By the Eev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 161 



The Cranborne costume consisted of a kind of helmet, in shape 

 and material not unlike a bee-hive. It was made with wreaths of 

 straw tightly bound together with split bramble stalks, or wire, and 

 well padded within. By the kindness of Mr. Penruddocke, of 

 Compton, I am able to exhibit, what is better than a drawing of it, 

 the very article itself : one that was worn by James Barrett, one of the 

 last keepers of Cobley Walk. The body armour of the deer hunting 

 gentleman was made of the strongest canvas, well quilted with 

 wool, to lessen the effect of heavy blows. He wore, also, a short 

 sword, a hanger, and a quarter-staff. The instrument in his hand, 

 from its great length, looks more like a pike-staff. The whole 

 dress, indeed, seems somewhat ill adapted for the purposes of light 

 infantry, still less for the rapid pursuit of so nimble an animal as 

 a deer. But these hunters had other ways of taking their victims 

 that did not require much fleetness of foot on their part, but did 

 require a very strong head-piece and body-piece, for those close 

 quarter tussles to which they were exposed. One was by stealthy 

 surprize and shooting them : which, of course, would alarm by noise. 

 The other and more sneaking process was by hanging wire nooses 

 from boughs in the trackway of the deer, and when entangled by 

 the horns slaughtering them with the knife. 



The gentleman in the foreground of the plate was the captain of 

 the party. There is a full account of him in a letter written from 

 this part of the country to a Sir William Musgrave, a great col- 

 lector of county information about one hundred years ago, and it is 

 preserved among the Musgrave MSS. in the British Museum.* It 

 is curious, and as follows :— 



" The deer hunter's name was Henry Good. He was the 6th Henry in lineal 

 descent from the ancestor who settled at Bower Chalk : and he died in the year 

 1766, aged 72. The family has always been a creditable though not a splendid 



Kneller. Sir Godfrey was a landowner in South Wilts. He grew lazy towards 

 the latter part of his life, and only painted the faces in his portraits. All the 

 dresses, backgrounds, &c., were left to his assistant. Byng's drawing was in 

 the possession of a Mr. Wray, a barrister, at the time it was copied for Mr. 

 Chafin. The principal figure itself forms the subject of a plate in the Gentle- 

 man's Magazine, August, 1818, p. 105. 



1 Musgrave Collect., ix., 8. 



