musical instruments have a quieter, slightly sweeter sound than their well known Scottish cousins. Small pipes were considered chamber instruments used primarily for indoor entertainment.
The museum houses an extensive collection of bagpipes that belonged to master clock maker and pipe enthusiast William Alfred Cocks. It also has a set of bagpipes said to have belonged to King Louis XIV of France, a miniature set made for Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House and pipes from the Jacobite Rising.
The collection also includes a large collection of bagpipe music, both in print and in manuscript.
The museum provides a venue for the regular meetings of the Northumbrian Pipers' Society, and has regular live musical performances.
Further reading
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