ADVERTISEMENT

THE Author of the following Letters, takes the liberty, with all proper deference, of laying before the public his idea of parochial history, which, he thinks, ought to consist of natural productions and occurrences as well as antiquities. He is also of opinion that if stationary men would pay some attention to the districts on which they reside, and would publish their thoughts respecting the objects that surround them, from such materials might be drawn the most complete county-histories, which are still wanting in several parts of this kingdom, and in particular in the county of Southampton.

THE parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering of 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 Petersfield. 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, 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 three hundred feet 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 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. wood-land, 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.

At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the upland, 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 seems so far from being calcarious, 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 wood 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 Well-head. [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, ...] 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 passes to Guildford, and so into the Thames at Weybridge; and thus at the Nore into the German ocean.

Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three feet, and when sunk to that depth seldom fail; but produce a fine limpid water, soft to the taste, and much commended by those who drink the pure element, but which does not lather well with soap.

To the north-west, north and east of the village, is a range of fair enclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain, moulders to pieces, and becomes manure to its self. [This soil produces good wheat and clover.]

Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops, which root deep into the freestone, and have their poles and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. This white soil produces the brightest hops.

As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer-forest, at the juncture of the clays and sand the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for timber, and infamous for roads. The oaks of Temple and Blackmore stand high in the estimation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval timber; while the trees on the freestone grow large, but are what workmen call shakey, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes an hungry lean sand, till it mingles with the forest; and will produce little without the assistance of lime and turnips.

IN the court of Norton farm house, a manor farm to the north-west of the village, on the white malms, stood within these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, or wych hazel, ulmus folio latissimo scabro of Ray, which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough in the great storm in the year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained eight loads of timber; and, being to bulky for a carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the butt, where it measured near eight feet in diameter. This elm I mention to show what a bulk planted elms may attain; as this tree must certainly have been such from its situation.

In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square piece of ground surrounded by houses, and vulgarly called The Plestor. In the midst of this spot stood, in old times, a vast oak, with a short squat body, and huge horizontal arms extending almost to the extremity of the area. This venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps, and seats above them, was the delight of old and young, and a place of much resort in summer evenings; where the former sat in grave debate, while the latter frolicked and danced before them. Long might it have stood, had not the amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, to the infinite regret of the inhabitants, and the vicar, who bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again: but all his care could not avail; the tree sprouted for a time, then withered and died. This oak I mention to show to what a bulk planted oaks also may arrive: and planted this tree must certainly have been, as will appear from will be said farther concerning this area, when we enter on the antiquities of Selborne.

On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losel's, of a few acres, that was lately furnished with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth and great value; they were tall and taper like firs, but standing near together had very small heads, only a little brush without any large limbs. About twenty years ago the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court, being much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs that were fifty feet long without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter at the little end. Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little wood, with this advantage, that many of them answered the description at sixty feet. These trees were sold for twenty pounds apiece.

In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of The Raven-tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But, when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazardous. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle or mallet, the tree nodded to its fall; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest; and, though her parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to the ground.

THE fossil-shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as have fallen within my observation, must not be passed over in silence. And first I must mention, as a great curiosity, a specimen that was ploughed up in the chalky fields, near the side of the Down, and given to me for the singularity of its appearance, which, to an incurious eye, seems like a petrified fish of about four inches long, the cardo passing for a head and mouth. It is in reality a bivalve of Linnean Genus of Mytilus, and the species of Crista Galli; ... by those who make collections cock's comb. ...

Cornua Ammonis are very common about this village. As we were cutting an inclining path up The Hanger, the labourers found them frequently on that steep, just under the soil, in the chalk, and of a considerable size. In the lane above Well-head, in the way to Emshot, they abound in the bank, in a darkish sort of marl; and usually very small and soft: but in Clay's Pond, a little farther on, at the end of the pit, where the soil is dug out for manure, I have occasionally observed them of large dimensions, perhaps fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter. but as these did not consist of firm stone, but were formed of a kind of terra lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they were exposed to the rains and frost they mouldered away. These seemed as if they were a very recent production. In the chalk-pit, at the north-west end of The Hanger, large nautili are sometimes observed.

In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at considerable depth, well-diggers often find large scallops or pectines, having both shells deeply striated, and ridged and furrowed alternately. They are highly impregnated with, if not wholly composed of, the stone of the quarry.

As in a former letter the freestone of this place has been mentioned incidentally, I shall here become more particular.

This stone is in great request for hearth-stones and the beds of ovens; and in lining of lime-kilns it turns to good account; for the workmen use sandy loam instead of mortar; the sand of which fluxes [...], and runs by the intense heat, and so cases over the whole face of the kiln with a strong vitrified coat like glass, that it is well preserved from injuries of weather, and endures thirty of forty years. When chiselled smooth, it makes elegant fronts for houses, equal in colour and grain to the Bath stone; and superior in one respect, that, when seasoned, it does not scale. Decent chimney-pieces are worked from it of much closer and finer grain than Portland; and rooms are floored with it; but it proves rather too soft for this purpose. It is a freestone, cutting in all directions; yet has something of a grain parallel with the horizon, and therefore should not be surbedded, but laid in the same position that it grows in the quarry. [...] On the ground abroad this firestone will not succeed for pavements, because, probably, some degree of saltness prevailing within it, the rain tears the slabs to pieces. [...] Though this stone is too hard to be acted on by vinegar; yet both the white part, and even the blue rag, ferments strongly in manure acids. Though the white stone will not bear wet, yet in every quarry at intervals there are thin strata of blue rag, which resist rain and frost; and are excellent for pitching of stables, paths and courts, and for building of dry walls against banks; a valuable species of fencing, much in use in this village, and for mending of roads. This rag is rugged and stubborn, and will not hew to a smooth face; but is very durable: yet, as these strata are shallow and lie deep, large quantities cannot be procured but at considerable expence. Among the blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or rust colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue; and every now and then balls of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called rust balls.

In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the workmen sand, or forest-stone. This is generally of the colour of rusty iron, and might probably be worked as iron ore; it is very hard and heavy, and of a firm, compact texture, and composed of a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented together by a brown, terrene, ferruginous matter; will not cut without difficulty, nor easily strike fire with steel. Being often found in broad flat pieces, it makes good pavement for paths about houses, never becoming slippery in frost or rain; is excellent for dry walls, and is sometimes used in buildings. In many parts of that waste it lies scattered on the surface of the ground; but is dug on Weaver's Down, a vast hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the pits are shallow, and the stratum thin. This stone is imperishable.

From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into small fragments about the size of the head of a large nail; and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the joints of their freestone walls: this embellishment carries an odd appearance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly, 'whether we fastened our walls together with tenpenny nails.'

AMONG the singularities of this place the two rocky hollow lanes, the one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve our attention. These roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic of ages, and the fretting of water, worn down through the first stratum of our freestone, and partly through the second; so that they look more like water-courses than roads; and are bedded with naked rag for furlongs together. In many places they are reduced sixteen or eighteen feet beneath the level of the fields; and after floods, and in frosts, exhibit very grotesque and wild appearances, from the tangled roots that are twisted among the strata, and from the torrents rushing down their broken sides; and especially when those cascades are frozen into icicles, hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work. These rugged gloomy scenes afright the ladies when they peep down into them from the paths above, and make timid horsemen shudder while they ride along them; but delight the naturalist with their various botany, and particularly with their curious filices with which they abound.

The manor of Selborne, was it strictly looked after, with all its kindly aspects, and all its sloping coverts, would swarm with game; even now hares, partridges, and pheasants abound; and in old days woodcocks were as plentiful. There are few quails, because they more affect open fields than enclosures; after harvests some few land-rails are seen.

The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the forest, is a vast district. Those who tread the bounds are employed part of three days in the business, and are of opinion that the outline, in all its curves and indentings, does not comprise less than thirty miles.

The village stands in a sheltered spot, secured by The Hanger from the strong westerly winds. The air is soft, but rather moist from the effluvia of so many trees; yet perfectly healthy and free from agues.

The quantity of rain that falls on it is very considerable, as may be supposed in so woody and mountainous a district. ...

The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oakhanger, with the single farms, and many scattered houses along the verge of the forest, contains upward of six hundred and seventy inhabitants [...]. We abound with poor; many of whom are sober and industrious, and live comfortably in good stone or brick cottages, which are glazed, and have chambers above stairs: mud buildings we have none. Besides the employment from husbandry, the men work in hop gardens, of which we have many; and fell and bark timber. In the spring and summer the women weed the corn; and enjoy a second harvest in September by hop-picking. Formerly, in the dead months they availed themselves greatly by spinning wool, for making of barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue at that time for summer wear; and chiefly manufactured at Alton, a neighbouring town, by some of the people called Quakers: but from circumstances this trade is at an end [Since the passage above was written, I am happy in being able to say that the spinning employment is a little revived, to the no small comfort of the industrious housewife.] The inhabitants enjoy a good share of health and longevity: and the parish swarms with children.

SHOULD I omit to describe with some of exactness the forest of Wolmer, of which three fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a district abounding with many curious productions, both animal and vegetable; and has often afforded me much entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist.

The royal forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about seven miles in length, by two and a half in breadth, running nearly from North to South, and is abutted on, to begin to the South, and so to proceed eastward, by the parishes of Greatham, Lysse, Rogate, and Trotton, in the county of Sussex; by Bramshot, Hedleigh, and Kingsley. This royalty consists entirely of sand covered with heath and fern; but is somewhat diversified with hills and dales, without having one standing tree in the whole extent. In the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which formerly abounded with subterraneous trees; though Dr. Plot says positively [See his Hist. of Staffordshire.], that 'there never were any fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the southern counties.' But he was mistaken: for I myself have seen cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose timbers consisted of a black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners assured me they procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits, or some such instrument: but the peat is so much cut out, and the moors have been so well examined, that none has been found of late [Old people have assured me, that on a winter's morning they have discovered these trees, in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay longer over the space where they were concealed, than on the surrounding morass. ...]. Besides the oak, I have also been shown pieces of fossil-wood of a paler colour, and softer nature, which the inhabitants called fir: but, upon a nice examination, and trial by fire, I could discover nothing resinous in them; and therefore rather suppose that they were parts of a willow or alder, or some such aquatic tree.

This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed there in the summer; such as lapwings, snipes, wild-ducks, and, as I have discovered within these few years, teals. Partridges in vast plenty are bred in good season on the verge of this forest into which they love to make excursions: ...

But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, now extinct, which I have heard old people say abounded much before shooting flying became so common, and that was the heath-cock, black game, or grouse. When I was a little boy I recollect one coming now and then to my father's table. ...

Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the Fauna Selborniensis; for another beautiful link in the chain of beings is wanting, I mean the red deer, which toward the beginning of this century amounted to about five hundred head, and made a stately appearance. There is an old keeper, now alive, named Adams, whose great grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635), grandfather, father and self, enjoyed the head keepership of Wolmer forest in succession for more than an hundred years. This person assures me, that his father has often told him, that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the Portsmouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her royal regard. For she came out of the great road at Lippock, which is just by, and reposing herself on a bank smoothed for that purpose, lying about half a mile to the east of Wolmer-pond, and still called Queen's-bank, saw with great complacency and satisfaction the whole herd of red deer brought by the keepers along the vale before her, consisting then of about five hundred head. A sight this worthy the attention of the greatest sovereign! But he further adds that, by means of the Waltham blacks, or, to use his own expression, as soon as they began blacking, they were reduced to about fifty head, and so continued decreasing till the time of the late Duke of Cumberland. It is now more than thirty years ago that his highness sent down an huntsman, and six yeomen-prickers, in scarlet jackets laced with gold, attended by the stag-hounds; ordering them to take every deer in this forest alive, and convey them in carts to Windsor. In the course of the summer they caught every stag, some of which showed extraordinary diversion; but, in the following winter, when the hinds were also carried off, such fine chases were exhibited as served the country people for matter of talk and wonder for ears afterwards. ...

THOUGH large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, yet the injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than the loss of their crops. The temptation is irresistible; for most men are sportsmen by constitution: and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can restrain. Hence, towards the beginning of this century, all this country was wild about deer-stealing. Unless he was a hunter, as they affected to call themselves, no young person was allowed to be possessed of manhood or gallantry. The Waltham blacks at length committed such enormities, that the government was forced to interfere with that severe and sanguinary act called the black act [Statute 9 Geo. I. c. 22.], which now comprehends more felonies than any law that ever was framed before. And, therefore, a late bishop of Winchester, when urged to restock Waltham Chase [The chase remains unstocked to this day. The bishop was Dr. Hoadly.], refused, from a motive worthy of a prelate, replying that 'It had done mischief enough already.'

Our old race of deer-stealers are hardly extinct yet: it was a little while ago that, over their ale, they used to recount the exploits of their youth; ...

Another temptation to idleness and sporting, was a number of rabbits, which possessed all the hillocks and dry places: but these being inconvenient to the huntsmen, on account of their burrows, when they came to take away the deer, they permitted the country-people to destroy them all.

Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irregularities are removed, are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that verge upon them, by furnishing them with peat and turf for their firing; with fuel for the burning their lime; and with ashes for their grasses; and by maintaining their geese and their stock of young cattle at little or no expense.

The manor farm of the parish of Greatham has an admitted claim , I see, (by an old record taken from the Tower of London) of turning all live stock on the forest, at proper seasons, bidentibus exceptis [For this privilege the owner of that estate is to pay to the king annually seven bushels of oats]. The reason, I presume, why sheep [In the Holt, where a full stock of fallow-deer has been kept up till lately, no sheep are admitted to this day.] are excluded, is, because, being such close grazers, they would pick out all the finest grasses and hinder the deer from thriving.

Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary c. 23.) 'to burn on any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer, any grig, ling, heath and furze, goss or fern, is punishable with whipping and confinement in the house of correction'; yet, in this forest, about March or April, according to the dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up, that they often get to a masterless head, and, catching the hedges, have sometimes been communicated to the underwoods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has ensued. The plea for these burnings is, that, when the old coat of heath, etc. is consumed, young will sprout up, and afford much tender brouze for cattle; but, where there is large old furze, the fire, following the roots, consumes the very ground; so that for hundreds of acres nothing is to be seen but smother and desolation, the whole circuit round looking like the cinders of a volcano; and, the soil being quite exhausted, no traces of vegetation are to be found for years. These conflagrations, as they take place usually with a north-east or east wind, much annoy this village with their smoke, and often alarm the country; and, once in particular, I remember that a gentleman, who lives beyond Andover, coming to my house, when he got on the downs between that town and Winchester, at twenty-five miles distance, was surprised much with smoke and hot smell of fire; and concluded that Alresford was in flames; but, when he came to that town, he then had apprehensions for the next village, and so on to the end of his journey.

On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this forest, stand two arbours or bowers, made of the boughs of oaks; the one called Waldon-lodge, the other Brimstone-lodge: these the keepers renew annually on the feast of St. Barnabas, taking the old materials for a perquisite. The farm called Blackmoor, in this parish, is obliged to find the posts and brush-wood for the former; while the farms at Greatham, in rotation, furnish for the latter; and all are enjoined to cut and deliver the materials at the spot. This custom I mention, because I look upon it to be of very remote antiquity.

ON the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, are three considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have nothing particular to say; and one called Bin's on Bean's pond, which is worthy the attention of a naturalist or a sportsman. For, being crowded at the upper end with willows, and with carex cespitosa [I mean that sort which, rising into tall hassocks, is called by the foresters torrets; a corruption, I suppose, of turrets.], it affords such a safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals, snipes, etc. that they breed there. In the winter this covert is also frequented by foxes, and sometimes by pheasants; and the bogs produce many curious plants. ...

[Note, In the beginning of the summer 1787 the royal forests of Wolmer and Holt were measured by persons sent down by government.]

By a perambulation of Wolmer forest and the Holt, made in 1635, and in the eleventh year of Charles the First (which now lies before me), it appears that the limits of the former are much circumscribed. For, to say nothing of the farther side, with which I am not so well acquainted, the bounds on this side, in old times, came into Binswood; and extended to the ditch of Ward le ham-park, in which stands the curious mount called King John's Hill, and Lodge Hill; and to the verge of Hartley Mauduit, called Mauduit-hatch; comprehending also Short-heath, Oakhanger, and Oakwoods; a large district, now private property, though once belonging to the royal domain.

It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once mentioned in this long roll of parchment. It contains, besides the perambulation, a rough estimate of the value of the timbers, which were considerable, growing at that time in the district of The Holt; and enumerates the officers, superior and inferior, of those joint forests, for the time being, and there ostensible fees and perquisites. In those days, as at present, there were any trees in Wolmer forest.

Within the present limits of the forest are three considerable lakes, Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer; all of which are stocked with carp, tench, eels, and perch: but the fish do not thrive well, because the water is hungry, and the bottoms are a naked sand.

...

Wolmer-pond, so called, I suppose, for eminence sake, is a vast lake for this part of the world, containing, in its whole circumference, 2646 yards, or very near a mile and a half. The length of the north-west and opposite side is about 704 yards, and the breadth of the south-west end about 456 yards. This measurement, which I caused to be made with good exactness, gives an area of about sixty-six acres, exclusive of a large irregular arm at the north-east corner, which we did not take into the reckoning.

On the face of this expanse of waters, and perfectly secure from fowlers, lie all day long, in the winter season, vast flocks of ducks, teals, and wigeons, of various denominations; where they preen and solace, and rest themselves, till towards sun-set, when they issue forth in little parties (for in their natural state they are all birds of the night) to feed in the brooks and meadows; returning again with the dawn of the morning. Had this lake an arm or two more, and were it planted round with thick covert (for now it perfectly naked), it might make a valuable decoy.

Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, nor the resort of various and curious fowls, nor its picturesque groups of cattle, can render this meer so remarkable as the great quantity of coins that were found in its bed about forty years ago. But, as such discoveries more properly belong to the antiquities of this place, I shall suppress all particulars for the present, till I enter professedly on my series of letters respecting the more remote history of this village and district.

BY way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this subject, to inform you that Wolmer, with her sister forest Ayles Holt, alias Alice Holt ['In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest. in Scaccar. 36. Ed. 3. it is called Aisholt.' In the same, 'Tit. Woolmer and Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex habet unam capellam in haia sua~ de Kingesle.' 'Haia, sepes, sepimentum, parcus: a Gall. haie and haye.' Spelman's Glossary.], as it is called in old records, is held by grant from the crown for a term of years.

The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier-General Emanuel Scroope Howe, and his lady, Ruperta, who was a natural daughter of Prince Rupert by Margaret Hughs; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, who married a dowager Lady Pembroke; Henry Bilson Legge and lady; and now Lord Stawel, their son.

The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced age, long surviving her husband; and, at her death, left behind her many curious pieces of mechanism of her father's constructing, who was a distinguished mechanic and artist [This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto.], as well as warrior; and, among the rest, a very complicated clock, lately in possession of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game-painter at Farnham, in the county of Surrey.

Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow range of enclosures, yet no two soils can be more different: for The Holt consists of a strong loam, of a miry nature, carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks that grow to be large timber; while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry, sandy, barren waste.

The former being all in the parish of Binsted, is about two miles in extent from north to south, and near as much from east to west, and contains within it many woodlands and lawns, and the great lodge where the grantees reside: and a smaller lodge, called Goose-green; and is abutted on by the parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and Bentley; all of which have right of common.

One thing is remarkable; that, though The Holt has been of old well-stocked with fallow-deer, unrestrained by any pales or fences more than a common hedge, yet they were never seen within the limits of Wolmer; nor were the red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the thickets or glades of The Holt.

At present the deer of The Holt are much thinned and reduced by the night-hunters, who perpetually harass them in spite of the efforts of numerous keepers, and the severe penalties that have been put in force against them as often as they have been detected, and rendered liable to the lash of the law. Neither fines nor imprisonments can deter them: so impossible is it to extinguish the spirit of sporting, which seems to be inherent in human nature.

General Howe turned out some German wild boars and sows in his forests, to the great terror of the neighbourhood; and, at one time, a wild bull or buffalo: but the country rose upon them and destroyed them.

A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks has been cut this spring (viz. 1784) in The Holt forest; one fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the grantee Lord Stawel. He lays claim also to the lop and top: but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and Frinsham, Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it belongs to them; and, assembling in a riotous manner, have actually taken it all away. One man, who keeps a team, has carried home, for his share, forty stacks of wood. Forty-five of these people his lordship has served with actions. These trees, which were very sound and in high perfection, were winter-cut, viz. in February and March, before the bark would run. in old times The Holt was estimated to be eighteen miles, computed measure, from water-carriage, viz. from the town of Chertsey, on the Thames; but now it is not half that distance, since the Wey is made navigable up to the town of Godalming in the county of Surrey.

As to the peculiarities of jackdaws building with us under the ground in rabbit burrows, you have, in part, hit upon the reason; for, in reality, there are hardly any towers or steeples in all this country. And perhaps, Norfolk excepted, Hampshire and Sussex are as meanly furnished with churches as almost any county in the kingdom. We have many livings of two or three hundred pounds a year, whose houses of worship make little better appearance than dovecots. When I first saw Northamtonshire, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, and the fens of Lincolnshire, I was amazed at the number of spires which presented themselves in every point of view. As an admirer of prospects, I have reason to lament this want in my own country; for such objects are very necessary ingredients in an elegant landscape.

...

...

In a farm-yard near the middle of this village stands, at this day, a row of pollard-ashes, which, by the seams and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show that, in former times, they had been cleft asunder. These trees, when young a flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped naked, were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that by such a process, the poor babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the tree, in the suffering part, was plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts coalesced and soldered together, as usually fell out, where the feat was performed with any adroitness at all, the party was cured; but, where the cleft continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would prove ineffectual. ...

...

At the south corner of the Plestor, or area, near the church, there stood, about twenty years ago, a very old grotesque hollow pollard-ash, which for ages had been looked on with no small veneration as a shrew-ash. Now a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse over the part affected: ... A shrew-ash was made thus: - Into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations long since forgotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such a consecration are no longer understood, all succession is at an end, and no such tree is known to subsist in the manor, or hundred.

As to that on the Plestor,

'The late Vicar stubb'd and burnt it,'

when he was way-warden, regardless of the remonstrances of the by-standers, who interceded in vain for its preservation, urging its power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been

'Religione patrum multos servata per annos.'

IN heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, trees are perfect alembics: and no one that has not attended to such matters can imagine how much water one tree will distil in a night's time by condensing the vapour, which trickles down the twigs and boughs, so as to make the ground below quite in a float. In Newton-lane, in October 1775, on a misty day, a particular oak in leaf dropped so fast that the cart-way stood in puddles and the ruts ran with water, though the ground in general was dusty.

...

Trees perspire profusely, condense largely, and check evaporation so much, that woods are always moist: no wonder therefore that they contribute much to pools and streams.

...

To a thinking mind few phenomena are more strange than the state of little ponds on the summits of chalk hills, many of which are never dry in the most trying droughts of summer. On chalk-hills I say, because in many rocky and gravelly soils springs usually break out pretty high on the sides of elevated grounds and mountains; but no person acquainted with chalky districts will allow that they ever saw springs in such a soil but in valleys and bottoms, since the waters of so pervious a stratum as chalk all lie on dead level, as well-diggers have assured me again and again.

Now we have many such little round ponds in this district; and one in particular on our sheep-down, three hundred feet above my house; which, though never above three feet deep in the middle, and not more than thirty feet in diameter, and containing perhaps not more than two or three hundred hogsheads of water, yet never is known to fail, though it affords drink for three hundred or four hundred sheep, and for at least twenty head of large cattle beside. This pond, it is true, is over-hung with two moderate beeches, that, doubtless, at times afford it much supply: but then we have others as small, that, without the aid of trees, and in spite of evaporation from sun and wind, and perpetual consumption by cattle, yet constantly maintain a moderate share of water, without overflowing in the wettest seasons, as they would do if supplied by springs. By my journal of May 1775, it appears that 'the small and even considerable ponds in the vales are now dried up, while the small ponds on the very tops of hills are but little affected.' Can this difference be accounted for from evaporation alone, which certainly is more prevalent in bottoms? or rather have not those elevated pools some unnoticed recruits, which in the night time counter-balance the waste of the day; without which the cattle alone must soon exhaust them? And here it will be necessary to enter more minutely into the cause. Dr. Hales, in his Vegetable Statics, advances, from experiment, that 'the moister the earth is the more dew falls on it in a night: and more than a double quantity of dew falls on a surface of water than there does on an equal surface of moist earth.' Hence we see that water, by its coolness, is enabled to assimilate to itself a large quantity of moisture nightly by condensation; and that the air, when loaded with fogs and vapours, and even with copious dews, can alone advance a considerable and never-failing resource. Persons that are much abroad, and travel early and late; such as shepherds, fishermen, etc. can tell what prodigious fogs prevail in the night on elevated downs, even in the hottest parts of summer; and how much the surfaces of things are drenched by those swimming vapours, though, to the senses, all the while, little moisture seems to fall.

...

... Potatoes have prevailed in this little district, by means of premiums, within these twenty years only; and are much esteemed here now by the poor, who would have scarce have ventured to taste them in the last reign. ...

IN a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow vales, and hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes should abound. Many we have discovered that return the cry of a pack of dogs, the notes of a hunting-horn, a tunable ring of bells, or the melody of birds, very agreeably: ... a young gentleman who had parted from his company in a summer evening walk, and was calling after them, stumbled upon a very curious one in a spot where it might least be expected. ...

...

All echoes have some one place to which they are returned stronger and more distinct than any other; and that is always the place that lies at right angles with the object of repercussion, and is not too near, nor too far off. Buildings, or naked rocks, re-echo much more articulately than hanging woods or vales; because in the latter the voice is as it were entangled, and embarrassed in the covert, and weakened in the rebound.

The true object of this echo, as we found by various experiments, is the stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Galley-Lane, which measures in front 40 feet, and from the ground to the eaves 12 feet. The true centrum phonicum, or just distance, is one particular spot in the King's-field, in the path to Nore-hill, on the very brink of the steep balk above the hollow cart way. in this case there is no choice of distance; but the path, by mere contingency, happens to be the lucky, the identical spot, because the ground rises or falls so immediately, if the speaker either retires or advances, that his mouth would at once be above or below the object.

...

Some time since its discovery this echo is become totally silent, though the object, or hop-kiln, remains: nor is there any mystery in this defect; for the field between is planted as an hop-garden, and the voice of the speaker is totally absorbed and lost among the poles and entangled foliage of the hops. And when the poles are removed in autumn the disappointment is the same; because a tall quick-set hedge, nurtured up for the purpose of shelter to the hop ground, entirely interrupts the impulse and repercussion of the voice: so that till those obstructions are removed no more of its garrulity can be expected.

...

...

... I began to suspect that though our hills may never have journeyed far, yet that the ends of many of them have slipped and fallen away at distant periods, leaving the cliffs bare and abrupt. This seems to have been the case with Nore and Whetham Hills; and especially with the ridge between Harteley Park and Ward le Ham, where the ground has slid into vast swellings and furrows; and lies still in such romantic confusion as cannot be accounted for from any other cause. A strange event, that happened not long since justifies our suspicions; which, though it befell not within the limits of this parish, yet as it was within the hundred of Selborne, and as the circumstances were singular, may fairly claim a place in a work of this nature.

The months of January and February, in the year 1774, were remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of rain, so that by the end of the latter month the land-springs, or lavants, began to prevail, and to be near as high as in the memorable winter of 1764. The beginning of March also went on in the same tenor; when, in the night between the 8th and 9th of that month, a considerable part of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was torn from its place, and fell down, leaving a high freestone cliff naked and bare, and resembling the steep sides of a chalk-pit. It appears that this huge fragment, being perhaps sapped and undermined by waters, foundered, and was ingulfed, going down in a perpendicular direction; for a gate which stood in the field, on the top of the hill, after sinking with its posts for thirty or forty feet, remained in so true and upright a position to open and shut with great exactness, just as in its first situation. Several oaks also are still standing, and in a state of vegetation, after taking the same desperate leap. That great part of this prodigious mass was absorbed in some gulf below, is plain also from the inclining ground at the bottom of the hill, which is free and unincumbered; but would have been buried in heaps of rubbish, had the fragment parted and fallen forward. About an hundred yards from the foot of this hanging coppice stood a cottage by the side of a lane; and two hundred yards lower, on the other side of the lane, was a farm-house, in which lived a labourer and his family; and, just by, a stout new barn. The cottage was inhabited by an old woman and her son and his wife. These people in the evening, which was very dark and tempestuous, observed that the brick floors of their kitchens began to heave and part; and that the walls seemed to open, and the roofs to crack: but they all agree that no tremor of the ground, indicating an earthquake, was ever felt; only that the wind continued to make a most tremendous roaring in the woods and hangers. The miserable inhabitants, not daring to go to bed, remained in the utmost solicitude and confusion, expecting every moment to be buried under the ruins if their shattered edifices. When day-light came they were at leisure to contemplate the devastations of the night: they then found that a deep rift, or chasm, had opened under their houses, and torn them, as it were, in two; and that one end of the barn had suffered in a similar manner; that a pond near the cottage had undergone a strange reverse, becoming deep at the shallow end, and so vice versa; that many large oaks were removed out of their perpendicular, some thrown down, and some fallen into the heads of neighbouring trees; and that a gate was thrust forward, with its hedge, full six feet, so as to require a new track to be made to it. From the foot of the cliff the general course of the ground, which is pasture, inclines in a moderate descent for half a mile, and is interspersed with some hillocks, which were rifted, in every direction, as well towards the great woody hanger, as from it. In the first pasture the deep clefts began; and running across the lane, and under the buildings, made such vast shelves that the road was impassable for some time; and so over to an arable field on the other side, which was strangely torn and disordered. The second pasture field, being more soft and springy, was protruded forward without many fissures in the turf, which was raised in long ridges resembling graves, lying at right angles to the motion. At the bottom of this enclosure the soil and turf rose many feet against the bodies of some oaks that obstructed their farther course and terminated this awful commotion.

The perpendicular height of the precipice, in general, is twenty three yards; the length of the lapse, or slip, as seen from the fields below, one hundred and eighty-one; and a partial fall, concealed in the coppice, extends seventy yards more: so that the total length of this fragment that fell was two hundred and fifty-one yards. About fifty acres of land suffered from this violent convulsion; two houses were entirely destroyed; one end of a new barn was left in ruins, the walls being cracked through the very stones that composed them; a hanging coppice was changed to a naked rock; and some grass grounds and an arable field so broken and rifted by the chasms as to be rendered, for a time, neither fit for the plough or safe for pasturage, till considerable labour and expense had been bestowed in levelling the surface and filling in the gaping fissures.

THERE is a steep abrupt pasture field interspersed with furze close to the back of this village, well known by the name of the Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and inclining to the afternoon sun. ...

...

THE fossil wood buried in the bogs of Wolmer-forest is not yet all exhausted; for the peat-cutters now and then stumble upon a log. I have just seen a piece which was sent by a labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this village; this was the but-end of a small oak, about five feet long, and about five inches in diameter. It has apparently been severed from the ground by an axe, was very ponderous, and as black as ebony. Upon asking the carpenter for what purpose he had procured it; he told me that it was to be sent to his brother, a joiner at Farnham, who was to make use of it in cabinet work, by inlaying it along with whiter woods.

...

...

My friend, who lives just beyond the top of the down, brought his three swivel guns to try them in my outlet, with their muzzles towards the Hanger, supposing that the report would have had a great effect; but the experiment did not answer his expectation. He then removed them to the Alcove on the Hanger; when the sound, rushing along the Lythe and Comb-wood, was very grand: but it was at the Hermitage that the echoes and repercussions delighted the hearers; not only filling the Lythe with the roar, as if all the beeches were tearing up by the roots; but, turning to the left, they pervaded the vale above Combwood-ponds; and after a pause seemed to take up the crash again, and to extend round Harteley-hangers, and to die away at last among the coppices and coverts of Ward le ham. It has remarked before that this district is an anathoth, a place of responses or echoes, and therefore proper for such experiments: we may farther add that the pauses in echoes, when they cease and yet are taken up again, like the pauses in music, surprise the hearers, and have a fine effect on the imagination.

The gentleman above mentioned has just fixed a barometer in his parlour at Newton Valence. The tube was first filled here (at Selborne) twice with care, when the mercury agreed and stood exactly with my own; but, being filled again twice at Newton, the mercury stood, on account of the great elevation of that house, three-tenths of an inch lower than the barometers at this village, and so continues to do, be the weight of the atmosphere what it may. The plate of the barometer at Newton is figured as low as 27; because in stormy weather the mercury there will sometimes descend below 28. We have supposed Newton-house to stand two hundred feet higher than this house: but if the rule holds good, which says that mercury in a barometer sinks one-tenth of an inch for every hundred feet elevation, then the Newton barometer, by standing three-tenths lower than that of Selborne, proves that Newton-house must be three hundred feet higher than that in which I am writing, instead of two hundred.

...

IT is reasonable to suppose that in remote ages this woody and mountainous district was inhabited only by bears and wolves. Whether the Britons ever thought it worthy their attention, is not in our power to determine; but we may safely conclude, from circumstances, that it was not unknown to the Romans. Old people remember to have heard their fathers and grandfathers say that, in dry summers and in windy weather, pieces of money were sometimes found round the verge of Wolmer-pond; and tradition had inspired the foresters with a notion that the bottom of the lake contained great stores of treasure. During the spring and summer of 1740 there was little rain; and the following summer also, 1741, was so uncommonly dry, that many springs and ponds failed, and this lake in particular whose bed became as dusty as the surrounding heaths and wastes. This favourable juncture induced some of the forest-cottagers to begin a search, which was attended with such success, that all the labourers in the neighbourhood flocked to the spot, and with spades and hoes turned up great part of that large area. Instead of pots of coins, as they expected, they found great heaps, the one lying on the other, as if shot out of a bag; many of which were in good preservation. Silver and gold these inquirers expected to find; but their discoveries consisted solely of many hundreds of Roman copper-coins, and some medallions all of the lower empire. There was not much virtu stirring at that time in this neighbourhood; however, some of the gentry and clergy around bought what pleased them best; and some dozens fell to the share of the author.

The owners at first held their commodity at an high price; but, finding that they were not likely to meet with dealers at such a rate, they soon lowered their terms, and sold the fairest as they could. the coins that were rejected became current, and passed for farthings at the petty shops. Of those that we saw, the greater part were of Marcus Aurelius, and the Empress Faustina, his wife, the father and mother of Commodus. Some of Faustina were in high relief, and exhibited a very agreeable set of features, which probably resembled that lady, who more celebrated for her beauty than for her virtues. The medallions in general were of a paler colour than the coins. To pretend to account for the means of their coming to this place would be spending time in conjecture. The spot, I think, could not be a Roman camp, because it is commanded by hills on two sides; nor does it show the least traces of entrenchments; nor can I suppose that it was a Roman town, because I have too good an opinion of the taste and judgement of those polished conquerors to imagine that they would settle on so barren and dreary a waste.

