404 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



It has been observed already, that bishop Tanner was mistaken 

 when he refers to an evidence of Dodsworth, " De mercatu et 

 FERIA de Seleburne." Selborne never had a chartered 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 de- 

 sirous to revive so joyous a festival. Against this innovation the 

 vicar set his face, and persisted in crying it down, as the proba- 

 ble occasion of much intemperance. 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 housekeepers 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 anV. Coney-croft Hanger plainly testify.f 



Nothing has been said as yet respecting the tenure or holding 

 of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton are manor farms 

 and freehold ; as is the manor of Chapel near Oakh anger, 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 the Gurdon-manor, which had been 

 of old leased out upon lives, but have been freed of late by their 

 present lord, as fast as those lives have dropped. 



Selborne seems to have derived much of its prosperity from 

 the near neighbourhood of the Priory. For monasteries were of 

 considerable advantage to places where they had their sites and 

 estates, by causing great resort, by procuring markets and fairs, 

 by freeing them from the cruel oppression of forest laws, and by 

 letting their lands at easy rates. But, as soon as the convent 

 was suppressed, the town which it had occasioned began to de- 

 cline, and the market was less frequented ; the rough and se- 



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

 f A warren was an usual appendage to a manor. 



