ANTiaUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



327 



LETTER III. 



FROM the silence of Domesday respecting churches, it has been 

 supposed that few villages had any at the time when that record 

 was taken ; but Selborne, we see, enjoyed the benefit of one : 

 hence we may conclude, that this place was in no abject state 

 even at that very distant period. How many fabrics have suc- 

 ceeded each other since the days of Radfredrus the presbyter, we 

 cannot pretend to say ; our business leads us to a description of 

 the present edifice, in which we shall be circumstantial. 



Selborne Church. 



Our church, which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, con- 

 sists of three aisles, and measures fifty-four feet in length by 

 forty-seven in breadth, being almost as broad as it is long. The 

 present building has no pretensions to antiquity ;* and is, as I 

 suppose, of no earlier date than the beginning of the reign of 

 Henry VII. It is perfectly plain and unadorned, without painted 

 glass, carved work, sculpture, or tracery. But when I say it has 



* The churches of some of the adjoining parishes are of very great antiquity, and particularly 

 deserving of the attention of the antiquary. Those of Empshot and Hartley (especially the latter) 

 are very curious structures, and may I think be referrible to a period antecedent to the Norman 

 conquest. Hartley church has been most ridiculously "beautified" by a sort of Inigo-Jones gable 

 end, a piece of workmanship by no means bad in itself, but so outrageously out of character with 

 the original architecture as to draw a smile of contempt from every observer of taste. D. 



