XXVI.] OF SELBORNE. 245 



procure, but found that the labourers had just broken it in 

 pieces, and carried it out on the highways. 



The Priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a Grange, 

 a 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 remembered the old original 

 ( i range ; but it has long given place to a modern farm-house. 

 Magdalen College holds a court-leet and court-baron 1 in the 

 great wheat-barn of the said Grange, annually, where the 

 president usually superintends, attended by the bursar and 

 steward of the college.' 2 



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 thursef, and pillory, had also furcas, 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 Choblmm, called also Gracious Pond : and another, 

 if we mistake not, near Hedleigh, in the county of Hants. This 



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

 Whitsuntide. 



2 Owen Oglethorp, president, &c. an. Edw. Sexti, primo [viz. 1547.] demised 

 to Robert Arden, Selborne Grange, for twenty years. Rent v". Index of 

 Leases. 



