OF S EL BORNE. 6*29 



leasehold under Magdalen College, for twenty-one years, 

 renewable every seven : all the smaller estates in and 

 round the village are copyhold of inheritajice 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 monas- 

 teries 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 

 decline, and the market was less frequented ; the rough 

 and sequestered situation gave a check to resort, and the 

 neglected roads rendered it less and less accessible. 



That it had been a considerable place for size formerly 

 appears from the largeness of the church, which much 

 exceeds those of the neighbouring villages ; by the an- 

 cient extent of the burying ground, which, from human 

 bones occasionally dug up, is found to have been much 

 encroached upon; by giving a name to the hundred; 

 by the old foundations and ornamented stones, and 

 tracery of windows that have been discovered on the 

 north-east side of the village ; and by the many vestiges 

 of disused fish-ponds still to be seen around it. For 

 ponds and stews were multiplied in the times of popery, 

 that the affluent might enjoy some variety at their 

 tables on fast days ; therefore the more they abounded 

 the better probably was the condition of the inha- 

 bitants. 



