316 THE ANTIQUITIES 



we mistake not, near Hedleigh, in the county of Hants. This 

 strange denomination we do not at all comprehend, and conclude 

 that it may be a corruption from some Saxon word, itself perhaps 

 forgotten. 



It has been observed already, that Bishop Tanner was mistaken 

 when he refers to an evidence of Dodsworth, " JDe 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 desirous to revive 

 so joyous a festival. Against this innovation the vicar set his 

 face, and persisted in crying it down, as the probable 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 house-keepers 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 themselves. 

 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 } 1 there were dove-houses ; and on the hill 

 opposite to the Grange the prior had a warren, as the names of 

 The Coney-crofts and Coney-croft Hanger plainly testify. 2 



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 Oakhanger, and also the 

 estate at Oakhanger -house and Black-moor. The Priory and Grange 

 are leasehold under Magdalen-college, for twenty-one years, re- 

 newable every seven : all the smaller estates in and round the 

 village are copyhold of inheritance under the college, except the 

 little remains of 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 it's 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, 



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



2 A warren was an usual appendage to a manor. 



