OF SELBORNE. 551 



western wall. The roofing consists of strong massive 

 rafter-work ornamented with carved roses. I have often 

 looked for the lamb and flag, the arms of the Knights 

 Templars, without success ; but in one corner found a 

 fox with a goose on his back, so coarsely executed, that 

 it required some attention to make out the device. 



Beyond the hall to the north is a small parlour with a 

 vast heavy stone chimney-piece ; and, at the end of all, 

 the chapel or oratory, whose massive thick walls and 

 narrow windows at once bespeak great antiquity. This 

 room is only sixteen feet by sixteen feet eight inches ; 

 and full seventeen feet nine inches in height. The 

 ceiling is formed of vast joists, placed only five or six 

 inches apart. Modern delicacy would not much ap- 

 prove of such a place of worship : for it has at present 

 much more the appearance of a dungeon than of a room 

 fit for the reception of people of condition. The field 

 on which this oratory abuts is still called Chapel Field. 

 The situation of this house is very particular, for it 

 stands upon the immediate verge of a steep abrupt hill. 



Not many years since, this place was used for a hop- 

 kiln, and was divided into two stories by a loft, part of 

 which remains at present, and makes it convenient for 

 peat and turf, with which it is stowed 1 . 



1 There is now not a vestige remaining of the house described by 

 Gilbert White. But the modern residence, in its whitened walls and 

 slated roof and squared form the very reverse of the irregular and pictu- 

 resque building represented on the opposite page, occupies nearly the 

 same position with its predecessor, and commands that extensive view 

 over the forest, which was so advantageous in other times to its warder, 

 and which now delights the spectator by its variety and extent. The 

 grander features of nature have not changed here since Adam Gurdon 

 looked on them, and in the details, as seen from this position, there has 

 probably occurred but little alteration. Another view, equally lovely 

 but less extensive, is obtained from the orchard of Temple, formerly the 

 Chapel Field. In this prospect, and in that from the terrace by the side 

 of the house, a range of view is comprised extending over more than half 

 the compass, and stretching away uninterruptedly for miles over the 

 richest foreground imaginable to the dreary wastes of the Forest, enli- 

 vened by its little lakes, and bounded by the high downs that rise in the 

 distance into the clouds. E. T. B. 



