Gallery Title
Gallery Title
Snuffbox
Accession Number NWHRM : 1679
Description
Ram's head with curling horns, sheep's wool 'body" mounted with a snuff box with cut glass decoration and a box for matches with striker; it stands on castors for running up and down the mess table and has a small silver plaque inscribed 'Presented to Colonel C S Perry and the officers 2nd Battalion, Norfolk Regiment by Capt R G Dunn in Remembrance of Happy Old Times, August 1888'
Read MoreSnuffbox
This ram's head is part of the table setting for a formal dinner in the regimental officers' mess. At the end of the meal, after any ladies had left to take coffee in another room, permission to smoke would be given and this object wheeled from guest to guest around the table. Each would take snuff from the jewelled casket on the sheep's brow using the attached small spoon or select a cigar from the silver-lidded humidor behind, lighting it from a match struck on the roughened surface inside. This piece is not unique. It is a Scottish 'mull' - snuff mill - made in the Highlands and decorated with Cairngorm semi-precious stones. They were popular with Scottish regiments and clubs.
