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the very foundations have been torn up for the repair of the highways; so that the site of this convent is now become a rough, rugged pasture-field, full of hillocks and pits, choked with nettles and dwarf-elder, and trampled by the feet of the ox and the heifer.1

As the tenant at the Priory was lately digging among the foundations, for materials to mend the highways, his labourers discovered two large stones, with which the farmer was so pleased that he ordered them to be taken out whole. One of these proved to be a large Doric capital, worked in good taste; and the other a base of a pillar; both formed out of the soft freestone of this district. These ornaments, from their dimensions, seem to have belonged to massive columns; and show that the church of this convent was a large and costly edifice. They were found in the space which has always been supposed to have contained the south transept of the Priory church. Some fragments of large pilasters were also found at the same. time. The diameter of the capital was two feet three inches and a half; and of the column, where it had stood on the base, eighteen inches and three quarters.

1 Mr. Bennett found in 1837 that the ground had been so effectually cleared as almost to have become a smooth homestead. A few heaps of stone derived, it was supposed, from the last remnants of the foundations, and piled ready for use as materials, were all that remained in the Priory field to evidence the former site of that important building. Among the heaps were some fashioned stones which would not be broken to pieces. Some fragments of columns and of a pediment, perhaps of a monument of superior pretensions, were preserved. These were placed, together with a stone coffin that had been dug up on the spot, in the garden of the adjoining farm. A considerable number of ornamented tiles were also found; some of which exhibited merely fancy devices, some bore eagles displayed and other apparently armorial emblems, and one bore a shield of three fleurs de luces, supported by two hawks. These tiles were used to form the pavement of a summer-house in the garden of the Priory Farm. Some fragments of stained glass were also found, together with portions of the ornamented leaden casement including them; affording additional proofs of an important building.

The complete clearance, however, which has since taken place, renders it improbable that any future discovery of interest will be made on the spot.-ED.

Two years ago some labourers digging again among the ruins found a sort of rude thick vase or urn of soft stone, containing about two gallons in measure, on the verge of the brook, in the very spot which tradition has always pointed out as having been the site of the convent kitchen. This clumsy utensil, whether intended for holy water, or whatever purpose, we were going to procure, but found that the labourers had just broken it in pieces, and carried it out on the highways.1

The Priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a Grange, an usual appendage to manorial estates, where the fruits of their lands were stowed and laid up for use, at a time when men took the natural produce of their estates in kind. The mansion of this spot is still called the Grange, and is the manor-house of the convent possessions in this place. The author has conversed with very ancient people who remembered the old original Grange; but it has long given place to a modern farm-house. Magdalen College holds a court-leet and court-baron2 in the great wheat-barn of the said Grange, annually, where the president usually superintends, attended by the bursar and steward of the college.3

The following uncommon presentment at the court is not unworthy of notice. There is on the south side of the king's field (a large common field so called) a considerable tumulus, or hillock, now covered with thorns and bushes, and known by the name of Kite's Hill, which is presented, year by year, in court as not ploughed. Why this injunction is still kept up respecting this spot, which is surrounded on all sides by arable land, may be a question

1 A judicious antiquary, who saw this vase, observed, that it possibly might have been a standard measure between the monastery and its tenants. The Priory we have mentioned claimed the assize of bread and beer in Selborne manor; and probably the adjustment of dry measures for grain, &c.-G. W.

2 The time when this court is held is the mid-week between Easter and Whitsuntide.-G. W.

3 Owen Oglethorp, president, &c. an. Edw. Sexti primo [viz. 1547] demised to Robert Arden, Selborne Grange, for twenty years. Rent vi".-Index of Leases.-G. W.

not easily solved, since the usage has long survived the knowledge of the intention thereof. We can only suppose that as the prior, besides thurset and pillory, had also furcas, a power of life and death, that he might have reserved this little eminence as the place of execution for delinquents. And there is the more reason to suppose so, since a spot just by is called Gally (Gallows) Hill.

The lower part of the village next the Grange, in which is a pond and a stream, is well known by the name of

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Gracious Street, an appellation not at all understood. There is a lake in Surrey, near Chobham, called also Gracious Pond; and another, if we mistake not, near Hedleigh, in the county of Hants. This strange denomination. we do not at all comprehend, and conclude that it may be a corruption from some Saxon word, itself perhaps forgotten.

It has been observed already, that Bishop Tanner was mistaken when he refers to an evidence of Dodsworth, "De mercatu et FERIA de Seleburne." Selborne never had. a chartered fair; the present fair was set up since the year 1681, by a set of jovial fellows, who had found in an old

almanack that there had been a fair here in former days on the 1st of August; and were desirous to revive so joyous a festival. Against this innovation the vicar set his face, and persisted in crying it down, as the probable occasion of much intemperance. However the fair prevailed; but was altered to the 29th of May, because the former day often interfered with wheat harvest. On that day it still continues to be held, and is become a useful mart for cows and calves. Most of the lower housekeepers brew beer against this holiday, which is dutied by the excisemen; and their becoming victuallers for the day without a license is overlooked.

Monasteries enjoyed all sorts of conveniences within themselves. Thus at the Priory, a low and moist situation, there were ponds and stews for their fish: at the same place also, and at the Grange in Culver Croft,1 there were dovehouses; and on the hill opposite to the Grange the prior had a warren, as the names of The Coney Crofts and Coney Croft Hanger plainly testify."

Nothing has been said as yet respecting the tenure or holding of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton are manor farms and freehold; as is the manor of Chapel near Oakhanger, and also the estate at Oakhanger House and Blackmoor. The Priory and Grange are leasehold under Magdalen College, for twenty-one years, renewable every seven: all the smaller estates in and round the village are copyhold of inheritance under the college, except the little remains of the Gurdon manor, which had been of old leased out upon lives, but have been freed of late by their present lord, as fast as those lives have dropped.

Selborne seems to have derived much of its prosperity from the near neighbourhood of the Priory. For monasteries were of considerable advantage to places where they had their sites and estates, by causing great resort, by procuring markets and fairs, by freeing them from the cruel oppression of forest laws and by letting their lands at easy

1 Culver, as has been observed before, is Saxon for a pigeon-G. W. ? A warren was an usual appendage to a manor.--G. W.

LL

rates. But, as soon as the convent was suppressed, the town which it had occasioned began to decline, and the market was less frequented; the rough and sequestered situation gave a check to resort, and the neglected roads rendered it less and less accessible.

That it had been a considerable place for size formerly appears from the largeness of the church, which much exceeds those of the neighbouring villages; by the ancient extent of the burying ground, which, from human bones occasionally dug up, is found to have been much encroached upon; by giving a name to the hundred; by the old foundations and ornamented stones, and tracery of windows that have been discovered on the north-east side of the village; and by the many vestiges of disused fish-ponds still to be seen around it. For ponds and stews were multiplied in the times of popery, that the affluent might enjoy some variety at their tables on fast days; therefore the more they abounded the better probably was the condition of the inhabitants.

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