ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 377 



very spot which tradition has always pointed out as having been 

 the site of the convent kitchen. This clumsy utensil,* whether 

 intended for holy water, or whatever purpose, we were going to 

 procure, but found that the labourers had just broken it in pieces, 

 and carried it out on the highways. 



The priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a grange, 

 an usual 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 con- 

 vent 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 t in the great wheat- 

 barn of the said Grange, annually, where the president usually 

 superintends, attended by the bursar and steward of the college.:}: 



The following uncommon presentment at the court is not un- 

 worthy 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, he might have reserved this little eminence as 

 the place of execution for delinquents. And there is the more 



* 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. 



t The time when this court is held is the mid-week between Easter and 

 Whitsuntide. 



J Owen Oglethorpe, president, etc., an. Edw. Sexti, primo [viz. 1547.] 

 demised to Robert Arden Selborne Grange for twenty years. Rent vi 11 . 

 Index of Leases. 