THAT Selborne was a place of some distinction and note in the time of the Saxons we can give most undoubted proofs. But, as there are few if any accounts of the villages before Domesday, it will be best to begin with that venerable record. 'Ipse rex tenet Selesburne. Eddid regina tenuit, et nunquam geldavit. De isto manerio dono dedit rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia. Tempore regis Edwardi et post, valuit duodecim solidos et sex denarios; modo octo solidos et quatuor denarios.' Here we see that Selborne was a royal manor; and that Editha, the queen of Edward the Confessor, had been lady of that manor; and was succeeded in it by the Conqueror; and that it had a church. Besides these, many circumstances concur to prove it to have been a Saxon village; such as the name of the place itself [Selesburne, Seleburne, Selburn, Selbourn, Selborne, Selborn, as it has been variously spelt at different periods, is of Saxon derivation; for Sel signifies great, and burn torrens, a brook or rivulet: so that the name seems to be derived from the great perennial stream that breaks out at the upper end of the village. ...] the names of many fields, and some families [Thus the name of Aldred signifies all-reverend, and that of Kemp means a soldier. Thus we have a church-litton, or enclosure for dead bodies, and not a church-yard: there is also a Culver-croft near the Grange-farm, being the enclosure where the priory pigeon-house stood, from culver, a pigeon. Again there are three steep pastures in this parish called the Lithe, from Hlithe, clivus. ...], with a variety of words in husbandry and common life, still subsisting among the country people.

What probably first drew the attention of the Saxons to this spot was the beautiful spring or fountain called Well-head [Well-head signifies spring-head, and not a deep pit from whence we draw water ...], which induced them to build by the banks of that perennial current; for ancient settlers lover to reside by brooks and rivulets, where they could dip for their water without the trouble and expense of digging wells and of drawing.

It remains still unsettled among antiquaries at what time tracts of land were first appropriated to the chase alone for the amusement of the sovereign. Whether our saxon monarchs had any royal forests does not, I believe, appear on record; but the Constitutiones de Foresta of Canute, the Dane, are come down to us. We shall not therefore pretend to say whether Wolmer-forest existed as a royal domain before the conquest. If it did not, we may suppose it was laid out by some of our earliest Norman kings, who were exceedingly attached to the pleasures of the chase, and resided much at Winchester, which lies at a moderate distance from this district. The Plantagenet princes seem to have been pleased with Wolmer; for tradition says that king John resided just upon the verge, at Ward le ham, on a regular and remarkable mount, still called King John's Hill, and Lodge Hill; and Edward III. had a chapel in his park, or enclosure, at Kingsley [The parish of Kingsley lies between, and divides Wolmer-forest from Ayles Holt-forest. ...]. Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and Richard, duke of York, say my evidences, were both, in their turns, wardens of Wolmer-forest; which seems to have served for an appointment for the younger princes of the royal family, as it may again.

I have intentionally mentioned Edward III. and the dukes Humphrey and Richard, before king Edward II. because I have reserved, for the entertainment of my readers, a pleasant anecdote respecting that prince, with which I shall close this letter.

As Edward II. was hunting on Wolmer-forest, Morris Ken, of the kitchen, fell from his horse several times; at which accidents the king laughed immoderately; and when the chase was over, ordered him twenty shillings ['Item, paid at the lodge at Wolmer, when the king was stag-hunting there, to Morris Ken, of the kitchen, because he rode before the king and often fell from his horse, at which the king laughed exceedingly - a gift, by command, of twenty shillings.' ...]; an enormous sum for those days! Proper allowances ought to be made for the youth of this monarch, whose spirits also, we may suppose, were much exhilarated by the sport of the day: but, at the same time, it is reasonable to remark that, whatever might be the occasion of Ken's first fall, the subsequent ones seem to have been designed. The scullion appears to have been an artful fellow, and to have seen the king's foible; which furnishes an early specimen of that his easy softness and facility of temper, of which the infamous Gaveston took such advantages, as brought innumerable calamities on the nation, and involved the prince at last in such misfortunes and sufferings too deplorable to be mentioned without horror and amazement.

FROM the silence of Domesday respecting churches, it has been supposed that few villages had any at the time when that record was taken; but Selborne, we see, enjoyed the benefit of one: hence we may conclude, that this place was in no abject state even at that very distant period. How many fabrics have succeeded each other since the days of Radfredus the presbyter, we cannot pretend to say; our business leads us to a description of the present edifice, in which we shall be circumstantial.

Our church, which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, consists of three aisles, and measures fifty-four feet in length by forty-seven in breadth, being almost as broad as it is long. The present building has no pretensions to antiquity; and is, as I suppose, of no earlier date than the beginning of the reign of Henry VII. It is perfectly plain and unadorned, without painted glass, carved work, sculpture, or tracery. But when I say it has no claim to antiquity, I would mean to be understood of the fabric in general; for the pillars which support the roof, are undoubtedly old, being of that low, squat, thick order, usually called Saxon. These, I should imagine, upheld the roof of a former church, which, falling into decay, was rebuilt on those massive props, because their strength had preserved them from the injuries of time [...]. Upon these rest blunt gothic arches, such as prevailed in the reign above-mentioned, and by which, as a criterion, we would prove the date of the building.

At the bottom of the south aisle, between the west and south doors, stands the font, which is deep and capacious, and consists of three massy round stones, piled one on another, without the least ornament or sculpture: the cavity at the top is lined with lead, and has a pipe at bottom to convey off the water after the sacred ceremony is performed.

The east end of the south aisle is called the South Chancel, and, till within these thirty years, was divided off by old carved gothic frame-work of timber, having been a private chantry. In this opinion we are more confirmed by observing two gothic niches within the space, the one in the east wall and the other in the south, near which there probably stood images and altars.

In the middle aisle there is nothing remarkable: but I remember when its beams were hung with garlands in honour of young women of the parish, reputed to have died virgins; and recollect to have seen the clerk's wife cutting, in white paper, the resemblances of gloves, and ribbons to be twisted into knots and roses, to decorate these memorials of chastity. In the church of Faringdon, which is in the next parish, many garlands of this sort still remain.

The north aisle is narrow and low, with a sloping ceiling, reaching within eight or nine feet of the floor. It had originally a flat roof covered with lead, till, within a century past, a churchwarden, stripping off the lead, in order, as he said, to have it mended, sold it to a plumber, and ran away with the money. This aisle has no door, for an obvious reason; because the north-side of the church-yard, being surrounded by the vicarage-garden, affords no path to that side of the church. Nothing can be more irregular than the pews of this church, which are of all dimensions and heights, being patched up according to the fancy of the owners: but whoever nicely examines them will find that the middle aisle had, on each side, a regular row of benches of solid oak, all alike, with a low back-board to each. These we should not hesitate to say are coeval with the present church: and especially as it is to be observed that, at their ends, they are ornamented with carved blunt gothic niches, exactly correspondent to the arches of the church, and to a niche in the south wall. The south aisle also has a row of these benches; but some are decayed through age, and the rest much disguised by modern alterations.

At the other end of this aisle, and running out to the north, stands a transept, known by the name of the North Chancel, measuring twenty-one feet from south to north, and nineteen feet from east to west: this was intended, no doubt, as a private chantry; and was also, till of late, divided off by a gothic frame-work of timber. In its north wall, under a very blunt gothic arch, lies perhaps the founder of this edifice, which, from the shape of its arch, may be deemed no older than the latter end of the reign of Henry VII. The tomb was examined some years ago, but contained nothing except the skull and thigh-bones of a large tall man, and the bones of a youth or woman, lying in a very irregular manner, without any escutcheon or other token to ascertain the names or rank of the deceased. The grave was very shallow, and lined with stone at the bottom and on the sides.

From the east wall project four stone brackets, which I conclude supported images and crucifixes. In the great thick pilaster, jutting out between this transept and the chancel, there is a very sharp gothic niche, of older date that the present chantry or church. But the chief pieces of antiquity are two narrow stone coffin-lids, which compose part of the floor, and lie from west to east, with very narrow ends eastward: these belong to remote time; and, if originally placed here, which I doubt, must have been part of the pavement of an older transept. At present there are no coffins under them, whence I conclude they have been removed to this place from some part of a former church. One of these lids is so eaten by time, that no sculpture can be discovered upon it; or, perhaps it may be the wrong side uppermost: but on the other, which seems to be of stone of a closer and harder texture, is to be discerned a discus, with a cross on it, at the end of a staff or rod, the well-known symbol of a Knight-Templar [].

This order was distinguished by a red cross on the left shoulder of their cloak, and by this attribute in their hand. Now, if these stones belonged to Knights Templars, they must have lain here many centuries; for this order came into England early in the reign of king Stephen in 1113; and was dissolved in the time of Edward II. in 1312, having subsisted only one hundred and ninety-nine years. While I should suppose that Knights Templars were occasionally buried at this church, will appear in some future letter, when we come to treat more particularly concerning the property they possessed here, and the intercourse that subsisted between them and the priors of Selborne.

We must now proceed to the chancel, properly so called, which seems to be coeval with the church, and is in the same plain unadorned style, though neatly kept. This room measures thirty-one feet in length, and sixteen feet and an half in breadth, and is wainscoted all round, as high as to the bottom of the windows. The space for the communion table is raised two steps above the rest of the floor, and railed in with oaken balusters.

Here I shall say somewhat of the windows of the chancel in particular, and of the whole fabric in general. They are mostly of that simple and unadorned sort called Lancet, some single, some double, and some in triplets. At the east end of the chancel are two of a moderate size, near each other; and in the north wall two very distant small ones, unequal in length and height: and in the south wall are two, one on each side of the chancel door, that are broad and squat, and of a different order. At the east end of the south aisle of the church there is a large lancet-window in a triplet; and two very small, narrow, single ones in the south wall, and a broad squat window beside, and a double lancet one in the west end; so that the appearance is very irregular. In the north aisle are two windows, made shorter when the roof was sloped; and in the north transept a large triple window, shortened at the time of a repair in 1721; when over it was opened a round one of considerable size, which affords an agreeable light, and renders that chantry the most cheerful of the edifice.

The church and chancels have all coved roofs, ceiled about the year 1683; before which they were open to the tiles and shingles, showing the naked rafters, and threatening the congregation with the fall of a spar, or a blow from a piece of loose mortar.

On the north wall of the chancel is fixed a large oval white marble monument, with the following inscription; and the foot of the wall, over the deceased, and inscribed with his name, age, arms, and time of death, lies a large slab of black marble:

[... GILBERTUS WHITE, SAMSONIS WHITE, ... 1727/8 ...]

On the same wall is newly fixed a small square table-monument of white marble, inscribed in the following manner:

[... Revd. ANDREW ETTY, ... 1784 ...]

WE have now taken leave of the inside of the church, and shall pass by a door at the west end of the middle aisle into the belfry. This room is part of a handsome square embattled tower of forty-five feet in height, and of much more modern date than the church; but old enough to have needed a thorough repair in 1781, when it was neatly stuccoed at a considerable expense, by a set of workmen who were employed on it for the greatest part of the summer. The old bells, three in number, loud and out of tune, were taken down in 1735, and cast into four; to which Sir Simeon Stuart, the grandfather of the present baronet, added a fifth at his own expense: and, bestowing it in the name of his favourite daughter Mrs. Mary Stuart, caused it to be cast with the following motto round it:

'Clara puella dedit, dixitque mihi esto Maria: / Illius ex laudes nomen ad astra sono.'

The day of the arrival of this tuneable peal was observed as an high festival by the village, and rendered more joyous, by an order from the donor, that the treble-bell should be fixed bottom upward in the ground, and filled with punch, of which all present were permitted to partake.

The porch of the church, to the south, is modern, and would not be worthy attention did it not shelter a fine sharp gothic door-way. This undoubtedly much older than the present fabric; and being found in good preservation, was worked into the wall, and is the grand entrance into the church: nor are the folding-doors to be passed over in silence; since, from their thick and clumsy structure, and the rood flourished-work of their hinges, they may possibly be as ancient as the door-way itself.

The whole roof of the south aisle, and the south-side of the roof of the middle aisle, is covered with oaken shingles instead of tiles, on account of their lightness, which favours the ancient and crazy-timber-frame. And indeed, the consideration of accidents by fire excepted, this sort of roofing is much more eligible than tiles. For shingles well seasoned, and cleft from quartered timber, never warp, nor let in drifting snow; nor do they shiver with frost; nor are they liable to be blown off, like tiles; but well nailed down, last for a long period, as it experience has shown us in this place, where those that face to the north are known to have endured, untouched, by undoubted tradition for more than a century.

Considering the size of the church, and the extent of the parish, the church-yard is very scanty; and especially as all wish to be buried on the south-side, which is become such a mass of mortality that no person can be there interred without disturbing or displacing the bones of his ancestors. There is reason to suppose that it once was larger, and extended to what is now the vicarage court and garden; because many human bones have been dug up in those parts several yards without the present limits. At the east end are a few graves; yet none till very lately on the north-side; but, as two or three families of best repute have begun to bury in that quarter, prejudice may wear out by degrees, and their example be followed by the rest of the neighbourhood.

In speaking of the church, I have all along talked of the east and west-end, as if the chancel stood exactly true to those points of the compass; but this is by no means the case, for the fabric bears so much to the north of the east that the four corners of the tower, and not the four sides, stand to the four cardinal points. The best method of accounting for this deviation seems to be, that the workmen, who probably were employed in the longest days, endeavoured to set the chancels to the rising of the sun.

Close by the church, at the west end, stands the vicarage-house; an old, but roomy and convenient edifice. It faces very agreeably to the morning sun, and is divided from the village by a neat and cheerful court. According to the manner of old times, the hall was open to the roof; and so continued probably, till the vicars became family-men, and began to want more conveniences; when they flung a floor across, and, by partitions, divided the space into chambers. In this hall we remember a date, some time in the reign of Elizabeth; it was over the door that leads to the stairs.

Behind the house is a garden of an irregular shape, but well laid out; whose terrace commands so romantic and picturesque a prospect, that the first master in landscape might contemplate it with pleasure, and deem it an object well worthy of his pencil.

IN the church-yard of this village is a yew-tree, whose aspect bespeaks it to be of a great age: it seems to have seen several centuries, and is probably coeval with the church, and therefore may be deemed an antiquity: the body is squat, short, and thick, and measures twenty-three feet in the girth, supporting an head of suitable extent to its bulk. This is a male tree, which in the spring sheds clouds of dust, and fills the atmosphere around with its farina.

...

Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine at what period this tree [ie yews] first obtained a place in church-yards. A statute passed A.D. 1307 and 35 Edward I. the title of which is 'Ne rector abores in cemetario prosternat.' Now if it is recollected that we seldom see any other very large or ancient tree in a church-yard but yews, this statute must have principally related to this species of tree; and consequently their being planted in church-yards is of much more ancient date than the year 1307.

...

THE living of Selborne was a very small vicarage; but, being the patronage of Magdalen-college, in the university of Oxford, that society endowed it with the great tithes of Selborne, more than a century ago: and since the year 1758 again with the great tithes of Oakhanger, called Bene's parsonage: so that, together, it is become a respectable piece of preferment, to which one of the fellows is always presented. The vicar holds the great tithes, by lease, under the college. The great disadvantage of this living is, that is has not one foot of glebe near home [At Bene's, or Bin's, parsonage there is a house and stout barn, and seven acres of glebe. Bene's parsonage is three miles from the church.].

I am unable to give a complete list of the vicars of this parish till towards the end of the reign of queen Elizabeth; from which period the registers furnish a regular series.

In Domesday we find thus - 'De isto manerio dono dedit Rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia.' So that before Domesday, which was compiled between the years 1081 and 1086, here was an officiating minister at this place.

After this, among my documents, I find occasional mention of a vicar here and there: the first is

Roger, instituted in 1254.

In 1410 John Lynne was vicar of Selborne.

In 1411 Hugo Tybbe was vicar.

The Presentations to the vicarage of Selborne generally ran in the name of the prior and the convent; but Tybbe was presented by prior John Wynechestre only.

June 29, 1528, William Fisher, vicar of Selborne, resigned to Miles Peyrson.

1594, William White appears to have been vicar to this time. Of this person there is nothing remarkable, but that he hath made a regular entry twice in the register of Selborne of the funeral of Thomas Cowper, bishop of Winchester, as if he had been buried at Selborne; yet this learned prelate, who died in 1594, was buried at Winchester, in the cathedral, near the episcopal throne [...].

1595, Richard Boughton, vicar.

1596, William Inkforbye, vicar.

May 1606, Thomas Phippes, vicar.

June 1631, Ralph Austine, vicar.

July 1632, John Longworth. This unfortunate gentleman, living in the time Cromwell's usurpation, was deprived of his preferment for many years. probably because he would not take the league and covenant: for I observe that his father-in-law, the Reverend Jethro Beal, rector of Faringdon, which is the next parish, enjoyed his benefice during the whole of that unhappy period. Longworth, after he was dispossessed, retired to a little tenement about one hundred and fifty yards from the church, where he earned a small pittance by the practice of physic. During those dismal times it was not uncommon for the disposed clergy to take up a medical character; ... This person lived to be restored in 1660, and continued vicar for eighteen years; but was so impoverished by his misfortunes, that he left the vicarage-house and premises in a very abject and delapidated state.

