244 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



Henry III., and began to erect houses and stalls, " seldas" 

 around it. From this period Selborne became a market 

 town : but how long it enjoyed that privilege does not 

 appear. At the same time, Gurdon reserved to himself, 

 and his heirs, a way through the said Plestor to a tenement 

 and some crofts at the upper end, abutting on the south 

 corner of the church-yard. This was, in old days the 

 manerial house of the street manor, though now a poor 

 cottage ; and is known at present by the modern name 

 of Elliofs. Sir Adam also did, for the health of his 

 own soul and that of his wife Constantia, their prede- 

 cessors and successors, grant to the prior and canons 

 quiet possession of all the tenements and gardens, " cur- 

 tillagia" which they had built and laid out on the 

 lands in Selborne, on which he and his vassals, "homines" 

 had undoubted right of common : and moreover did 

 grant to the convent the full privilege of that right of 

 common ; and empowered the religious to build tene- 

 ments and make gardens along the king's highway in the 

 village of Selborne. 



From circumstances put together, it appears that the 

 above were the first grants obtained by the Priory in the 

 village of Selborne after it had subsisted about thirty-nine 

 years ; moreover, they explain the nature of the mixed 

 manor still remaining in and about the village, where one 

 field or tenement shall belong to Magdalen-college in the 

 University of Oxford, and the next to Norton P owlet, esq., 

 of Rotherfield house, and so down the whole street. The 

 case was, that the whole was once the property of Gurdon, 

 till he made his grants to the convent ; since which some 

 belongs to the successors of Gurdon in the manor, and 

 some to the college ; and this is the occasion of the strange 

 jumble of property. It is remarkable that the tenement 



wrong ; for, instead of Seleburn, it proves that the place there meant was Lekeborne, 

 or Legeborne, in the county of Lincoln. This error was copied from the index of 

 the Cat. MSS. Angl. It does not appear that there ever was a chartered fair at 

 Selborne. For several particulars respecting the present fair at Selborne, see 

 Letter XXVI. of these Antiquities. [G. W.] 



