THE ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE 311 



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 dimensions, seem to have 

 belonged to massive columns ; and shew 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 transept of the Priory church. 

 Some fragments of large pilasters were also found at the 

 same time. The diameter of the capital was two feet three 

 inches and an half ; and of the column where it had stood 

 on the base, eighteen inches and three quarters. 



Two years ago, some labourers, digging again among 

 the ruins sounded a sort of rude thick vase or urn of soft 

 stone, containing about two gallons in measure, on the 

 verge of the brook, in the very spot which tradition has 

 always pointed out as having been the site of the convent 

 kitchen. This clumsy utensil, 1 whether intended for holy 

 water, or whatever purpose, we were going to procure, but 

 found that the labourers had just broken it in pieces, and 

 carried it out on the highways. 



The priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a 

 grange, an usual appendage to manerial estates, where the 

 fruits of their lands were stowed and laid up for use, at a 

 time when men took the natural produce of their estates in 

 kind. The mansion of this spot is still called the Grange, 

 and is the manor-house of the convent possessions in this 

 place. The author has conversed with very ancient people 

 who remembered the old original Grange ; but it has long 

 given place to a modern farm-house. Magdalen College 

 holds a court-leet and court-baron 2 in the great wheat- 



1 A judicious antiquary who saw this vase, observed, that it possibly might 

 have been a standard mesaure between the monastery and it's tenants. The 

 priory we have mentioned claimed the assize of bread and beer in Selborne 

 manor ; and probably the adjustment of dry measures for grain, &c. [G. W.] 



2 The time when this court is held is the mid-week between Easter and 

 Whitsuntide.- [G. W.] 



