OF SELBORNE. 371 



Grange, an usual appendage to manorial estates, where the 

 fruits of their lands were stowed and laid up for use, at a time 

 AY] ion 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 remem- 

 bered the old original Grange; but it has long given place to 

 a modern farm-house. Magdalen College holds a court-leet 

 and court-baron in the great wheat-barn of the said Grange, 

 annually, where the President * usually superintends, attended 

 by the bursar and steward of the college. 1 * 



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/wmzs, 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 Gaily [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 wo mistake not, near Hedleigh, in the county of Hants. 

 This strange denomination we do not at all comprehend, and 



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

 and Whitsuntide. 



* [The President has long ceased to attend, but the bursar and steward 

 hold the court annually on a fixed day, the first Tuesday in May. T. B.] 



P Owen Oylethorp, president, &c. an. Edw. Scxti, primo [viz. 1547.] 

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

 Index of Leases. 



2B2 