July 1678. Richard Byfield, who left eighty pounds by will, the interest to be applied to apprentice out poor children: but this money, lent on private security, was in danger of being lost, and the bequest remained in an unsettled state, for nearly twenty years, till 1700; so that little or no advantage was derived from it. About the year 1759 it was again in the utmost danger by the failure of a borrower; but, by prudent management, has since been raised to one hundred pounds stock in three per cents. reduced. The trustees are the vicar and the renters or owners of Temple, Priory, Grange, Blackmore, and Oakhanger-house, for the time being. This gentleman seemed inclined to have put the vicarial premises in a comfortable state; and began, by building a solid stone wall round the front-court, and another in the lower yard, between that and the neighbouring garden; but was interrupted by death from fulfilling his laudable intentions.

April 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar.

June 1681. This living was now in such low estimation in Magdalen-college, that it descended to a junior fellow, Gilbert White, M.A. [The author's grandfather and godfather.], who was instituted to it in the thirty-first year of his age. At his first coming he ceiled the chancel, and also floored and wainscoted the parlour and hall, which before were paved with stone, and had naked walls; he enlarged the kitchen and brewhouse, and dug a cellar and well: he also built a large new barn in the lower yard, removed the hovels in the front court, which he laid out in walks and borders; and entirely planned the back garden, before a rude field with a stone-pit in the midst of it. By his will he gave and bequeathed 'the sum of forty pounds to be laid out in the most necessary repairs of the church; that is, in strengthening and securing such parts as seem decaying and dangerous.' With this sum two large buttresses were erected to support the east end of the south wall of the church; and the gable-end wall of the west end of the south aisle was new built from the ground.

By his will also he gave 'One hundred pounds to be laid out on lands; the yearly rents whereof shall be employed in teaching the poor children of Selbourn parish to read and write, and say their prayers and catechism, and to sew and knit: - and be under the direction of his executrix as long as she lives; and, after her, under the direction of such of his children and their issue, as shall live in or within five miles of the said parish: and on failure of any such, then under the direction of the vicar of Selbourn for the time being; but still to the uses above-named.' With this sum was purchased, of Thomas Turville, of Hawkeley, in the county of Southampton, yeoman, and Hannah his wife, two closes of freehold land, commonly called Collier's, containing, by estimation, eleven acres, lying in Hawkeley aforesaid. These closes are let at this time, 1785, on lease, at the rate of three pounds by the year.

This vicar also gave by will two hundred pounds towards the repairs of the highways ['Such legacies were very common in former times, before any effectual laws were made for the repairs of highways.' Sir John Cullum's Hawsted, p.15.] in the parish of Selborne. That sum was carefully and judiciously laid out in the summer of the year 1730, by his son John White, who made a solid and firm causey from Rood-green, all down Honey-lane, to a farm called Oakwood, where the sandy soil begins. This miry and gulfy lane was chosen as worthy of repair, because it leads to the forest, and thence through the Holt to the town of Farnham in Surrey, the only market in those days for men who had wheat to sell in this neighbourhood. This causey was so deeply bedded with stone, so properly raised above the level of the soil, and so well drained, that it has, in some degree, withstood fifty-four years of neglect and abuse; and might, with moderate attention, be rendered a solid and comfortable road. The space from Rood-green to Oak-woods measures about three quarters of a mile.

In 1727, William Henry Cane, B.D., became vicar; and, among several alterations and repairs, new-built the back front of the vicarage house.

On February 1, 1740, Duncombe Bristowe, D.D., was instituted to this living. What benefactions this vicar bestowed on the parish will be best explained by the following passages from his will: - 'Item, I hereby give and bequeath to the minister and churchwardens of the parish of Selbourn, in the county of Southampton, a mahogany table, which I have ordered to be made for the celebration of the Holy Communion; and also the sum of thirty pounds, in trust, to be applied in manner following; that is, ten pounds towards the charge of erecting a gallery at the west end of the church; and ten pounds to be laid out for cloathing, and such necessaries, among the poor (and especially among the ancient and infirm) of the said parish: and the remaining ten pounds to be distributed in bread, at twenty shillings a week, at the discretion of John White, esq. or any of his family who shall be resident in the said parish.'

On November 12, 1758, Andrew Etty, B.D , became vicar. Among useful repairs he new-roofed the body of the vicarage-house; and wainscoted, up to the bottom of the windows, the whole of the chancel; to the neatness and decency of which he always paid the most exact attention.

On September 25, 1784, Christopher Taylor, B.D., was inducted into the vicarage of Selborne.

I SHALL now proceed to the Priory, which is the most interesting part of our history.

The priory of Selborne was founded by Peter de la Roche, or de Rupibus [...], one of those accomplished foreigners that resorted to the court of king John, where they were usually caressed and met with a more favourable reception than ought, in prudence, to have been shown by any monarch to strangers. ... By his insinuating manners he soon rose high in the favour of John; and in 1205, early in the reign of that prince, was appointed bishop of Winchester. In 1214 he became lord chief justiciary of England, ...

...

In the year 1231 he returned [from the Holy Land] again to England; and the very next year, in 1232, he began to build and endow the Priory of Selborne. As this great work followed so close upon his return, it is not improbable that it was the result of a vow made during his voyage; and especially as it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Why the bishop made choice of Selborne for the scene of his munificence can never be determined now: it can only be said that the parish was in his diocese, and lay almost midway between Winchester and Farnham, or South Waltham and Farnham; from either of which places he could without much trouble overlook his workmen, and observe what progress they made; and that the situation was retired, with a stream running by it, and sequestered from the world, amidst woods and meadows, and so far proper for the site of a religious house. [The institution at Selborne was a priory of Black-Canons of the order of St. Augustine, called also Canons-Regular. Regular-Canons were such as lived in a conventual manner, under one roof, had a common refectory and dormitory, and were bound by vows to observe the rule and statutes of their order: in fine, they were a kind of religious, whose discipline was less rigid than the monks. ... Their habit was a long black cassock, with a white rocket over it; and over that a black cloak and hood. The monks were always shaved; but these canons wore their hair and beards, and caps on their heads. There were of these canons, and women of the same order called Canonesses, about 175 houses.]

The first person with whom the founder treated about the purchase of land was Jacobus de Achangre, or Ochangre, a gentleman of property who resided at that hamlet; and, as appears, at the house now called Oakhanger-house. With him he agreed for a croft, or a little close of land, known by the name of La liega, or La lyge, which was to be the immediate site of the Priory.

De Achangre also accommodated the bishop at the same instant with three more adjoining crofts, which for a time was all the footing that this institution obtained in the parish. The seller in the conveyance says 'Warantizabinus, defendemus, et aequietarbimus contra omnes gentes'; viz. 'We will warrant the thing sold against all claims from any quarter.' In modern conveyancing this would be termed a covenant for further assurance. Afterwards is added - 'Pro hac autem donacione, &c. dedit mihi pred. Episcopus sexdecem marcas argentis in Gersumam': i.e. 'The bishop gave me sixteen silver marks as a consideration for the thing purchased.'

As the grant from Jac. de Achangre was without date[...], and the next is circumstanced in the same manner we cannot say exactly what interval there was between the two purchases; but we find that Jacobus de Nortun, and neighbouring gentleman, also soon sold to the bishop of Winchester some adjoining grounds, through which our stream passes, that the priory might be accommodated with a mill, which was a common necessary appendage to every manor: he also allowed access to these lands by a road for carts and waggons. - 'Jacobus de Nortun concedit Petro Winton episcopo totum cursum aque que descendit de Molendino de Durton usq; ad boscum Will. Mauduit, et croftam terre vocat: Edriche croft, cum extensione ejusdem et abbuttamentis; ad fundandam domum religiosam de ordine Sti. Augustini. Concedit etiam viam ad carros, et caretas,' etc. This vale, down which runs the brook is now called the Long Lithe, or Lythe. Bating the following particular expression, this grant runs much in the style of the former; 'Dedit mihi episcopus prodictus triginta quinque marcas argenti ad me acquientandum versus Judaeos.' - That is, 'The bishop advanced me thirty-five marks of silver to pay my debts to the Jews,' who were then the only lenders of money.

Finding himself straitened for room, the founder applied to his royal master, Henry, who was graciously pleased to bestow certain lands in the manor of Selborn on the new priory of his favourite minister. These grounds had been the property of Stephen de Lucy; and abutting upon the narrow limits of the convent, became a very commodious and agreeable acquisition. This grant, I find, was made on March the 9th, in the eighteenth year of Henry, viz. 1234, being two years after the foundation of the monastery. The royal donor bestowed his favour with a good grace, by adding to it almost every immunity and privilege that could have been specified in the law language of the times. - 'Quare volumus prior, &c. habeant totam terram, &c. cum omnibus libertatibus in bosco et plano, in viis et semitis, pratis et pascuis; acquis et piscariis; infra burgum, et extra burgum cum soka et saca, Thol et Them, Infangenethef et Unfangenethe, et hamsocne et blodwite, et pecunia que dari solet pro murdro et forstal, et flemenestrick, et cum quietancia de omni scotto et geldo, ex de omnibus auxiliis regum, vice comitum, et omn. ministralium suorum; et hidagio et exercitibus, et scutagiis, et tallagiis, et shiris et hundredis, et placitis et querelis, et warda et wardpeny, et opibus castellorum et pontium, et clausuris parcorum, et omni carcio et sumagio, et domor: regal: edificatione, et omnimoda repartione, et cum omnibus aliis libertatibus.' This grant was made out by Richard bishop of Chichester, then chancellor, at the town of Northampton, before the lord chief justiciary, who was the founder himself.

The charter of the foundation of the Priory, dated 1233, comes next in order to be considered; but being of some length, I shall not interrupt my narrative by placing it here; and therefore refer the reader to the appendix, No. I. This is my copy, taken from the original, I have compared with Dugdale's copy, and find that they perfectly agree; except that in the latter the preamble and the names of the witnesses are omitted. Yet I think it proper to quote a passage from this charter - 'et ipsa domus religiosa a cujuslibet alterius domus religiosae subjectione libera permaneat, et in omnibus absoluta' - to show how much Dugdale was mistaken when he inserted Selborne among the alien priories; ...

... priories alien, a few conventual ones excepted, were little better than granges to foreign abbeys; and their priors little more than bailiffs, removable at will: whereas the priory of Selborne possessed the valuable estates and manors of Selborne, Achangre, Norton, Brompden, Bassinges, Basingstoke, and Natele; and the prior challenged the right of Pillory, Thurcet, and Furcas, and every manerial privilege.

I find next a grant from Jo. de Venur, or Venuz, to the prior of Selborne - 'de tota mora (a moor or bog) ubi Beme oritur usque ad campum vivarii, et de prato voc. Sydenmeade cum abutt: et de cursu aque molendini.' And also a grant in reversion, 'unius virgate terre' (a yard land), in Achangre at the death of Richard Actedene her sister's husband, who had no child. He was to present a pair of gloves of one penny value to the prior and canons, to be given annually by the said Richard; and to quit all claim to the said lands in reversion, provided the prior and canons would engage annually to pay to the king, through the hands of his bailiffs of Aulton, ten shillings at four quarterly payments, 'pro omnibus serviciis, consuetudinibus, exactionibus, et demandis.'

This Jo. de Venur was a man of property at Oakhanger, and lived probably at the spot now called Chapel-farm. The grant bears the date the 17th year of the reign of Henry III. (viz. 1233).

It would be tedious to enumerate every little grant for lands or tenements that might be produced from my vouchers. I shall therefore pass over all such for the present, and conclude this letter with a remark that must strike every thinking person with some degree of wonder. No sooner had a monastic institution got a footing, but the neighbourhood began to be touched with a secret and religious awe. Every person round was desirous to promote so good a work; and either by sale, by grant, or by gift in reversion, was ambitious of appearing a benefactor. They who had not lands to spare gave roads to accommodate the infant foundation. The religious were not backward in keeping up this pious propensity, which they observed so readily influenced the breasts of men. Thus did the more opulent monasteries add house to house, and field to field; and by degrees manor to manor: till at last 'there was no place left'; but every district around became appropriated to the purposes of their founders, and every precinct was drawn into the vortex.

OUR forefathers in this village were no doubt as busy and bustling, and as important, as ourselves: yet have their names and transactions been forgotten from century to century, and have sunk into oblivion; nor has this happened only to the vulgar, but even to men remarkable and famous in their generation. I was led into this train of thinking by finding in my vouchers that Sir Adam Gurdon was an inhabitant of Selborne, and a man of the first rank and property in the parish. By Sir Adam Gurdon I would be understood to mean that leading and accomplished malcontent in the Mountfort faction, who distinguished himself by his daring conduct in the reign of Henry III. The first that we hear of this person in my papers is, that with two others he was bailiff of Alton before the sixteenth of Henry III., viz. about 1231, and then not knighted. Who Gurdon was, and whence he came, does not appear: yet there is reason to suspect that he was originally a mere soldier of fortune, who had raised himself by marrying women of property. The name of Gurdon does not seem to be known in the south; but there is a name so like it in an adjoining kingdom, and which belongs to two or three noble families, that it is probable this remarkable person was a North Briton; and the more so, since the Christian name of Adam is a distinguished one to this day among the family of the Gordons. - But, be this as it may, Sir Adam Gurdon has been noticed by all the writers of English history for his bold disposition and disaffected spirit, in that he not only figured during the successful rebellion of Leicester, but kept up the war after the defeat and death of that baron, entrenching himself in the woods of Hampshire, towards the town of Farnham. ...

...

...

Sir Adam seems to have inhabited the house now called Temple, lying about two miles east of the church, which had been the property of Thomas Makerel.

In the year 1262 he petitioned the prior of Selborne in his own name, and that of his wife Constantia only, for leave to build him an oratory in his manor-house, 'in curia sua'. ... Why the owner should apply to the prior, in preference to the bishop of the diocese, and how the former became competent to such a grant, I cannot say; but that the priors of Selborne did take that privilege is plain, because some years afterwards, in 1280, Prior Richard granted to Henry Waterford and his wife Nicolaa [sic] a license to build an oratory in their court-house, 'curia sua de Waterford,' in which they might celebrate divine service, saving the rights of the mother church of Basynges. ...

The manor-house called Temple is at present a single building, running in length from south to north, and has been occupied as a common farm house from time immemorial. The south end is modern, and consists of a brew-house and then a kitchen. The middle part is an hall twenty-seven feet in length, and nineteen feet in breadth; and has been formerly open to the top, but there is now a floor above it, and also a chimney in the western wall. The roofing consists of strong massive rafter-work ornamented with carved roses. I have often looked for the lamb and flag, the arms of the Knights Templars, without success; but in one corner found a fox with a goose in his back, so coarsely executed, that it required some attention to make out the device.

Beyond the hall to the north is a small parlour with a vast heavy stone chimney-piece; and, at the end of all, the chapel or oratory, whose massive thick walls, and narrow windows at once bespeak great antiquity. This room is only sixteen feet by sixteen feet eight inches; and full seventeen feet nine inches in height. The ceiling is formed of vast joists, placed only five or six inches apart. Modern delicacy would not much approve of such a place of worship: for it has at present much more the appearance of a dungeon than of a room fit for the reception of people of condition. For the outside I refer the reader to the plate, in which Mr. Grimm has represented it with his usual accuracy. The field on which this oratory abuts is still called Chapel-field. The situation of this house is very particular, for it stands upon the immediate verge of a steep abrupt hill.

Not many years since this place was used for an hop-kiln, and was divided into two stories by a loft, part of which remains at present, and makes it convenient for peat and turf, with which it is stowed.

THE Priory at times was much obliged to Gurdon and his family. As Sir Adam began to advance in years he found his mind influenced by the prevailing opinion of the reasonableness and efficacy of prayers for the dead; and, therefore, in conjunction with his wife Constantia, in the year 1271, granted to the prior and convent of Selborne all his right and claim to a certain place, 'placea', called La Pleystow, in the village aforesaid, 'in liberam, puram, et perpetuam elemosinam.' This Pleystow [In Saxon ... Plegestow, or Plegstow.], 'locus ludorum', or play-place, is a level area near the church of about forty-four yards by thirty-six, and is known now by the name of the Plestor. [At this juncture probably the vast oak, mentioned [letter 2] was planted by the prior, as an ornament to his new acquired market place. According to this supposition the oak was aged 432 years when blown down.]

It continues still, as it was in old times, to be the scene of recreation for the youths and children of the neighbourhood; and impresses an idea on the mind that this village, even in Saxon times, could not be the most abject of places, when the inhabitants thought proper to assign so spacious a spot for the sports and amusements of its young people. [For more circumstances respecting the Plestor, see Letter II. to Mr. Pennant.]

As soon as the prior became possessed of this piece of ground, he procured a charter for a market [Bishop Tanner, in his Notitia Monastica, has made a mistake respecting the market and fair at Selborne; for in his reference to Dodsworth, cart. 54 Hen. III. m. 3, he says, 'De mercatu, et feria de Seleburn.' But this reference is wrong; for, instead of Seleburn, it proves that the place there meant was Lekeborn, or Legeborn, in the county of Lincoln. This error was copied from the index of the Cat. MSS. Angl. It does not appear that there ever was a chartered fair at Selborne. For several particulars respecting the present fair at Selborne see Letter XXVI of these Antiquities.] from king Henry III. and began to erect houses and stalls, 'seldas,' around it. From this period Selborne became a market town: but how long it enjoyed that privilege does not appear. At the same time Gurdon reserved to himself, and his heirs, a way through the said Plestor to a tenement and some crofts at the upper end, abutting on the south corner of the church-yard. This was, in old days, the manerial house of the street manor, though now a poor cottage; and is known at present by the modern name of Elliot's. Sir Adam also did, for the health of his own soul, and that of his wife Constantia, their predecessors and successors, grant to the prior and canons quiet possession of all the tenements and gardens, 'curtillagia,' which they had built and laid out on the lands in Selborne, on which he and his vassals, 'homines,' had undoubted right of common: and moreover did grant to the convent the full privilege of that right of common; and empowered the religious to build tenements and make gardens along the king's highway in the village of Selborne.

