OF SELBORNE. 6*25 



Had the Priory been only levelled to the surface of 

 the ground, the discerning eye of an antiquary might 

 have ascertained its ichnography, and some judicious 

 hand might have developed its dimensions. But, be- 

 sides other ravages, the very foundations have been 

 torn up for the repair of the highways : so that the site 

 of this convent is now become a rough, rugged pasture- 

 field, full of hillocks and pits, choked with nettles and 

 dwarf-elder, and trampled by the feet of the ox and the 

 heifer 1 . 



As the tenant at the Priory was lately digging among 

 the foundations, for materials to mend the highways, 

 his labourers discovered two large stones, with which 

 the farmer was so pleased that he ordered them to be 

 taken out whole. One of these proved to be a large 

 Doric capital, worked in good taste ; and the other a 

 base of a pillar ; both formed out of the soft freestone 

 of this district. These ornaments, from their dimen- 

 sions, seem to have belonged to massive columns ; and 

 show that the church of this convent was a large and 

 costly edifice. They were found in the space which 

 has always been supposed to have contained the south 



1 It has now been so effectually cleared as almost to have become a 

 smooth homestead. A few heaps of stones derived, it is believed, from 

 the last remnants of the foundations, and piled ready for use as materials, 

 are all that remains in the Priory field to evidence the former site of that 

 important building. Among the heaps are some fashioned stones, which 

 will not be broken to pieces. Some fragments of columns and of a pedi- 

 ment, perhaps of a monument of superior pretensions, have been pre- 

 served. These are placed, together with a stone coffin that has been dug 

 up on the spot, in the garden of the adjoining farm. A considerable 

 number of ornamented tiles have also been found ; some of which exhibit 

 merely fancy devices, some bear eagles displayed and other apparently 

 armorial emblems, and one bears a shield of three fleurs de luces, sup- 

 ported by two hawks. These tiles have been used to form the pavement 

 of a summer house in the garden of the Priory Farm. Some fragments 

 of stained glass have also been found, together with portions of the 

 ornamented leaden casement including them; affording additional proofs 

 of an important building. 



Complete as the clearance has been, there is now but little probability 

 of the occurrence of any future discovery of interest on the spot from 

 which the very ruins of Selborne Priory have been swept away. E. T. B. 



S S 



