ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE 325 



out as having been the site of the convent kitchen. This 

 clumsy utensil, 1 whether intended for holy water or whatever 

 purpose, we were going to procure, but found that the laborers 

 had just broken it in pieces and carried it out on the high- 

 ways. 



The Priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a 

 grange, an usual appendage to manorial 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 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 farmhouse. Magdalen College holds a court-leet 

 and court-baron 2 in the great wheat-barn of the said Grange, 

 annually, where the president usually superintends, attended 

 by the bursar and steward of the college. 3 



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 furcas, a power of life and death, he might have 

 reserved this little eminence as the place of execution for de- 

 linquents. 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 Cobham, called also Gracious Pond; and 

 another, if we mistake not, near Hedleigh, in the county of 

 Hants. This strange denomination we do not at all compre- 

 hend, and conclude that it may be a corruption from some 

 Saxon word, itself perhaps forgotten. 



