HE parish of SELBORNE lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the county of Surrey; is about fifty miles south-west of London, in latitude 51, and near midway between the towns of Alton and Peters B field. Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which are in Sussex, viz. Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from the south and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence, Faringdon, Harteley Mauduit,' Great Ward le ham,2 Kingsley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse, and Greatham. The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects. The high part to the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising 300 ft. above the village; and is divided into a sheep down, the high wood, and a long hanging wood called The Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasing park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of the hill country, where it begins to break down into the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, woodlands, heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to the south-east and east by the vast range of mountains called the Sussex Downs, by Guild Down near Guildford, and by the Downs round Dorking and Ryegate in Surrey, to the north-east; which, altogether, with the country beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline. 1 Mr. Bennett, in a foot-note to this passage, which appeared in his edition of the present work, published in 1837, states that in the parochial registers the orthography is Harteley Maudytt. Mauduit, used by Gilbert White, is, however, a more usual reading of Malduith, the name of the earliest Norman lord, which was used subsequently to the Conquest as an adjunct to the Saxon appellation, for the purpose of distinguishing this Harteley from the other Hartleys in the same county to the north of it.-ED. 2 The orthography in the text, though formal in appearance, was deliberately adopted by the author, who, in his first edition, inserted all deviations from it as errata; it is, consequently, preserved throughout. Wordlam, according to Mr. Bennett, is a pronunciation not unfrequently used in the neighbourhood: but Worldham is the more ordinary name. And in this case he suspects that the vulgar are right; Werildeham, the oldest name which he could find for it, belonging to an era prior to the erection in England of Norman castles.-ED. At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the upiands, lies the village, which consists of one single straggling street, three quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and running parallel with The Hanger. The houses are divided from the hill by a vein of stiff clay (good wheat land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in appearance removed from chalk; but seeming so far from being calcareous, that it endures extreme heat. Yet that the freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous to chalk, is plain from the beeches, which descend as low as those rocks extend, and no farther, and thrive as well on them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks. The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable manner, two very incongruous soils. To the south-west is a rank clay, that requires the labour of years to render it mellow; while the gardens to the north-east, and small enclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling mould, called black malm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal manure; and these may perhaps have been the original site of the town, while the woods and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank. At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to north-west, arises a small rivulet: that at the north-west end frequently fails; but the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet seasons, called Wellhead. This breaks out of some high grounds joining to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending forth two streams into two different seas. The one to the south becomes a branch of the Arun, running to Arundel, and so falling into the British Channel: the other to the north, the Selborne stream, makes one branch of the Wey; and, meeting the Black Down stream at Hedleigh, and the Alton and Farnham stream at Tilford Bridge, swells into a considerable river, navigable at Godalming; from whence it 1 This spring produced, September 14, 1781, after a severe hot summer, and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, which is 540 in an hour, and 12,960, or 216 hogsheads, in twentyfour hours, or one natural day. At this time many of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vales were dry.-G. W. |