Museum of… Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum, Northumberland

A collection of Northumbrian pipes and paraphernalia assembled by William Cocks and owned by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. “Cocks claimed to have been a watchmaker, but I’ve never seen a watch made by him and there’s no record of a shop or business,” says Anne Moore, the museums officer (north) at Museums Northumberland. But Cocks collected like a curator, keeping copious and methodical notes about the pipes that made Northumberland the only English county with its own musical instrument. 

Morpeth’s stone-built chantry has housed the museum since 1987 and has an intriguing history of its own. One of the few bridge chapels still standing, it dates back to the 1300s and was originally a place where a priest said prayers for the dead in exchange for money. It also appears that the incumbents had a sideline in charging travellers a toll to cross the bridge.

It later became the town grammar school, whose most famous pupil was William Turner, a Tudor botanist who brought the uses of plants and herbs into the public domain.

The chantry was subsequently used as a butcher’s shop, a cafe called the Chantry Pantry, a garage for the high sheriff’s coach and – at its lowest ebb – a ladies lavatory. “At that point, the council wanted to pull it down, but the local historical society had it listed and it was refurbished in the early 1980s,” says Moore. “The pipe collection was looking for a home at the same time and it seemed a nice fit for the space.”

 

Northumbrian pipes differ from traditional Scottish bagpipes in that they are the only wind instrument with a closed end. They also have keys and the wind is produced by bellows placed under the arm rather than the player blowing into a bag. “The instrument is quieter than traditional bagpipes and it doesn’t look quite so inelegant,” says Moore.

Staff in the tourist office, which is in the same building, keep an eye on things. Several volunteers, mainly musicians, come in to play tunes and talk to visitors.

 

Sticky moment

The massive Morpeth flood in 2008. “The monks who built the chapel must have known what they were doing because, during the flood, there was about six inches of water in the building but three feet of it outside,” says Moore, who happened to be on duty the day the heavens opened and organised the moving of the collections to an upstairs room.  

“There were helicopters hovering above the high street to rescue people and cars floating all the way into town. We closed for six months, but there are now floodgates on the river that can be closed when necessary.”