ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 303 
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 near 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 the 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 prem'ses 
in a comfortable state ; and began by building a solid stone wall 
round the front court, and another in the lower yard, between thae 
and the neighbouring garden ; but was interrupitea by death from 
fulfilling his laudable intentions. 
April, 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar. 
June, 1681. This living was now in such low estimation in Mag- 
dalen College that it descended to a junior fellow, Gilbert White, 
M.A., 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 wain- 
scoted 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, 
