Two of the National Trust’s libraries (Tatton Park in Cheshire and Killerton in Devon) have good collections of music.

Many houses, of course, have collections of Victorian keyboard or vocal music – much of it surprisingly rare.

Others houses have manuscript volumes of music, often written for dances.

Several houses also have collections of opera programmes and libretti for oratorios; these include Calke Abbey in Derbyshire, and Springhill in Northern Ireland.

Others properties have music marked up for performance on musical instruments which are still in the house today: volumes of Handel organ concertos at Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, for example, which were certainly played on the Snetzler chamber organ in the Music Room there.

Among the most interesting examples of music in the Trust's collections is the autograph score of a manuscript by Alessandro Scarlatti (Belton Hall in Lincolnshire), a principal source of Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas.