Early Highland bagpipes

[OC Richard]

I got seriously offtopic on a different thread, and thought that this topic deserved its own thread.

So, what did early Highland bagpipes look like? What sort of Highland pipes would be suitable for playing, say, at a Renaissance Faire?

All the firm evidence, as far as specific appearance goes, can be broken down into two sorts:

1) depiction of pipers in early works of art

2) surviving instruments in museums

One can also take a look at the closest relatives of the Highland pipes, which branched off from the same tree at some unknowable early period, much like things happen in genetics.

The earliest clear depiction of the Great Highland Bagpipe only takes us back to the early 18th century, 1714, and this is of course the famous and oft-reproduced Piper To The Laird of Grant.



This set of pipes is fascinating in several ways.

As to materials, it is probably made of local hardwood and mounted in grey cowhorn or pewter. Cowhorn mounts, black or grey, have long been standard in many very old piping traditions including those of Spain and Bulgaria. Pewter has long been used for bagpipe mounts in Bulgaria and France.

Having the two tenors in a common stock is a feature seen on some other early Highland pipes and links the Highland pipes to other British & Irish bagpipes (the Highland pipe with all drones in separate stocks is the lone exception to the situation where all British and Irish bagpipes have drones in a common stock). There's also a strong link to early Danish pipes: the Highland pipes and the Danish pipes, both with duplicate tenor drones, are the lone exception to the general situation throughout Europe where each drone of multi-drone bagpipes plays a unique note.

Also intriguing with the Laird Grant pipes are the shapes of the drone tops, rather different from the classic "chalice" drone tops of the mid-18th century. The pipes below will shed some light on the shapes seen in the Laird Grant pipes.

As far as early surviving Highland pipes in museums, the trouble is that these have no provenance and cannot be assigned to any specific (or rough) date. Here's what appears to be a very early set showing echoes of the Laird Grant set and also the Spanish Gaita.



The bass drone tops seen above have strong similarities to the bass drone top of the Spanish gaita. Also note the similarities in chanter shape between the gaita below and the Laird Grant pipes. The materials, brown hardwood and grey cowhorn, are also the same between the two sets.



The shapes seen in the earliest knowable period of the Highland pipes, seen above, are rather different from the well-known classic "chalice" drone tops of the mid-18th century.

Here are the famous so-called "Waterloo drones" thought to date to the mid-18th century alongside a reproduction made by Julian Goodacre of Peebles, Scotland. How different these massive bulbous drone tops are to the elegant tulip-like shapes seen above.