From circumstances put together it appears that the above were the first grants obtained by the Priory in the village of Selborne, after it had subsisted about thirty-nine years: moreover they explain the nature of the mixed manor still remaining in and about the village, where one field or tenement shall belong to Magdalen-college in the university of Oxford, and the next to Norton Powlet, esq., of Rotherfield house; and so down the whole street. The case was, that the whole was once the property of Gurdon, till he made his grants to the convent; since which some belongs to the successors of Gurdon in the manor, and some to the college; and this is the occasion of the strange jumble of property. It is remarkable that the tenement and crofts which Sir Adam reserved at the time of granting the Plestor should still remain a part of the Gurdon-manor, though so desirable an addition to the vicarage that is not as yet possessed of one inch of glebe at home: but of late, viz. in January 1785, Magdalen-college purchased that little estate, which is life-holding, in reversion, for the generous purpose of bestowing it, and its lands, being twelve acres (three of which abut on the church-yard and vicarage-garden) as an improvement hereafter to the living, and an eligible advantage to future incumbents.

The year after Gurdon had bestowed the Plestor on the Priory, viz. in 1272, Henry III. king of England died, and was succeeded by his son Edward. This magnanimous prince continued his regard for Sir Adam, whom he esteemed as a brave man, and made him warden, 'custos,' of the forest of Wolmer. [Since the letters respecting Wolmer-forest and Ayles-holt, from p.15 to 26, were printed, the author has been favoured with the following extracts:-

In the 'Act of Resumption, 1 Hen. VII.' it was provided, that it be not prejudicial to 'Harry at Lode, ranger of our forest of Wolmere, to him by oure letters patents before tyme gevyn.' - Rolls of Parl. Vol. VI. p. 370.

In the 11 Hen. VII. 1495 - 'Warlham (Wardleham) and the office of forest (forester) of Wolmere' were held by Edmund duke of Suffolk. - Rolls, ib. 474.

Acts of general pardon, 14 Hen. VIII. 1523, not to extend to 'Rich. Bp. of Wynton (bishop Fox) for any seizure or forfeiture of liberties, etc. within the forest of Wolmer, Alysholt, and Newe Forest; nor to any person for waste, etc. within the manor of Wardlam, or parish of Wardlam (Wardleham); nor to abusing, &c. of any office or fee, within the said forests of Wolmer or Alysholt, or the said of park of Wardlam, County Suth't. - Rolls prefixt to 1st Vol. of Journals of the Lords, p. xciii. b.

To these may be added some other particulars, taken from a book lately published, entitled 'An Account of all the Manors, Messuages, Lands, &c. in the different Counties of England and Wales, held by Lease from the Crown; as contained in the Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the State and Condition of the Royal Forests,' etc. - London, 1787.

'Southampton.'

P. 64, 'A fee farm rent of ~31 2s. 11d. out of the manors of East and West Wardleham; and also the office of lieutenant or keeper of the forest or chase of Aliceholt and Wolmer, with all offices, fees, commodities, and privileges thereto belonging.

'Name of lessees, William earl of Dartmouth and others (in trust).

'Date of the last lease, March 23, 1780; granted for such term as would fill up the subsisting term to 31 years.

'Expiration March 23, 1811.'

'Appendix, No. III.'

'Southampton.'

'Hundreds, Selborne and Finchdeane.'

'Honours and manors,' etc.

'Aliceholt forest, three parks there.

'Bensted and Kingsley; a petition of the parishioners concerning the three parks in Aliceholt forest.'

William, first earl of Dartmouth, and paternal grandfather to the present lord Stawel, was a leasee of the forests of Aliceholt and Wolmer before brigadier-general Emanuel Scroope Howe.] The little emolument might hang to this appointment, yet there are reasons why it might be highly acceptable; and, in a few reigns after, it was given to princes of the blood. [See Letter II. of these Antiquities.] In old days gentry resided more at home on their estates, and, having fewer resources of elegant in-door amusement spent most of their leisure hours in the field and the pleasures of the chase. A large domain, therefore, at little more than a mile distance, and well stocked with game, must have been a very eligible acquisition, affording him influence as well as entertainment; and especially as the manerial house of Temple, by its exalted situation, could command a view of near two-thirds of the forest.

That Gurdon, who had lived some years the life of an outlaw, and at the head of an army of insurgents, was, for a considerable time, in high rebellion against his sovereign, should have been guilty of some outrages, and should have committed some depredations, is by no means matter of wonder. Accordingly we find a 'distringas' against him, ordering him to restore to the bishop of Winchester some of the temporalities of that see, which he had taken by violence and detained; viz. some lands in Hocheleye, and a mill. [Hocheleye now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selborne, and has a mill at this day.] By a 'breve', or writ, from the king he is also enjoined to readmit the bishop of Winchester, and his tenants of the parish and town of Farnham, to pasture their horses, and other large cattle, 'averia,' in the forest of Wolmer, as had been the usage from time immemorial. This writ is dated in the tenth year of the reign of Edward, viz. 1282.

All the king's writs directed to Gurdon are addressed in the following manner: 'Edwardus, Dei gratia, &c. delecto et fideli suo Ade Gurdon salutem'; and again 'Custodi foreste sue de Wolvenere.'

...

... Gurdon ... in 1232, being the 16th of Henry III., he was the king's bailiff, with others, for the town of Alton. ...

... Gurdon's seal had for its device - a man, with a helmet on his head, drawing a cross-bow; the legend, 'Sigillum Ade de Gurdon'; his arms were, 'Goulis, iii floures argent issant de testes de leopards.'

... Armeria [one of Adam Gurdon's wives] ... makes a grant for ever of some lands down by the stream at Durton; and also of her right of the common of Durton itself. [Durton, now called Dorton, is still a common for the copyholders of Selborne manor.] ...

THE Knights Templars [... The Knights Templars came into England pretty early in Stephen's reign, which commenced in 1135. ...], who have been mentioned in a former letter, had considerable property in Selborne; and also a preceptory at Sudington, now called Southington, a hamlet lying one mile to the east of the village. Bishop Tanner mentions only two such houses of the Templars in all the county of Southampton, viz. Godesfield, founded by Henry de Blois, bishop of Winchester, and South Badeisley, a preceptory of the Knights Templars, and afterwards of St. John of Jerusalem, valued at one hundred and eighteen pounds sixteen shillings and seven pence per annum. Here then was a preceptory unnoticed by antiquaries, between the village and Temple. Whatever the edifice of the preceptory might have been, it has long since been delapidated; and the whole hamlet contains now only one mean farm-house, though there were two in the memory of man.

... as far as my evidences extend, and while Robert Saunford was master [Robert Saunforde was master of the Temple in 1241; Guido de Foresta was the next in 1292. ...], and Richard Carpenter was preceptor, the Templars and the Priors lived in an intercourse of mutual good offices.

My papers mention three transactions, the exact time of which cannot be ascertained, because they fell out before dates were usually inserted; though probably they happened about the middle of the thirteenth century; not long after Saunford became master. The first of these is that the Templars shall pay to the priory of Selborne, annually, the sum of ten shillings at two half yearly payments from their chamber, 'camera,' at Sudington, 'per manum preceptoris, vel ballivi nostri, qui pro tempore fuerit ibidem,' till they can provide the prior and canons with an equivalent in lands or rents within four or five miles of the said convent. It is also further agreed that, if the Templars shall be in arrears for one year, that then the prior shall be empowered to distrain upon their live stock at Bradeseth. The next matter was a grant from Robert de Saunford to the priory for ever, of a good and sufficient road, 'cheminum,' capable of admitting carriages, and proper for the drift of their larger cattle, from the way which extends from Sudington towards Blakemere, on to the lands which the convent possesses in Bradeseth.

The third transaction (though for want of dates we cannot say which happened first and which last) was a grant from Robert Samford to the priory of a tenement and its appurtenances in the village of Selborne, given to the Templars by Americus de Vasci [Americus Vasci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and had been probably a soldier of fortune, and one of Gurdon's captains. ...]. This property, by the manner of describing it, - 'totum tenementum cum omnibus pertinentiis suis, scilicet in terris, & hominibus, in pratis & pascuis, & nemoribus,' etc. seems to have been no inconsiderable purchase, and was sold for two hundred marks sterling, to be applied for the buying of more land for the support of the holy war.

Prior John is mentioned as the person to whom Vasci's land is conveyed. But in Willis's list there is no prior John till 1339, several years after the dissolution of the order of the Templars in 1312; so unless the list is wrong and has omitted a prior John since 1262 (that being the date of his first prior) these transactions must have fallen out before that date.

I find not the least traces of any concerns between Gurdon and the Knights Templars; but probably after his death his daughter Johanna might have, and might bestow, Temple on that order in support of the holy land: and, moreover, she seems to have been moving from Selborne when she sold her goods and chattels to the priory, as mentioned above.

Temple no doubt did belong to the knights, as may be asserted, not only from its name, as also from another corroborating circumstance of its being still a manor tithe-free; 'for, by virtue of their order,' says Dr. Blackstone, 'the lands of the Knights Templars were privileged by the pope with a discharge from tithes.'

...

THE ladies and daughter of Sir Adam Gurdon were not the only benefactresses to the Priory of Selborne; for, in the year 1281, Ela Longspee obtained masses to be performed for her soul's health; and the prior entered into an engagement that one of the convent should every day say a special mass for ever for the said benefactress, whether living or dead. She also engaged within five years to pay to the said convent one hundred marks of silver for the support of a chantry and chantry-chaplain, who would perform his masses daily in the parish church of Selborne [...]. In the east end of the south aisle there are two sharp-pointed gothic niches; one of these probably was the place under which these masses were performed; and there is the more reason to suppose as much, because, till within these thirty years, this space was fenced off with gothic wooden railing, and was known by the name of the south chancel [For what is said more respecting this chantry see Letter III. of these Antiquities.- Mention is made of a Nicholas Langrish, capellanus de Selborne, in the time of Henry VIII. Was he chantry-chaplain to Ela Longspee, who masses were probably continued to the time of the reformation? More will be said of this person hereafter.].

The solicitude expressed by the donor plainly shows her piety and firm persuasion of the efficacy of prayers for the dead; for she seems to have made every provision for the payment of the sum stipulated within the appointed time; and to have felt much anxiety lest her death, or the neglect of her executors or assigns, might frustrate her intentions.- 'Et si contingat me in solucione predicte pecunie annis predictis in parte aut in toto deficere, quod absit; concedo et obligo pro me et assignatis meis, quod Vice-Comes ... Oxon et ... qui pro tempore fuerint, per omnes terras et tenementa, et omnia bona mea mobilia et immobilia ubicunque in balliva sua fuerint inventa ad solucionem predictam faciendam possent nos compellere.' And again- 'Et si contingat dictos religiosos labores seu expensas facere circa predictam pecuniam, seu circa partem dicte pecunie; volo quod dictorum religiosorum impense et labores levantur ita quod predicto priori vel uni canonicorum suorum super: hiis quod utrique predictorum virorum in unam marcam argentis pro cujus-libet distrincione super me facienda tenear.- Dat apud Wareborn die sabati proxima ante festum St. Marci evangeliste, anno regni regis Edwardi tertio decimo.' [Ancient deeds are often dated on a Sunday, having been executed in churches and church-yards for the sake of notoriety, and for the conveniency of procuring several witnesses to attest.]

But the reader perhaps would wish to be better informed respecting this benefactress, of whom as yet he has heard no particulars.

The Ela Longspee therefore above-mentioned was a lady of high birth and rank, and became countess to Thomas de Newburgh, the sixth earl of Warwick: she was the second daughter of the famous Ela Longspee, countes of Salisbury, by William Longspee, natural son of king Henry II. by Rosamond.

... died very aged in the year 1300.

...

In the year 1324 there was an election for a prior at Selborne; when some difficulties occurring, and a devolution taking place, application was made to Stratford, who was bishop of Winchester at that time, and of course the visitor and patron of the convent at the spot above-mentioned. [Stratford was bishop of Winchester from 1323 to 1333, when he was translated to Canterbury.]

An extract from REG. STRATFORD. Winton.

P.4. 'Commissio facta sub-priori de Selebourne' by the bishop enjoining him to preserve the discipline of the order in the convent during the vacancy made by the late death of the prior ('super pastoris solatio destituta'), dated 4th kal. Maii. ann. 2do sc. of his consecration. [sc. 1324.]

P.6. 'Custodia Prioratus de Seleburne vacantis,' committed by the bishop to Nicholas de la ..., a layman, it belonging to the bishop 'ratione vacationis ejusdem,, in July 1324, ibid. 'negotium electionis de Selebourne. Acta coram Johanne Episcopo, &c. 1324 in negotio electionis de fratre Waltero de Insula concanonico prioratus de Selebourne,' lately elected by the sub-prior and convent by way of scrutiny: that it appeared to the bishop, by certificate from the dean of Alton, that solemn citation and proclamation had been made in the church of the convent where the election was held, that any who opposed the said election or elected should appear.- Some difficulties were started, which the bishop over-ruled, and confirmed the election, and admitted the new prior sub hac forma:-

'In Dei nomine Amen. Ego Johannes permissione divina, &c. te Walterum de Insula ecclesii de Selebourne nostre dioceseos nostrique patronatus vacantis, canonicum et cantorem, virum utique providum, et discretum, literarum, scientia preditum, vita moribus et conversatione merito commendatum, in ordine sacerdotali et etate legitima constitutum, de legitimo matrimonio procreatum, in ordine et religione Sancti Augustini et Selebourne espresse professum, in spiritualibus et temporalibus circumspectum, jure nobis hac vice devoluto in hac parte, indicte ecclesie de Selebourne perfectum priorem; curam et adminstrationem ejusdem tibi in spiritualibus et temporalibus committentes. Dat. Apud Selebourne XIII kalend. Augusti anno supradicto.'

There follows an order to the sub-prior and convent pro obedientia:

A mandate to Nicholas above-named to release the Priory to the new prior:

A mandate for the induction of the new prior.

...

The documents that I allude to are contained in the Notabilis Visitatio de Seleburne, held at the Priory of that place, by Wykeham in person, in the year 1387.

This evidence, in the original, is written on two skins of parchment; the one large, and the other smaller, and consist of a preamble, 36 items, and a conclusion, which altogether evince the patient investigation of the visitor, for which he had always been so remarkable in all matters of moment, and how much he had at heart the regularity of those institutions, of whose efficacy in their prayers for the dead he was so firmly persuaded. As the bishop was so much in earnest, we may be assured that he had nothing in view but to correct and reform what he found amiss; and was under no bias to blacken, or misrepresent, as the commissioners of Thomas Lord Cromwell seem in part to have done at the time of the reformation. [...] We may therefore with reason suppose that the bishop gives us an exact delineation of the morals and manners of the canons of Selborne at that juncture; and that what he found they had omitted he enjoins them; and for what they had done amiss, and contrary to their rules and statutes, he reproves them; and threatens them with punishment suitable to their irregularities.

...

In the preamble the visitor says - 'Considering the charge lying upon us, that your blood may not be required at our hands, we came down to visit your Priory, as our office required: and every time we repeated our visitation we found something still not only contrary to regular rules but also repugnant to religion and good reputation.'

In the first article after the preamble -

'he commands them on their obedience, and on pain of the greater excommunication, to see that the canonical hours by night and by day be sung in their choir, and the masses of the Blessed Mary, and other accustomed masses, be celebrated at the proper hours with devotion, and at moderate pauses; and that it not be allowed to any to absent themselves from the hours and masses, or to withdraw before they are finished.'

Item 2d. He enjoins them to observe that silence to which they are so strictly bound by the rule of Saint Augustine at stated times, and wholly to abstain from frivolous conversation.

Item 4th. 'Not to permit such frequent passing of secular people of both sexes through their convent, as if a thoroughfare, from whence many disorders may and have arisen.'

Item 5th. 'To take care that the doors of their church and Priory be so attended to that no suspected and disorderly females, 'suspectae et aliae inhonestae,' pass through their choir and cloister in the dark'; and to see that the doors of their church between the nave and the choir, and the gates of their cloister opening into the fields, be constantly kept shut until their first choir-service is over in the morning, at dinner time, and when they meet at their evening collation. [A Collation was a meal or repast on a fast day in lieu of a supper.]

Item 6th mentions that several of the canons are found to be very ignorant and illiterate, and enjoins the prior to see that they be better instructed by a proper master.

Item 8th. The canons are here accused of refusing to accept of their statutable clothing year by year, and of demanding a certain specified sum of money, as if it were their annual rent and due. This the bishop forbids, and orders that the canons shall be clothed out of the revenue of the Priory, and the old garments be laid by in a chamber, and given to the poor, according to the rules of Saint Augustine.

In Item 9th is a complaint that some of the canons are given to wander out of the precincts of the convent without leave; and that others ride to their manors and farms, under pretence of inspecting the concerns of the society, when they please, and stay as long as they please. But they are enjoined never to stir either about their own private concerns or the business of the convent without leave from the prior: and no canon is to go alone, but to have a grave brother to accompany him.

