In Alan Lomax's World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Volume 1: England, there is a recording made by Peter Kennedy in 1951 at a 'Village Barn Dance' in Dorset. The musicians are Bert Pidgeon on melodeon and Alfie Tuck on riddle drum.

The sleeve notes say: Melodeon and riddle drum (later known in Ireland as a bodhran) enliven the harvest gatherings of Wiltshire and Dorset. An 18-inch drum made from a worn-out riddle or sieve, is played by banging with a double-ended stick and also sounded by rubbing with the thumb along the parchment. The survival of this kind of farm-made drum pre-dates its survival in Galway, Ireland by about 15 years."

The last sentence doesn't actually make sense, but I think whoever wrote it might have meant that it had stopped being used traditionally in Ireland about 15 years before it died out in England.