I once attended a workshop at the National Folk Festival at Sutton Bonnington run by Paul Burgess. I found the comment made at the time, 'there are very few recordings of English traditional fiddlers' a bit of a challenge. Since that time I've collected every recording I could find and have come to two conclusions which, although probably observed elsewhere in this thread, always cause younger musicians some annoyance. Firstly there is nothing like a 'school' of English fiddling, each player is idiosyncratic and most usually, self-taught. Secondly, there is a uniform disregard for tonality, even in the most accomplished players such as Ned Pearson. What there is, however, is a strong pulse. This is analogous with the playing of many eastern European players. (for what its worth)
I added this merely to point out that there is a world of difference between 'repertoire' (the actual melodies) and the actual tradition of playing the fiddle. Clearly the repertoire is available to any instrument that will play a melody, the fiddling tradition, such as it is, seems to be different to this.