The injunction in Item 10th, at this distance of time, appears rather ludicrous; but the visitor seems to be very serious on the occasion, and says that it has been evidently proved to him that some of the canons, living dissolutely after the flesh, and not after the spirit, sleep naked in their beds without their breeches and shirts, 'absque femoralibus et camisiis.' [The rule alluded to in Item 10th, of not sleeping naked, was enjoined the Knights Templars, who also were subject to the rules of St. Augustine. See Gurtleri Hist. Templariorum.] He enjoins that these culprits shall be punished by severe fasting, especially if they shall be found to be faulty a third time; and threatens the prior and subprior with suspension if they do not correct this enormity.

In Item 11th the good bishop is very wroth with some of the canons, who he finds to be professed hunters and sportsmen, keeping hounds, and publicly attending hunting-matches. These pursuits, he says, occasion much dissipation, danger to the soul and body, and frequent expense; he, therefore, wishing to extirpate this vice wholly from the convent, 'radicibus extirpare,' does absolutely enjoin the canons never intentionally to be present at any public noisy tumultuous huntings; or to keep any hounds, by themselves or by others, openly or by stealth, within the convent, or without. [Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the pleasures of the chase, it is not to be wondered that the canons of Selborne should languish after hunting, when, from their situation so near the precincts of Wolmer-forest, the king's hounds must have been often in hearing, and sometimes in sight from their windows.- If the bishop was so offended at these sporting canons, what would he have said to our modern fox-hunting divines?]

In Item 12th he forbids the canons in office to make their business a plea for not attending the service of the choir; since by these means either divine worship is neglected or their brother-canons are over-burdened.

By Item 14th we are informed that the original number of canons at the Priory of Selborne was fourteen; but at this visitation they were found to be let down to eleven. The visitor therefore strongly and earnestly enjoins them that, with all due speed and diligence, they should proceed to the election of proper persons to fill up the vacancies, under pain of the greater excommunication.

In Item 17th the prior and canons are accused of suffering, through neglect, notorious delapidations to take place among their manerial houses and tenements, and in the walls and enclosures of the convent itself, to the shame and scandal of the institution; they are therefore enjoined, under pain of suspension, to repair all defects within the space of six months.

Item 18th charges them with grievously burthening the said Priory by means of sales, and grants of liveries ['Liberationes, or liberaturae; allowances of corn, etc. to servants delivered at certain times, and in certain quantities as clothes were among the allowances from religious houses to their dependents. See the corrodies granted by Croyland abbey.'- Hist. of Croyland, Appendix, No. XXXIV. 'It is not improbable that the word in after-ages came to be confined to the uniform of the retainers or servants of the great, who were hence called livery servants.'- Sir John Cullum's Hist. of Hawsted.] and corrodies. [A corrody is an allowance to a servant living in an abbey or priory.]

The bishop, in Item 19th, accuses the canons of neglect and omission with respect to their perpetual chantry-services.

Item 20th. The visitor here conjures the prior and canons not to withhold their original alms, 'eleemosynas'; nor those that they were enjoined to distribute for the good of the souls of founders and benefactors: he also strictly orders that the fragments and broken victuals , both from the hall of their prior and their common refectory, should be carefully collected together by their eleemosynarius, and given to the poor without any diminution; the officer to be suspended for neglect or omission.

Item 23d. He bids them distribute their pittances, 'pitancias,' ['Pitancia, an allowance of bread and beer, or other provision to any pious use, especially to the religious in a monastery, etc. for augmentation of their commons.'- Gloss. to Kennet's Par. Antiq.] regularly on obits, anniversaries, festivals, etc.

Item 25th. All and every one of the canons are hereby inhibited from standing godfather to any boy for the future, 'ne compatres alicujus pueris de cetero fieri presumatis,' unless by express license from the bishop obtained; because from such relationship favour and affection, nepotism, and undue influence, arise, to the injury and detriment of religious institutions. ['The relationship between sponsors and their god-children, who were called spiritual sons and daughters, was formerly esteemed more sacred than at present. The presents at christenings were sometimes very considerable: the connection lasted through life, and was closed with a legacy. This last mark of attention seems to have been thought almost indispensable: for, a will, from whence no extracts have been given, the testator left every one of his god-children a bushel of barley.' Sir John Cullum's Hist. of Hawsted. ...]

Item 26th. The visitor herein severely reprimands the canons for appearing publicly in what would be called in the universities an unstatutable manner, and for wearing of boots, 'caligae de Burneto, et sotularium - in ocrearum loco, ad modum sotularium.' [Du Fresne is copious on caligae of several sorts. ... This writer gives many quotations concerning sotularia, which were not to be made too shapely; nor were the caligae to be laced on too nicely.]

It is remarkable that the bishop expresses more warmth against this than any other irregularity; and strictly enjoins them, under pain of ecclesiastical censures, and even imprisonment if necessary (a threat not made use of before) for the future to wear boots, 'ocreis seu botis,' according to the regular usage of their ancient order.

Item 29th. He here again, but with less earnestness, forbids them foppish ornaments, and the affectation of appearing like beaux with garments edged with costly furs, with fringed gloves and silken girdles trimmed with gold and silver. It is remarkable that no punishment is annexed to this injunction.

Item 31st. He here singly and severally forbids each canon not admitted to a cure of souls to administer extreme unction, or the sacrament, to clergy or laity; or to perform the service of matrimony, till he has taken out the license of the parish priest.

Item 32d. The bishop says in this item that he had observed and found, in his several visitations, that the sacramental plate and cloths of the altar, surplices, etc. were sometimes left in such uncleanly and disgusting condition as to make the beholders shudder with horror;- 'quod aliquibus sunt horrori'; [... Strange as this account may appear to modern delicacy, the author, when first in orders (perhaps when curate at Swarraton 1740s, editor), twice met with similar circumstances attending the sacrament at two churches belonging to two obscure villages. In the first he found the inside of the chalice covered with birds' dung; and the other the communion-cloth soiled with cabbage and the greasy drippings of a gammon of bacon. The good dame at the farm-house, who was to furnish the cloth, being a notable woman, thought it best to save her clean linen, and so sent a foul cloth that had covered her own table for two or three Sundays before.] he therefore enjoins them for the future to see that the plate, cloths, and vestments, be kept bright, clean, and in decent order: and, what must surprise the reader, adds - that he expects for the future that the sacrist should provide for the sacrament good wine, pure and unadulterated; and not, as had often been the practice, that which was sour, and tending to decay:- he says farther, that it seems quite preposterous to omit in sacred matters that attention to decent cleanliness, the neglect of which would disgrace a common convivial meeting. [...]

Item 33d says that, though the relics of saints, the plate, holy vestments, and books of religious houses, are forbidden by canonical institutes to be pledged or lent out upon pawn; yet, as the visitor finds this to be the case in his several visitations, he therefore strictly enjoins the prior forthwith to recall those pledges, and to restore them to the convent; and orders that all the papers and title deeds thereto belonging should be safely deposited, and kept under three locks and keys.

In the course of the Visitatio Notabilis the constitutions of Legate Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Ottobonus was afterwards Pope Adrian V. and died in 1276. His constitutions are in Lyndewood's Provinciale, and were drawn up in the 52d of Henry III.

In the Visitatio Notabilis the usual punishment is fasting on bread and beer; and in cases of repeated delinquency on bread and water. On these occasions quarta feria, et sexta feria, are mentioned often, and are to be understood of the days of the week numerically on which such punishment is to be inflicted.

THOUGH bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern and rigid in his visitatorial character towards the Priory of Selborne, yet he was on the whole a liberal friend and benefactor to that convent, which, like every other society or individual that fell in his way, partook of the generosity and benevolence of that munificent prelate.

'In the year 1377 William of Wykeham, out of his mere goodwill and liberality, discharged the whole debts of the prior and convent of Selborne, to the amount of one hundred and ten marks eleven shillings and six pence; [Yet in ten years time we find, by the Notabilis Visitatio, that all their relics, plate, vestments, title-deeds, etc. were in pawn.] and, a few years before he died, he made a free gift of one hundred marks to the same Priory: on which account the Prior and convent voluntarily engaged for the celebration of two masses a day by two canons of the convent for ten years, for the bishop's welfare, if he should live so long; and for his soul if he should die before the expiration of this term.' [Lowth's Life of Wykeham.]

...

BEAUFORT was bishop of Winchester from 1405 to 1447; and yet, not withstanding this long episcopate, only tom. I. of Beaufort's Register is to be found. This loss is much to be regretted, as it must unavoidably make a gap on the history of Selborne Priory, and perhaps in the list of its priors.

In 1410 there was an election for a prior, and again in 1411.

In vol.I. p.24, of Beaufort's Register, is the instrument of the election of John Winchestre to be prior - the substance as follows:

Richard Elstede, senior canon, signifies to the bishop that brother Thomas Weston, the late prior, died October 18th, 1410, and was buried November 11th. - That the bishop's license to elect having been obtained, he and the whole convent met in the chapter-house, on the same day, about the hour of vespers, to consider of the election: that brother John Wynchestre, then sub-prior, with the general consent appointed the 12th of November, ad horam ejusdem diei capitularem, for the business:- when they met in the chapter-house, post missam de sanctu Spiritu, solemnly celebrated in the church;- to wit, Richard Elstede; Thomas Halyborne; John Lemyngton, sacrista; John Stepe, cantor; Walter Ffarnham; Richard Putworth, celerarius; Hugh London; Henry Brampton, alias Brompton; John Wynchestre, senior; John Wynchestre, junior;- then 'Proposito primitus verbo Dei,' and then ympno [sic] 'Veni Creator Spiritus' being solemnly sung, cum 'versiculo et oratione,' as usual, and his letter of license, with the appointment of the hour and place of election, being read, alta voce, in valvis of the chapter-house;- John Wynchestre, senior, the sub-prior, in his own behalf and that of all the canons, and by their mandate, 'quasdam monicionem et protestacionem in scriptis redactas fecit, legit et interposuit' - that all persons disqualified, or not having right to be present, should immediately withdraw; and for testing against their voting, etc. - that then having read the constitution of the general council 'Quia propter,' and explained the modes of proceeding to election, they agreed unanimously to proceed 'per viam seu formam simplicis compromissi'; when John Wynchestre, sub-prior, and all the others (the commissaries under-named excepted) named and chose brothers Richard Elstede, Thomas Halyborne, John Lemyngton the sacrist, John Stepe, chanter, and Richard Putworth, canons, to be commissaries, who were sworn each to nominate and elect a fit person to be prior: and empowered by letters patent under the common seal, to be in force only until the darkness of the night of the same day;- that they, or the greater part of them, should elect for the whole convent, within the limited time, from their own number, or from the rest of the convent;- that one of them should publish their consent in common before the clergy and people:- they all promised to receive as prior the person these five canons should fix on. These commissaries seceded from the chapter-house to the refectory of the Priory, and were shut in with master John Penkester, bachelor of laws; and John Couke and John Lynne, perpetual vicars of the parish churches of Newton and Selborne; and with Samson Maycock, a public notary; where they treated of the election; when they unanimously agreed on John Wynchestre, and appointed Thomas Halyborne, to choose him in common for all, and to publish the election, as customary; and returned long before it was dark to the chapter-house, where Thomas Halyborne read publicly the instrument of election; when all the brothers, the new prior excepted, sing solemnly the hymn 'Te Deum laudamus,' fecerunt deportari novum electum, by some of the brothers, from the chapter-house the high altar of the church; [It seems here as if the canons used to chair their new elected prior from the chapter-house to the high altar of their convent-church. ...] and the hymn being sung, dictisque versiculo et oratione consuetis in hac parte, Thomas Halyborne, mox tunc ibidem, before the clergy and people of both sexes solemnly published the election in vulgari. The Richard Elstede, and the whole convent by their proctors and nuncios appointed for the purposes, Thomas Halyborne and John Stepe required several times the assent of the elected; 'et tandem post diutinas interpellationes, et deliberationem providam penes se habitam, in hac parte divine nolens, ut asseruit, resistere voluntati,'within the limited time he signified his acceptance in the usual written form of words. The bishop is then supplicated to confirm their election, and do the needful, under common seal, in chapter-house. November 14, 1410.

The bishop, January 6, 1410, apud Esher in camera inferiori, declared the election duly made, and ordered the new prior to be inducted - for this the archdeacon of Winchester was written to; 'stallumque in choro, et locum in capitulo juxta morem preteriti temporis,' to be assigned him; and every thing beside necessary to be done.

BEAUFORT'S REGISTER, Vol.I.

P.2. Taxatio spiritualis Decanatus de Aulton, Ecclesia de Selebourn, cum Capella,- xxx marc. decima x lib. iii sol. Vicaria de Selebourn non taxatur propter exilitatem.

P.9. Taxatio bonorum temporalium religiosorum in Archidiac. Wynton.

Prior de Selebourn habet maneria de

Bromdene taxat. ad ... xxx s. ii d.

Apud Schete ad ... xvii s.

P. Selebourn ad ... vi lib.

In civitate Wynton de reddit ... vi lib. viii ob.

Tannaria sua taxat. ad. ... x lib. s.

Summa tax. xxxviii lib. xiiii d. ob. Inde decima vi lib. s. q. ob.

INFORMATION being sent to Rome respecting the havoc and spoil that was carrying on among the revenues and lands of the Priory of Selborne, as we may suppose by the bishop of Winchester, its visitor, Pope Martin, [...] as soon as the news of these proceedings came before him, issued forth a bull, in which he enjoins his commissaries immediately to revoke all the property that had been alienated.

In this instrument his holiness accuses the prior and canons of having granted away (they themselves and their predecessors) to certain clerks and laymen their tithes, lands, rents, tenements, and possessions, to some of them for their lives, to others for an undue term of years, and to some again for a perpetuity, to the great and heavy detriment of the monastery: ...

...

WILLIAM of Waynflete became bishop of Winchester in the year 1447, and seems to have pursued the generous plana of Wykeham in endeavouring to reform the priory of Selborne.

When Waynflete came to the see he found Prior Stype, alias Stepe, still living, who had been elected as long ago as the year 1411.

Among my documents I find a curious paper of the things put into the custody of Peter Bernes the sacrist, ... it happened in the reign of Hen. VI. This transaction probably took place when Bernes entered on his office; and there is the more reason to suppose that to be the case, because the list consist of vestements and implements, and relics, such as belonged to the church of the Priory, and fell under the care of the sacrist. For the numerous items I shall refer the curious reader to the Appendix, and shall just mention the relics, although they are not all specified; and the state of the live stock of the monastery at that juncture.

'Item 2. osculato~r. argent.

'Item 1. osculatorium cum osse digiti auricula~r.- Sti. Johannis Baptistae. [How the convent came to have the bone of the little finger of Saint John the Baptist does not appear; probably the founder, while in Palestine, purchased it among the Asiatics, who were at that time great traders in relics. ...]

'Item 1. parvam crucem cum V. reliquiis.

'Item 1. annulum argent. et deauratum St. Edmundi. [...]

'Item 2. osculat. de copper.

'Item 1. junctorium St. Ricardi. [... perhaps a joint or limb of St. Richard ...]

'Item 1. pecten St. Ricardi. [...]

The staurum, or live stock, is quite ridiculous, consisting only of '2 vacce, 1 sus, 4 hoggett. et 4 porcell.' viz. two cows, one sow, four porkers, and four pigs.

STEPE died towards the end of the year 1453, as we may suppose pretty far advanced in life, having been prior forty-four years.

On the very day that the vacancy happened viz. January 26, 1453-4, the sub-prior and convent petitioned the visitor 'vos unicum levamen nostrum, et spem unanimiter rogamus, quatinus eligendum ex nobis unum confratrem ne gremio nostra, in nostra religione probatum et expertem, licenciem vestram paternalem cum plena libertate nobis concedere dignemini graciose.'- Reg. Waynflete, tom.I.

Instead of the license requested we find next a commission 'custodie prioratus de Selbourne durante vacatione,' addressed to brother Peter Berne, canon-regular of the priory of Selebourne, and of the order of St. Augustine, appointing him keeper of the said priory, and empowering him to collect and receive the profit and revenues, and 'alia bona,' of the said priory; and to exercise in every respect the full power and authority of a prior; but to be responsible to the visitor finally, and to maintain this superiority during the bishop's pleasure only. This instrument is dated from the bishop's manor-house in Southwark, March 1, 1453-4, and the seventh of his consecration.

After this transaction it does not appear that the chapter of the Priory proceeded to any election: on the contrary, we find that at six months' end from the vacancy the visitor declared that a lapse had taken place; and that therefore he did not confer the priorship on canon Peter Berne.- 'Prioratum vacantem et ad nostram collationem, seu provisionem jure ad nos in hac parte per lapsum temporis legitime devolutu spectantem, tibi (sc. P. Berne) de legitimo matrimonio procreato, &c,- conferimus,' etc. This deed bears date July 28, 1454.- Reg. Waynflete, tom.I. p.69.

On February 8, 1462, the visitor issued out a power of sequestration against the Priory of Selborne on account of notorious delapidations which threatened manifest ruin to the roofs, walls, and edifices of the said convent; and appointing John Hammond, B.D., rector of the parish church of Hetlegh, John Hylling, vicar of the parish church of Newton Valence, and Walter Gorfin, inhabitant of the parish of Selborne, his sequestrators, to exact, collect, levy, and receive, all the profits and revenues of the said convent: he adds, 'ac ea sub arcto, et tuto custodiatis, custodirive faciatis'; as they would answer it to the bishop at their peril.

In consequence of these proceedings prior Berne, on the last day of February, and the next year, produced a state of the revenues of the Priory, No.381, called 'A paper conteyning the value of the manors and lands pertayning to the Priory of Selborne. 4 Edward III. with a note of charges yssuing out of it.'

