CHAPTER 4: Dulcimers in the British Isles since 1800 > Dulcimers in East Anglia

The instruments

A general overview of what is or was normal in East Anglia is first presented here, followed by a more-detailed 'portrait' of one particular instrument.

The instruments themselves do not form a type distinct from other 19th-century instruments, although they are of the construction which Norlind called the "newer type" [fig. 53], always trapezoid.

Bridges

All the East Anglian dulcimers discovered in the present study have chessmen bridges: upon seeing a dulcimer with long bridges, Billy Bennington of Barford, near Norwich, remarked, "Oh, no, you never see any like that round here".

However such bridges were presumably introduced after the date of the 18th-century Walsingham instrument, which has continuous bridges.