ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 263 



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 * in the great wheat-barn of the said Grange, annually, where the 

 president usually superintends, attended by the bursar and steward of 

 the college. + 



The following uncommon presentment at the court is not unworthy 

 of notice. There is on the south side of the king's field (a large 

 common-field, so called), a considerable tumulus, or hillock, now 

 covered with thorns and bushes, and known by the name of Kite's 

 Hill, which is presented, year by year, in court as not ploughed. Why 

 this injunction is still kept up respecting this spot, which is surrounded 

 on all sides by arable land, may be a question not easily solved, since 

 the usage has long survived the knowledge of the intention thereof. 

 "We can only suppose that as the prior, besides thurset and pillory, had 

 also furcas, a power of life and death, that he might have reserved this 

 little eminence as the place of execution for delinquents. And there 

 is the more reason to suppose so, since a spot just by is called Gaily 

 (Gallows) Hill. 



The lower part of the village, next the Grange, in which is a pond 

 and a stream, is well known by the name of Gracious Street, an appella- 

 tion not at all understood. There is a lake in Surrey, near Chobham, 

 called also Gracious Pond ; and another, if 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, " De mercante 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 pre- 

 vailed but was altered to the 29th 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 thy 

 lower house-keepers brew beer against this holiday, which is dutied be 



* The time when this court is held is the raid-week between Easter and 

 Whitsuntide. 



t Owen Oglethorpe, president, <fcc. an. Edw. Sexti, primo ("viz. 1547. J demised to 

 Robert Arden Selborne Grange for twenty years. Bent vi 1 '. Index.of Leases. 