... From circumstances in this paper it is plain that the sequestration produced good effects; for in it are to be found bills of repairs to a considerable amount.

By this evidence also it appears that there were at that juncture only four canons at the Priory [...]; and that these, and their four household servants, during this sequestration for their clothing, wages, and diet, were allowed per ann. xxx lib.; and that the annual pension of the lord prior, reside where he would, was to be x lib.

In the year 1468, prior Berne, probably wearied out by the dissensions and want of order that prevailed in the convent, resigned his priorship into the hands of the bishop.- Reg. Waynflete, tom.I. pars. 1ma. fol.157.

March 28, A.D.1468. 'In quadam alta camera juxta magnam portam manerii of the bishop of Wynton de Waltham coram eodem rev. partre ibidem tunc sedente, Peter Berne, prior of Selborne, ipsum prioratum in sacras, et venerabiles manus of the bishop, viva voce libere resignavit: and his resignation was admitted before two witnesses and a notary-public. In consequence, March 29th, before the bishop, in capella manerii sui ante dicti pro tribunali sedente, comparuerunt fratres' Peter Berne, Thomas London, William Wyndesor, and William Paynell, alias Stretford, canons regular of the priory, 'capitulum, et conventum ejusdem ecclesie facientes; ac jus et voces in electione futura prioris dicti prioratus solum et in solidum, ut asseruerunt, habentes; and after the bishop had notified to them the vacancy of a prior, with his free license to elect, deliberated awhile, and then, by way of compromise, as they affirmed, unanimously transferred their right of election to the bishop before witnesses. In consequence of this the bishop, after full deliberation, proceeded April 7th, 'in capella manerii sui de Waltham' to the election of a prior; 'et fratrem Johannem Morton, prioram ecclesie conventualis de Reygate dicti ordinis Sti. Augustini Wynton. dioc. in priorem vice et nomine omnium et singulorum canonicorum predictorum elegit, in ordine sacerdotali, et etate licita constitutum, &c.' And on the same day, in the same place, and before the same witnesses, John Morton resigned to the bishop the priorship of Reygate viva voce. The bishop then required his consent to his own election; 'qui licet in parte renitens tanti reverendi partris se confirmans,' obeyed, and signified his consent oraculo vive voce. Then there was a mandate citing any one who would gainsay the said election to appear before the bishop or his commissary in his chapel at Farnham on the second day of May next. The dean of the deanery of Aulton then appeared before the chancellor, his commissary, and returned the citation or mandate dated April 22d, 1468, with signification, in writing, of his having published it as required, dated Newton Valence, May 1st, 1468. This certificate being read, the four canons of Selborne appeared and required the election to be confirmed; et ex super abundanti appointed William Long their proctor to solicit in their name that he might be canonically confirmed. John Morton also appeared, and proclamation was made; and no one appearing against him, the commissary pronounced all absentees contumacious, and precluded them from objecting at any other time; and, at the instance of John Morton and the proctor, confirmed the election by his decree, and directed his mandate to the rector of Hedley and the vicar of Newton Valence to install him in the usual form.

Thus, for the first time, was a person, a stranger to the convent of Selborne, and never canon of that monastery, elected prior; ...

PRIOR MORTON dying in 1471, two canons, by themselves, proceeded to election, and chose a prior; but two more (one of them Berne) complaining of not being summoned, objected to the proceedings as informal; till at last the matter was compromised that the bishop should again, for that turn, nominate as he had before. But the circumstances of this election will be best explained by the following extract:

REG. WAYNFLETE, tom.II. pars 1ma, fol.7.

Memorandum. A.D. 1471, August 22.

William Wyndesor, a canon-regular of the Priory of Selborne, having been elected prior on the death of brother John, appeared in person before the bishop in his chapel at South Waltham. He was attended on this occasion by Thomas London and John Bromesgrove, canons, who had elected him. Peter Berne and William Stratfeld, canons, also presented themselves at the same time, complaining that in this business they had been overlooked, and not summoned; and that therefore the validity of the election might with reason be called in question, and quarrels and dissensions might probably arise between the newly chosen prior and the parties thus neglected.

After some altercation and dispute they all came to an agreement with the new prior that what had been done should be rejected and annulled; and that they would again, for this turn, transfer to the bishop their power to elect, order, and provide them another prior, whom they promised unanimously to admit.

The bishop accepted of this offer before witnesses; and on September 27, in an inner chamber near the chapel abovementioned, after full deliberation, chose brother Thomas Fairwise, vicar of Somborne, a canon-regular of Saint Augustine in the Priory of Bruscough, in the diocese of Coventry and Litchfield, to be prior of Selborne. The form is nearly as above in the last election. The canons are again enumerated; W. Wyndesor, sub-prior, P. Berne, T. London, W. Stratfeld, J. Bromesgrove, who had formed the chapter, and had requested and obtained license to elect, but had unanimously conferred their power on the bishop. In consequence of this proceeding, the bishop taking the business upon himself, that the Priory might not suffer detriment for want of a governor, appoints the aforesaid T. Fairwise to be prior. A citation was ordered as above for gainsayers to appear October 4th, before the bishop or his commissaries at South Waltham, but none appearing, the commissaries admitted the said Thomas, ordered him to be installed, and sent the usual letter to the convent to render him due obedience.

Thus did the bishop of Winchester a second time appoint a stranger to be prior of Selborne, instead of one chosen out of the chapter. For this seeming irregularity the visitor had no doubt good and sufficient reasons, as probably may appear hereafter.

WHATEVER might have been the abilities and disposition of prior Fairwise, it could not have been in his power to have brought about any material reformation in the Priory of Selborne, because he departed this life in the month of August 1472, before he had presided one twelvemonth.

As soon as their governor was buried the chapter applied to their visitor for leave to choose a new prior, which being granted, after deliberating for a time, they proceeded to an election by a scrutiny. But as this mode of voting has not been described but by the mere form in the Appendix, an extract from the bishop's register representing the manner more fully, may not be disagreeable to several readers.

WAYNEFLETE REG. tom.II. pars 1ma, fol.15.

'Reverendo &c. ac nostro patrono graciosissimo vestri humiles, ex devote obedientie filii,' etc.

To the right reverend Father in God, and our most gracious patron, we, your obedient and devoted sons, William Wyndesor, president of the chapter of the Priory of Selborne, and the convent of that place, do make known to your Lordship, that our priorship being lately vacant by the death of Thomas Fairwise, our late prior, who died August 11th, 1472, having committed his body to decent sepulture, and having requested, according to custom, leave to elect another, and having obtained it under your seal, we, William Wyndesor, president of the convent, on the 29th of August, in our chapter-house assembled, and making a chapter, taking to us in this business Richard ap Jenkyn, and Galfrid Bryan, chaplains, that our said priory might not by means of this vacancy incur harm, or loss, unanimously agreed on August the last for the day of election; on which day, having first celebrated mass, 'De sancto spiritu,' at the high altar, and having called a chapter by tolling a bell about ten o' the clock, we, William Wyndesor, president, Peter Berne, Thomas London, and William Stratfeld, canons, who alone had voices, being the only canons, about ten o' the clock, first sung 'Veni Creator,' the letters and license being read in the presence of many persons there. Then William Wyndesor, in his own name, and that of all the canons, made solemn proclamation, enjoining all who had no right to vote to depart out of the chapter-house. When all were withdrawn except Guyllery de Lacuna, in decretis Baccalarius, and Robert Peverell, notary-public, and also the two chaplains, the first was requested to stay, that he might direct and inform us in the mode of election, the other, that he might record and attest the transactions; and the two last that they might be witnesses to them.

Then having read the constitution of the general council 'Quia propter,' and the forms of elections contained in it being sufficiently explained to them by De Lacuna, as well in Latin as the vulgar tongue, and having deliberated in what mode to proceed in this election, they resolved in that of scrutiny. Three of the canons, Wyndesor, Berne, and London, were made scrutators: Berne, London, and Stratfeld, choosing Wyndesor; Wyndesor, London, and Stratfeld, choosing Berne; Wyndesor, Berne, and Stratfeld choosing London.

They were empowered to take each other's vote, and then that of Stratfeld; 'et ad inferiorem partem angularem' of the chapter-house, 'juxta ostium ejusdem declinentes,' with the other persons (except Stratfeld, who staid behind), proceeded to voting, two swearing, and taking the voice of the third, in succession, privately. Wyndesor voted first: 'Ego credo Petrum Berne meliorem et utiliorem ad regimen istius ecclesie, et in ipsum consentio, ac eum nomino,' etc. Berne was next sworn, and in like manner nominated Wyndesor; London nominated Berne: Stratfeld was then called and sworn, and nominated Berne.

'Quibus in scriptis redactis,' by the notary-public, they returned to the upper part of the chapter-house, where by Wyndesor 'sic purecta fecerunt in communi,' and then solemnly in form written, declared the election of Berne: when all, 'antedicto nostro electo excepto, approbantes et ratificantes, cepimus decantare solemniter 'Te Deum Laudamus,' et sic canentes dictum electum ad majus altare ecclesie deduximus, ut apud nos est moris. Then Wyndesor electionem clero et populo infra chorum dicte ecclesie congregatis publicavit, et personam electi publice et personaliter ostendit.' We then returned to the chapter-house, except our prior; and Wyndesor was appointed by the other two their proctor, to desire the assent of the elected, and to notify what had been done by the bishop; and to desire him to confirm the election, and do whatever else was necessary. Then their proctor, before the witnesses, required Berne's assent in the chapter-house: 'qui quidem instanciis et precibus multiplicatis devictus,' consented, 'licet indignus electus,' in writing. They therefore requested the bishop's confirmation of their election 'sic canonice et solemniter celebrater,' etc. etc. Sealed with their common seal, and subscribed and attested by the notary. Dat. in the chapter-house September 5th, 1472.

In consequence, September 11th, 1472, in the bishop's chapel at Esher, and before the bishop's commissary, appeared W. Wyndesor, and exhibited the above instrument, and a mandate from the bishop for the appearance of gainsayers of the election there on that day:- and no one appearing, the absentees were declared contumacious, and the election confirmed; and the vicar of Aulton was directed to induct and install the prior in the usual manner.

Thus did canon Berne, though advanced in years, reassume his abdicated priorship for the second time, to the no small satisfaction, as it may seem, of the bishop of Winchester, who professed, as will be shown, not long hence, a high opinion of his abilities and integrity.

As prior Berne, when chosen in 1454, held his priorship only to 1468, and then made a voluntary resignation, wearied and disgusted, as we may conclude, by the disorder that prevailed in his convent; it is no matter of wonder that, when re-chosen in 1472, he should not long maintain his station; as old age was then coming fast upon him, and the increasing anarchy and misrule of that declining institution required unusual vigour and resolution to stem that torrent of profligacy which was hurrying it on to its dissolution. We find, accordingly, that in 1478 he resigned his dignity again into the hands of the bishop.

WAYNFLETE REG. fol.55.

Resignatio Prioris de Seleborne.

May 14, 1478. Peter Berne resigned the priorship. May 16 the bishop admitted his resignation 'in manerio suo de Waltham,' and declared the priorship void; 'et priorat. solacio destitutum esse'; and granted his letters for proceeding to a new election: when all the religious, assembled in the chapter-house, did transfer their power under their seal to the bishop, by the following public instrument.

'In Dei nomine Amen,' etc. A.D.1478, Maii 19. In the chapter-house for the election of a prior for that day, on the free resignation of Peter Berne, having celebrated in the first place mass at the high altar 'De spiritu sancto,' and having called a chapter by tolling a bell, ut moris est; in the presence of a notary and witnesses appeared personally Peter Berne, Thomas Ashford, Stephen Clydgrove, and John Ashton, presbyters, and Henry Canwood, [Here we see that all the canons were changed in six years; and that there was quite a new chapter, Berne excepted, between 1472 and 1478; for, instead of Wyndesor, London, and Stratfeld, we find Ashford, Clydgrove, Ashton, and Canwood, all new men, who were soon gone in their turn off the stage, and are heard of no more. For, in six years after, there seem to have been no canons at all.] in chapter assembled; and after singing the hymn 'Veni Creator Spiritus,' 'cum versiculo et oratione 'Deus qui corda'; declarataque licentia Fundatoris et Patroni; futurum priorem eligendi concessa, et constitutione concilii generalis que incipit 'Quia propter' declaratis; viisque per quas possent ad hanc electionem procedere,' by the decretorum doctorem, whom the canons had taken to direct them - they all and every one 'dixerunt et affirmarunt se nolle ad aliquam viam procedere':- but, for this turn only, renounced their right, and unanimously transferred their power to the bishop the ordinary of the place, promising to receive whom he should provide; and appointed a proctor to present the instrument to the bishop under their seal; and required their notary to draw it up in due form, etc. subscribed by the notary.

After the visitor had fully deliberated on the matter, he proceeded to the choice of a prior, and elected, by the following instrument, John Sharp, alias Glastenbury.

Fol.56 PROVISIO PRIORIS per EP~M.

Will~mus, etc. to our beloved brother in Christ John Sharp, alias Glastenbury, Ecclesie conventualis de Bruton, in the order of St. Austin, in the diocese of Bath and Wells, canon-regular - salutem, etc. 'De tue circumspectionis industria plurimum confidentes, et virum providum et discretum, literarum scientia, et moribus merito commendandum,' etc. - do appoint you prior - under our seal. 'Dat. in manerio nostro de Suthwaltham, May 20, 1478, et nostre Consec. 31.'

Thus did the bishop, three times out of the four that he was at liberty to nominate, appoint a prior from a distance, a stranger to the place, to govern the convent of Selborne, hoping by this method to have broken the cabal, and to have interrupted the habit of mismanagement that had pervaded the society: but he acknowledges, in an evidence lying before us, that he never did succeed to his wishes with respect to those late governors,- 'quos tamen male se habuisse, et inutiliter administrare, et administrasse usque ad presentia tempora post debitam investigationem, &c. invenit.' The only time that he appointed from among the canons, he made choice of Peter Berne, for whom he had conceived the greatest esteem and regard.When prior Berne first relinquished his priorship, he returned again to his former condition of canon, in which he continued for some years: but when he was re-chosen, and had abdicated a second time, we find him in a forlorn state, and in danger of being reduced to beggary, had not the bishop of Winchester interposed in his favour, and with great humanity insisted on a provision for him for life. The reason for this difference seems to have been, that, in the first case, though in years, he might have been hale and capable of taking his share in the duty of the convent; in the second, he was broken with age, and no longer equal to the functions of a canon.

Impressed with this idea the bishop very benevolently interceded in his favour, and laid his injunctions on the new-elected prior in the following manner.

Fol.56 'In Dei nomine Amen. Nos Will~mus, &c. considerantes Petrum Berne,' late prior, 'in administratione spiritualium et temporalium prioratus laudabiliter vixisse et rexisse; ipsumque senio et corporis debilitate confractum; ne in opprobium religionis mendicari cogatur;- eidem annuam pensionem a Domino Johanne Sharp, alias Glastonbury, priore moderno,' and his successors, and, from the Priory or church, to be payed every year during his life, 'de voluntate et ex consensu expressis,' of the said John Sharp, 'sub ea que sequitur forma verborum - assignamus':

1st. That the said prior and his successors, for the time being, honeste exhibebunt of the fruits and profits of the priorship, 'eidem esculenta et poculenta,' while he remained in the Priory 'sub consimile portione eorundem prout convenienter priori,' for the time being, ministrari contigerit; and in like manner uni famulo, whom he should choose to wait on him, as to the servientibus of the prior.

Item. 'Invenient seu exhibebunt eidem unam honestam cameram' in the Priory, 'cum focalibus necessariis seu opportunis ad eundem.'

Item. 'We will, ordain, &c. to the said P. Berne, an annual pension of ten marks, from the revenue of the Priory, to be paid by the hands of the prior quarterly.'

The bishop decrees farther, that John Sharp, and his successors, shall take an oath to observe this injunction, and that before their installation.

'Lecta et facta sunt haec in quodam alto oratorio,' belonging to the bishop at Suthwaltham, May 25, 1478, in the presence of John Sharp, he gave his assent, and then took the oath before witnesses, with the other oaths before the chancellor, who decreed he should be inducted and installed; as was done that same day.

How John Sharp, alias Glastonbury, acquitted himself in his priorship, and in what manner he made a vacancy, whether by resignation, or death, or whether he was removed by the visitor, does not appear; we only find that some time in the year 1484 there was no prior, and that the bishop nominated canon Ashford to fill the vacancy.

THIS Thomas Ashford was most undoubtedly the last prior of Selborne; and therefore here will be the proper place to say something concerning a list of the priors, and to endeavour to improve that already given by others.

At the end of bishop Tanner's Notitia Monastica, the folio edition, among Brown Willis's Principals of Religious Houses occur the names of eleven of the priors of Selborne, with dates. But this list is imperfect, and particularly at the beginning; for though the Priory was founded in 1232, yet it commences with Nich. de Cantia, elected in 1262; so that for the first thirty years no prior is mentioned; yet there must have been one or more. We were in hopes that the register of Peter de Rupibus would have rectified this omission; but, when it was examined, no information of the sort was to be found. From the year 1410 the list is much corrected and improved; and the reader may depend on its being thence forward very exact.

A List of the Priors of Selborne Priory, from Brown Willis's Principals of Religious Houses, with additions within [] by the author.

[John ... was prior, sine dat.] [See, in Letter 11. of these Antiquities, the reason why prior John ..., who had transactions with the Knights Templars, is placed in the list before the year 1262.]

