148 



Cranborne Chase. 



From this point the Members separated on their homeward routes, 

 having enjoyed thoroughly one of the most pleasant of the annual 

 Meeting's, and having been favoured with a brilliancy of weather 

 and a warmth of sun such as we seldom experience in this country. 



Cfltttfofite Cjm#e. 



By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 



(Read at the Shaftesbury Meeting, 6th August, 1884.) 



AM afraid that the greater part of what I have to say about 

 Cranborne Chase will be already very well known to those 

 of the present company who belong to Dorsetshire, several local 

 histories having been long since published, with which they will be 

 familiar. 1 But as part of the Chase lay in Wiltshire, and we of 

 that county are not very well acquainted with the subject, my paper 

 may be regarded as written for our benefit rather than for that of 

 our hosts at Shaftesbury. 



In the sense of a deer-hunting country Cranborne Chase is a 

 thing of the past. The name still continues to be given to a 

 district in this neighbourhood, but it is a mere fragment of what 

 the Chase once was. 



It took its name, of course, from the little town of Cranborne, in 

 Dorsetshire : or, rather, from the old feudal castle which once stood 

 on a hill near the town. The castle vanished long ago, and is now 

 represented by an old manor house belonging to the Marquis of 

 Salisbury ; in which are some vestiges of more ancient building, 

 though, as a whole, it is of the time of Henry VIII. 



Cranborne Castle, with certain lands about it and a small forest 



C 1 The books relating to the Chase (from which much of the present paper is 

 substantially taken) are " Hutchins's Dorset," " Smart's Chronicle of Cranborne," 

 " West's History," and " Chafin's Anecdotes of the Chase." 



