Rob Hall Antiques

Description

An English gamekeeper's jacket or velveteen c 1870 with deep internal pockets. Each of the buttons depicting a fox or a dog.
Such jackets would have been used for best when there was a shoot on the estate with guests.

Velveteens also received a mention in 'Tom Brown's schooldays'.

A rare and evocative English country house piece.

Provenance from a longstanding private collection

Speakman A Keeper's Tale
Page 134, Keeper Butt,
'We wore fine uniforms in those old days with breeches made by Nichols in the Strand, velveteen coats and overcoats by a famous Oxford Street firm, with gaiters of good pigskin, fitted to perfection. On each lapel we wore a badge, gold-washed. As the years passed, the making of the badges passed too from firm to firm, and at the end when Collis & Co, of Birmingham were bought up by Chilman's the silversmiths made them. They were beautifully designed and a costly item. Sixty pounds I was told it cost even in the old days for the badges alone. To dress every Keeper as we were dressed must have cost the Committee a small fortune, but we looked well, and knew it. It was part of a Keepers' pride.' - See more at