Nich. de Cantia el. ... ... 1262.

[Peter ... was prior in ... ... 1271.]

[Richard ... was prior in ... ... 1280.]

Will. Basing was prior in ... ... 1299.

Walter de Insula el. in ... ... 1324.

[Some difficulties, and a devolution; but the election confirmed by bishop Stratford.]

John de Winto~n ... ... 1339.

Thomas Weston ... ... 1377.

John Winchester [Wynchestre] ... ... 1410.

[Elected by bishop Beaufort 'per viam vel formam simplicis compromissi.']

[John Stype, alias Stepe, in ... ... 1411.]

Peter Bene [alias Berne or Bernes, appointed keeper, and, by lapse to bishop Wayneflete, prior] in ... ... 1454.

[He resigned in 1468.]

John Morton [prior of Reygate] in ... ... 1468.

[The canons by compromise transfer the power of election to the bishop.]

Will. Winsor [Wyndesor, prior for a few days] ... ... 1471.

[But removed on account of an irregular election.]

Thomas Farwill [Fairwise, vicar of Somborne] ... ... 1471.

[By compromise again elected by the bishop.]

[Peter Berne, re-elected by scrutiny in ... ... 1472.]

[Resigned again in 1478.]

John Sharper [Sharp] alias Glastonbury ... ... 1478.

[Canon-reg. of Bruton, elected by the bishop by compromise.]

[Thomas Ashford, canon of Selborne, last prior elected by the bishop of Winchester some time in the year 1484, and deposed at the dissolution.]

BISHOP WAYNEFLETE'S efforts to continue the Priory still proved unsuccessful; and the convent, without any canons, and for some time without a prior, was tending swiftly to its dissolution.

When Sharp's alias Glastonbury's, priorship ended does not appear. The bishop says that he had been obliged to remove some priors for male-adminstration: but it is not well explained how that cold be the case with any, unless with Sharp; because all the others, chosen during his episcopate, died in their office, viz. Morton and Fairwise; Berne only excepted, who relinquished twice voluntarily, and was moreover approved of by Wayneflete as a person of integrity. ...

... William Wainfleet, bishop of Winchester, founded his college of St Mary Magdalene, in the University of Oxford, in or about the year 1459; but the revenues proving insufficient for so large and noble an establishment, the college supplicated the founder to augment its income by putting it in possession of the estates belonging to the Priory of Selborne, now become a deserted convent, without canons or prior. The president and fellows state the circumstances of their numerous institution and scanty provision, and the ruinous and perverted condition of the Priory. The bishops appoints commissaries to inquire into the state of the said monastery; and, if found expedient, to confirm the appropriation of it to the college, which soon after appoints attorneys to take possession, September 24, 1484. ...

....

As soon as the president and fellows of Magdalene college had obtained the decision of the commissary in their favour, they proceeded to supplicate the pope, and to entreat his holiness that he would give his sanction to the sentence of union. Some difficulties were started at Rome; but they were surmounted by the college agent, as appears in his letters from that city. At length pope Innocent VIII. by a bull [There is nothing remarkable in this bull of pope Innocent except the statement of the annual revenue of the Priory of Selborne which is therein estimated at 160 flor. auri; whereas bishop Godwin set it at 337l. 15s. 6 1/4d. Now a floren, so named, says Camden, because made by Florentines, was a gold coin of king Edward III. in value 6s. whereof 160 is not one seventh part of 337l. 15s. 6 1/4d.] bearing date the 8th day of June, in the year of Lord 1486, and in the second year of his pontificate, confirmed what had been done, and suppressed the convent.

Thus fell the considerable and well-endowed Priory of Selborne after it had subsisted about two hundred and fifty-four years: about seventy-four years after the suppression of Priory alien by Henry V. and about fifty years before the general dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII. The founder, it is probable, had fondly imagined that the sacredness of the institution, and the pious motives on which it was established, might have preserved it inviolate to the end of time - yet it fell, ...

WAINFLEET did not long enjoy the satisfaction arising from this new acquisition; but departed this life in a few months after he had effected the union of the Priory with his late founded college; and was succeeded in the see of Winchester by Peter Courtney, some time towards the end of the year 1486.

In the beginning of the following year the new bishop released the president and fellows of Magdalen College from all actions respecting the Priory of Selborne; and the prior and convent of St. Swithun, ...

...

Ashforde, the deposed prior, who had appeared as an evidence for the impropriation of the Priory at the age of seventy-two years, that he might not be destitute of a maintenance, was pensioned by the college to the day of his death; and was living still in 1490, ...

...

As, according to the persuasion of the times, the depriving the founder and benefactors of the Priory of their masses and services would have been deemed the most impious of frauds, bishop Wainfleet, having by statute ordained four obits for himself to be celebrated in the chapel of Magdalen College, enjoined in one of them a special collect for the anniversary of Peter de Rupibus, with a particular prayer - 'Deus Indulgentiarum.'

The college also sent Nicholas Langrish, who had been a chantry priest at Selborne, to celebrate mass for the souls of all that had been benefactors to the said Priory and college, and for all the faithful who had departed this life.

...

... Thomas Knowles, presidens, etc.- 'damus et concedimus Nicholao Langrish quandum capellianiam, vel salarium, sive alio quocunque nomine censeatur, in prioratu quondam de Selborne pro termino 40 annorum, si tam diu vixerit. Ubi dictus magr. Nicholaus celebrabit pro animabus omnium benefactorum dicti prioratus et coll. nostri, et omnium fidelium defunctorum. Insuper nos, &c. concediums eidem ibidem celebranti in sustentationem suam quandam annualem pensionem sive annuitatem octo librarum &c.- in dicta capella dicti prioratus - concedimus duas cameras contiguas ex parte boreali dicte capelle, cum una coquina, et cum uno stabulo conveniente pro tribus equis, cum pomerio eidem adjacente voc. le Orcheyard - Preteria 26s. 8d. per ann. ad inveniendum unum clericum ad serviendum sibi ad altare, et aliis negotiis necessariis ejus.' - His wood to be granted him by the president on the progress.- He was not to absent himself beyond a certain time; and was to superintend the coppices, wood, and hedges.- 'Dat. 5to die Julii. ano. Hen. VIIIvi. 36o.' [viz. 1546].

Here we see the Priory in a new light, reduced as it were to the state of a chantry, without prior and without canons, and attended only by a priest, who was also a sort of bailiff or woodman, his assistant clerk, and his female cook. Owen Oglethorpe, president, and Magd. Coll. in the fourth year of Edward VI., viz, 1551, granted an annuity of ten pounds a year for life to Nich. Langrish, who, from the preamble, appears then to have been fellow of that society: but, being now superannuated for business, this pension is granted him for thirty years, if he should live so long. ...

Laurence Stubb, president of Magd. Coll. leased out the Priory lands to John Sharp, husbandman, for the term of twenty years, as early as the seventeenth year of Henry VIII. - viz. 1526: and it appears that Henry Newlyn had been in possession of a lease before, probably towards the end of the reign of Henry VII. Sharp's rent was vi li. per ann. - Regist. B. p.43.

By an abstract from a lease lying before me, it appears that Sharp found a house, two barns, a stable, and duf-house [dove-house], built, and standing on the south side of the old Priory, and late in the occupation of Newlyn. In this abstract also are to be seen the names of all the fields, many of which continue the same to this day. [It may not be amiss to mention here that various names of tithings, farms, fields, woods, etc. which appear on the ancient deeds, and evidences of several centuries standing, are still preserved in common use with little or no variation:- as Norton, Southington, Durton, Achangre, Blackmore, Bradshot, Rood, Plestor, etc. etc. At the same time it should be acknowledged that other places have entirely lost their original titles, as le Buri and Trucstede in this village; and la Liega, or la Lyge, which was the name of the original site of the Priory, etc.] Of some of them I shall take notice, where any thing singular occurs.

And here first we meet with Paradyss [Paradise] mede. Every convent had its Paradise; which probably was an enclosed orchard, pleasantly laid out, and planted with fruit-trees. Tylehouse grove, so distinguished from having a tiled house near it. [Men at first heaped sods, or fern, or heath, on their roofs to keep off the inclemencies of the weather: and then by degrees laid straw or haum. The first refinement on roofing were shingles, which are very ancient. Tiles are a very late and imperfect covering, and were not much in use till the beginning of the sixteenth century. The first tiled house at Nottingham was in 1503.] Butt-wood close; here the servants of the Priory and the village-swains exercised themselves with their long bows, and shot at a mark against a butt, or bank. [There is also a Butt-close just at the back of the village.] Cundyth [conduit] wood: the engrosser of the lease not understanding this name has made a strange barbarous word of it. Conduit-wood was and is a steep, rough cow-pasture, lying above the Priory, at about a quarter of a mile to the south-west. In the side of this field there is a spring of water that never fails; at the head of which a cistern was built which communicated with leaden pipes that conveyed water to the monastery. When this reservoir was first constructed does not appear, we only know that it underwent a repair in the episcopate of bishop Wainfleet, about the year 1462 [N.381. 'Clausure terre abbatie ecclesie parochiali de Seleburne, ix s. iiii d. Reparacionibus domorum predicti prioratus iiii. lib. xi s. Aque conduct. ibidem, xxiii d.']. Whether these pipes only conveyed the water to the Priory for common and culinary purposes, or contributed to any matters of ornament and elegance, we shall not pretend to say; nor when artists and mechanics first understood any thing of hydraulics, and that water confined in tubes would rise to its original level. There is a person now living who had been employed formerly in digging for these pipes, and once discovered several yards, which they sold for old lead.

There was also a plot of ground called Tan-house garden; and 'Tannaria sua,' a tan-yard of their own, has been mentioned in Letter XVI [16]. This circumstance I just take notice of, as an instance that monasteries had trades and occupations carried on within themselves. [There is still a wood near the Priory called Tanner's wood.]

Registr. B. pag.112. Here we find a lease of the parsonage of Selborne to Thomas Sylvester and Miles Arnold, husbandmen - of the tythes of all manner of corne pertaining to the parsonage - with the offerings at the chapel at Whaddon belonging to the said parsonage. Dat. June 1. 27th. Hen. 8th. [viz. 1536].

As the chapel of Whaddon has never been mentioned till now, and as it is not noticed by bishop Tanner in his Notitia Monastica, some more particular account of it will be proper in this place. Whaddon was a chapel of ease to the mother church of Selborne, and was situated in the tithing of Oakhanger, at about two miles distance from the village. The farm and fields whereon it stood are still called chapel-farm and field: [This is a manor-farm, at present the property of Lord Stawell; and belonged probably in ancient times to Jo. de Venur, or Venuz, one of the first benefactors to the Priory.] but there are no remains or traces of the building itself, the very foundations having been destroyed before the memory of man. In a farm yard at Oakhanger we remember a large hollow stone of a close substance, which had been used as a hog-trough, but was then broken. This stone, tradition said, had been the baptismal font of Whaddon chapel. The chapel had been in very ruinous state in old days; but was new built at the instance of bishop Wainfleet, about the year 1463, during the first priorship of Berne, in consequence of a sequestration issued forth by that visitor against the Priory on account of notorious and shameful delapidations [See Letter 19 of these Antiquities.- 'Summa total. solut. de novis edificationibus, et reparacionibus per idem tempus, ut patet per comput.' 'Videlicet de nova edificat. Capelle Marie de Wadden. xiiii. lib. vs. viiid. - Reparacionibus ecclesie Prioratus, cancellor, et capellar. ecclesiarum et capellarum de Selborne, et Estworhlam.' - etc. etc.]

The Selborne rivulet becomes of some breadth at Oakhanger, and, in very wet seasons, swells to a large flood. There is a bridge over the stream at this hamlet of considerable antiquity and peculiar shape, known by the name of Tunbridge: it consists of one single blunt gothic arch, so high and sharp as to render the passage not very convenient or safe. Here was also, we find, a bridge in very early times; for Jacobus de Hochangre, the first benefactor to the Priory of Selborne, held his estate at Hochangre by the service of providing the king one foot-soldier for forty days, and by building this bridge. 'Jacobus de Hochangre tenet Hochangre in com. Southampton per Serjantiam, [Sargentia, a sort of tenure of doing something for the king.] inveniendi unum valectum in exercitu Domini regis [scil. Henrici IIItii.] per 40 dies; et ad faciendum pontem de Hochangre: et valet per ann. C. s.' - Blount's Ancient Tenures, p.84.

A dove-house was a constant appendage to a manerial dwelling; of this convenience more will be said hereafter.

A corn-mill was also esteemed a necessary appendage of every manor; and therefore was to be expected of course at the Priory of Selborne.

The prior had secta molendini, or ad molendinum: ['Servitium, quo feudatorii grana sua ad Domini molendinum, ibi molenda perferre, ex consuetudine, astringuntur.'] a power of compelling his vassals to bring their corn to be ground at his mill, according to old custom. He had also, according to bishop Tanner, secta molendini de Strete: but the purport of Strete, we must confess, we do not understand. Strete, in old English, signifies a road or highway, as Watling Strete, etc. therefore the prior might have some mill on a high road. The Priory had only one mill originally at Selborne; but, by grant of lands, it came possessed of one at Durton, and one at Oakhanger, and probably some on its several other manors. [Thomas Knowles, president, etc. ann. Hen. 8vi. xxiiio. [viz. 1532] demised to J. Whitelie their mills, etc. for twenty years. Rent xxiiis. iiiid. - Accepted Frewen, president, etc. ann. Caroli xv. [viz. 1640] demised to Jo. Hook and Elizabeth, his wife, the said mills. Rent as above.] The mill at the Priory was in use within the memory of man, and the ruins of the mill-house were standing within these thirty years: the pond and dam, and miller's dwelling, still remain. As the stream was apt to fail in very dry summers, the tenants found their situation very distressing, for want of water, and so were forced to abandon the spot. This inconvenience was probably never felt in old times, when the whole district was nothing but woodlands: and yet several centuries ago there seem to have been two or three mills between Well-head and the Priory. For the rest of this assertion, see Letter XXIX. to Mr. Barrington.

...

THOUGH the evidences and documents of the Priory and parish of Selborne are now at an end, yet, as the author has still several things to say respecting the present state of that convent and the Grange, and other matters, he does not see how he can acquit himself of the subject without trespassing again on the patience of the reader by adding one supplementary letter.

No sooner did the Priory (perhaps much out of repair at the time) become an appendage to the college, but it must at once have tended to swift decay. Magdalen College wanted now only two chambers for the chantry priest and his assistant; and therefore had no occasion for the hall, dormitory, and other spacious apartments belonging to so large a foundation. The roofs neglected, would have soon become the possession of daws and owls; and, being rotted and decayed by the weather, would fall in upon the floors; so that all parts must have hastened to speedy dilapidation and a scene of broken ruins. Three full centuries have now passed since the dissolution; a series of years that would craze the stoutest edifices. But, besides the slow hand of time, many circumstances have contributed to level this venerable structure with the ground; of which nothing now remains but one piece of a wall of about ten feet long, and as many feet high, which probably was part of an out-house. As early as the latter end of the reign of Hen. VII. we find that a farm-house and two barns were built to the south of the Priory, and undoubtedly out of its materials. Avarice again has much contributed to the overthrow of this stately pile, as long as the tenants could make money of its stones or timbers. Wantonness, no doubt, has had a share in the demolition; for boys love to destroy what men venerate and admire. A remarkable instance of this propensity the writer can give from his own knowledge. When a schoolboy, more than fifty years ago, he was eye-witness, perhaps a party concerned, in the undermining a portion of that fine old ruin at the north end of Basingstoke town, well known by the name of Holy Ghost Chapel. Very providentially the vast fragment, which these thoughtless little engineers endeavoured to sap, did not give way so soon as might have been expected; but it fell the night following, and with such violence that it shook the very ground, and, awakening the inhabitants of the neighbouring cottages, made them start up in their beds as if they had felt an earthquake. The motive for this dangerous attempt does not so readily appear: perhaps the more danger the more honour thought the boys; and the notion of doing some mischief gave a zest to the enterprise. As Dryden says upon another occasion,

'It look'd so like a thing it pleas'd the more.'

Had the priory been only levelled to the surface of the ground, the discerning eye of the antiquary might have ascertained its ichnography, and some judicious hand might have developed its dimensions. But, besides other ravages, 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.

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 the 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 an half; and of the column, where it had stood on the base, eighteen inches and three quarters.

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 [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, etc.], 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.

The priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a Grange, an unusual appendage to manerial 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-baron [The time when this court is held is the mid-week between Easter and Whitsuntide.] in the great wheat-barn of the said Grange, annually, where the President usually superintends, attended by the bursar and steward of the college. [Owen Oglethorp, president, etc. an. Edw. Sexti, primo [viz. 1547] demised to Robert Arden Selborne Grange for twenty years. Rent vii li. - Index of Leases.]

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 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 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 charter 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 first 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 twenty-ninth of May, because the former day often interfered with wheat-harvest. On that day it still continues to be held, and is become an useful mart for cows and calves. Most of the lower house-keepers brew beer against this holiday, which is dutied by the excise man; 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 the Grange in Culver-croft [Culver, as has been observed before, is Saxon for a pigeon.], there were dove-houses; 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. [A warren was an usual appendage to a manor.]

Nothing has been said as yet respecting the tenure or holding of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton are manor farms and freeholds; 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 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 rates. But, as soon as the convent was suppressed, the towns 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 variety at their table on fast days; therefore the more they abounded the better probably was the condition of the inhabitants.

...

White, Gilbert, Rev: 1911 (edn) & 1788: Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne in the County of Southampton: Macmillan and Co (London)