OF SELBORNE. 311 



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 manorial 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 prede- 

 cessors 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 pri- 

 vilege of that right of common ; and empowered the religious 

 to build tenements and make gardens along the king's high- 

 way 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 : more- 

 over they explain the nature of the mixed manor still remain- 

 ing 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 Gur- 

 don 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 globe 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 it's lands, being twelve acres 

 (three of which abut on the church-yard and vicarage-garden) 



