OF SELBORNE 289 



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 

 manerial 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 predecessors 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 privilege of that right of common ; and empowered 

 the religious to build tenements and make gardens along 

 the king's highway 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 : moreover they explain the nature of the mixed 

 manor still remaining 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 Gurdon 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 glebe 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 its lands, being 

 twelve acres (three of which abut on the church-yard and 

 vicarage-garden) as an improvement hereafter to the living, 

 and an eligible advantage to future incumbents. 



