276 THE ANTIQUITIES 



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 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 inter- 

 rupted by death from fulfilling his laudable intentions. 



April 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar. 



June 1 68 1. This living was now in such low estimation 

 in Magdalen-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 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- 



* The author's grandfather and godfather. 



