OF SHLBOPtfE. 3 



At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the up- 

 lands, lies the village, which consists of one single straggling -, 

 street, three quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, 

 and running parallel with The Hanger. The houses are 

 divided from the hill by a vein of stiff clay (good wheat 

 land) , yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in appear- 

 ance removed from chalk ; but seeming so far from being 

 calcareous, that it endures extreme heat. Yet that the 

 freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous to 

 chalk, is plain from the beeches, which descend as low as 

 those rocks extend, and no farther, and thrive as well on 

 them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks. 



The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable 

 manner, two very incongruous soils. To the south-west is 

 a rank clay, that requires the labour of years to render it 

 mellow; while the gardens to the north-east, and small 

 enclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling 

 mould, called black malm, which seems highly saturated with 

 vegetable and animal manure ; and these may perhaps have 

 been the original site of the town, while the woods and 

 coverts might extend down to the opposite bank. 



At each end of the village, which runs from south-east 

 to north-west, arises a small rivulet : that at the north-west 

 end frequently fails ; but the other is a fine perennial spring, 

 little influenced by drought or wet seasons, called Well- 

 head. 1 This breaks out of some high grounds joining to 

 Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending 

 forth two streams into two different seas. The one to the 

 south becomes a branch of the Arun, running to Arundel, 

 and so falling into the British Channel : the other to the 

 north, the Selborne stream, makes one branch of the Wey ; ~ ^^ 

 and, meeting the Black Down stream at Hedleigh, and the 

 Alton and Farnham stream at Tilford Bridge, swells into a ^~ 

 considerable river, navigable at Godalming ; from whence it 



1 This spring produced, September 14, 1781, after a severe hot sum- 

 mer, and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a 

 minute, which is 540 in an hour, and 12,960, or 216 hogsheads, in twenty- 

 four hours, or one natural day. At this time many of the wells failed, 

 and all the ponds in the vales were dry. G-. W. 



