372 ANTIQUITIES 



conclude that it may be a corruption from some Saxon word, 

 itself perhaps forgotten. 



It has been observed already, that Bishop Tanner was mis- 

 taken when he refers to an evidence of Dodsworth, " De 

 mercatu et FERIA de Seleburne" Selborne never had a char- 

 tered fair; the present fair was set up since the year 1681, by 

 a set of jovial fellows, who had found in an old almanack that 

 there had been a fair here in former days on the first of 

 August; and were desirous to revive so joyous a festival. 

 Against this innovation the vicar set his face, and persisted in 

 crying it down, as the probable occasion of much intemper- 

 ance. However the fair prevailed; but was altered to the 

 twenty-ninth of May, because the former day often interfered 

 with wheat-harvest. On that day it still continues to be held, 

 and is become an useful mart for cows and calves. Most of 

 the lower house-keepers brew beer against this holiday, which 

 is dutied by the exciseman ; and their becoming victuallers 

 for the day without a license is overlooked *. 



Monasteries enjoyed all sorts of conveniences within them- 

 selves. Thus at the Priory, a low and moist situation, there 

 were ponds and stews for their fish : at the same place also, 

 and at the Grange in Culver-croft? there .were dove-houses ; 

 and on the hill opposite to the Grange the prior had a warren, 

 as the names of The Coney-crofts and Coney-croft Hanger 

 plainly testify/ 



Nothing has been said as yet respecting the tenure or hold- 

 ing of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton are manor 

 farms and freehold ; as is the manor of Chapel near Oakhanger, 

 and also the estate at Oakhanger-house and Black-moor. The 

 Priory and Grange are leasehold under Magdalen-college, for 

 twenty-one years, renewable every seven : all the smaller 

 estates in and round the village are copyhold of inheritance 

 under the college, except the little remains of Gur don-manor, 



* [Not a vestige remains of the fair, although it was remembered by 

 several old people, whom I have heard speak of it as an occasion of village 

 festivity. T. B.] 



c Culver, as has been observed before, is Saxon for a pigeon. 



d A warren was an usual appendage to a manor. 



