Bi/ the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.d. 153 



a nest of hornets ; and the first hornet who flew at him was the 

 Lord Arundell of the day, who denied his right over Tollard.^ The 

 matter was tried, and Lord Avundell won. Then the Earl of 

 Salisbury was atbacked by Mr. Gawen, of Norrington, another 

 Wiltshire squire. This case was tried in the Court of Exchequer, 

 and took up eight days : but here the verdict was in favour of Lord 

 Salisbury. 



The whole Chase was at that time divided into eight " Walks," as 

 they were called : — Rushmore, Staplefoot, Cobley, Bursey-stool, 

 West Walk, Fernditch, Alderholt, and Chettered. You must please 

 again to remember that it was not the lands themselves in all these 

 walks that belonged to Lord Salisbury. The lands of Ci'anborne 

 were his own : but over the rest he only claimed all the deer and the 

 right of hunting and killing them. The number of deer had been 

 very different at different periods. In James the First's time they 

 were reckoned at about two thousand. In Charles the Second's time 

 they were put at only five hundred; but in 18^8 (probably by a 

 legal fiction to cover an unascertainable number), twenty-thousand. 

 You are to imagine the trouble and expense of watching the lives and 

 safety of such a multitude of wild animals ranging wherever they 

 pleased over the lands of seventy-two parishes. Imagine the 

 vexatious intrusion of the animals into the farmer's young barley 

 and turnips : and the still more vexatious right of another man's 

 keepers, under-keepers, and watchers to enter and range when and 



' The manor farm-house at Tollard is called by tradition King John's Palace. 

 In the interior there is some old work, but nothing that can be assigned to so 

 old a date. The king is known to have been often at Cranborne. A court leet 

 of Tollard manor with the liberty of Lavermere, or Larmer, used to be held every 

 year on the first Monday in September. It was opened under a lai-ge spreading 

 tree, called the Lavermere, or Larmer, Tree. Whilst Cranborne Chase was in 

 existence, by the custom of the manor the lord, his steward, servants, and 

 tenants, had on this day the privilege of hunting and killing deer started within 

 the precincts of the manor, from the time of opening the court until it was closed 

 in due form. It was, if the weather permitted, a high holiday for the neigh- 

 bourhood. The court leet is continued, but the Tollard hunt is at an end. The 

 company were entertained at breakfast with venison pasty. There is a view of 

 the house, and of a carved oak chimney-piece, in the Gentleman's Magazine of 

 1811, vol. kxxi., part ii., p. 217. 



