the evidence is there that bagpipes were around in England at least 500 years ago.

I think you'll find they were around a lot earlier than that, Jim - hence my link to the Hexham Abbey double bagpiper which is 500 years old at least. There's bagpipers in The Luttrell Psalter, from 700 years ago, and earlier ones too. However, as to what sort of bagpipes they might have been, or what sort of music was being played on them, no one can say with any degree of certainty - which doesn't stop us making a few educated guesses and even having a bash at reconstruction.

My objection is to the Goodacre Leicestershire Bagpipe being included in a list of National and Indigenous Musical Instruments when it was only invented some 20 years ago. Likewise the other Goodacre innovations, however so based on whatever ancient iconography, they remain entirely hypothetical, but no less valid as the fine modern instruments they undoubtedly are.

One might draw a map of a Bagpipe Nation - one that stretches from North Africa to Scotland, and all points between & often beyond; one that transcends national boundaries, and one that flies in the face of any notion of Nationalism, despite the role that certain species of bagpipes have to that cause in certain countries. Bagpipes are essentially a migratory species; in the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum in Northumberland, there is a set of Indian bagpipes lovingly carved from ivory; and one hears of Indian classical musicians adopting the regimental Highland Pipes on which to play ragas.

I applaud Julian Goodacre's instruments, and I've got my eye on a set or two myself, but in the cause of a love of music, and humanity, and most certainly not the nationalist cause that began this thread.