I have just finished overhauling this nice quality, probably late C19th, English Flageolet for its owner.
It is unstamped/anonymous, of cocuswood with German Silver (cupro-nickel) fittings. It has 6 block-mounted keys in the standard flute “Simple System” arrangement, making it fully chromatic through over 2.5 8ves (!!!). Various cross fingerings also work, including for C natural, as one might expect. There is no thumb-hole. It’s rather sweet but surprisingly powerful - far more so to a listener in front of it than to the player. It is in D and just about tunes down to A=440 with the tuning slide nearly as far open as it will go securely. The intonation is pretty good throughout the range of the slide.
In this demo I play it as I would a tin/penny whistle, in an Irish style. In its time it was likely used to play popular material such as arrangements of opera themes and other popular melodies, including tunes drawn from collections of traditional material, probably with a more classically influenced technique regarding articulation.
I tried, as per alleged period use, putting a scrap of natural sponge in the head tube “wind cap” chamber above the fipple. It works quite well to reduce the gathering of condensation but doesn’t eliminate it entirely. As long as it isn’t stuffed in too tightly, it doesn’t really impede the flow of air or affect control of over-blowing, at least until the sponge becomes fairly saturated. Some of the sections of the composite video were recorded with sponge in place, some without - I can’t recall now for sure which - but I don’t think it will show at all obviously. On balance, I think it probably isn’t worth faffing with the sponge. If one plays the instrument as an ordinary whistle, without the windcap, although it doesn’t have a beak to fit in the mouth, it feels much more responsive and satisfying to the player, if only because you are closer to the window and can hear yourself much better - whether a listener would notice much difference I can’t say, but I suspect this is a major reason why we no longer bother with such contraptions, besides the expense of making something which offers no real music-making advantages.
Overall, it’s a fun little toot and plays at least as well as many of the best modern whistles, with benefit of the keys for added chromaticism when desired! I quite fancy acquiring one…