be the oldest known photograph of a group of mummers or guisers. Two men wearing military-looking jackets, buttoned to the neck, and white trousers stand astride small hobby horses of an apparently unique design: a cylindrical body, "about three inches diameter and two feet long", held between the rider's legs (supported at the front by a cord or narrow strap around the rider's neck), with a flat, curved wooden neck and a small, stylised head with snapping jaws (apart from their mouths, the horses look almost like simple rocking horses with the legs removed). The horsemen are faceless: their heads are wrapped in light-coloured cloth. The performers are grouped around a "mast horse" with a shiny black head made from a skull (with ears attached and a large eyeball in its white-painted eye socket) set on a short pole. It is operated by a person who crouches under a blanket, attached to the back of the skull, that hides most of the pole. Behind this horse are two men who seem to be threatening it, one with a long stick like the handle of a brush or rake, the other with a besom broom (blurred). The one with the stick wears white trousers, a dark jacket and a top hat; his face is disguised, perhaps by a mask or possibly wrapped in cloth. The other has a dark jacket and a flat-topped, ornate hat that looks like a smoking cap; he may be wearing a mask or perhaps a painted-on beard; his legs cannot be seen. Next to them stands a rather matronly woman in a long apron; she has no facial disguise and is possibly a member of the household staff rather than a performer; another smartly dressed person, also possibly a servant is looking out of the house through a window in the door. Another character wears a rather voluminous, tattered, long, dark dress with pale sleeves (or a pale blouse under it) and a top hat. Busily brushing the ground with a besom broom, "she" is reminiscent of the character Besom Bet who appears in some mummers plays or the Winster morris Witch. The last two characters, on the outer edges of the group, are playing rough music on bladder fiddles. One has his face disguised with a simple (cloth?) mask and wears a peaked cap. He wears white trousers, and possibly a dark, sleeveless jerkin over