262 ANTIQUITIES OP SELBORNE. 



reign of Hen. YIL, we find that a farmhouse and two barns were built 

 to the south of the Priory, and undoubtedly out of its materials. 

 Avarice again has much contributed to the overthrow of this stately 

 pile, as long as the tenants could make money of its stones or timbers. 

 "Wantonness, no doubt, has had a share in the demolition ; for boys love 

 to destroy what men venerate and admire. A remarkable instance of 

 this propensity the writer can give from, his own knowledge. When a 

 schoolboy, more than fifty years ago, he was eye-witness, perhaps a 

 party concerned, in the undermining a portion of that fine old ruin at 

 the north end of Basingstoke town, well known by the name of Holy 

 Ghost Chapel. Very providentially the vast fragment, which these 

 thoughtless little engineers endeavoured to sap, did not give way so 

 soon as might have been expected ; but it fell the night following, 

 and with such violence that it shook the very ground, and, awakening 

 the inhabitants of the neighbouring cottages, made them start up in their 

 beds as if they had felt an earthquake. The motive for this dangerous 

 attempt does not so readily appear ; perhaps the more danger the more 

 honour thought the boys, and .the notion of doing some mischief gave 

 a zest to the enterprise. As Dryden says upon another occasion 



"It look'd so like a sin it pleas'd the more." 



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, 

 besides 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, choaked with 

 nettles, and dwarf-elder, and trampled by the feet of the ox and the heifer. 



As the tenant at the priory was lately digging among the founda- 

 tions, 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 dimensions, 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 transept of the priory church. Some frag- 

 ments 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,* whether intended for holy 



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

 have been a standard measure between the monastery and its 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. 



