OF SELBORNE. 441 



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 churchyard. This was, in old days, the manorial 

 house of the street manor, though now a poor cottage ; and 

 is known at present by the modern name of Elliot's. Sir 

 Adam also did, for the health of his own soul, and that of 

 his wife Constantia, their predecessors and successors, grant 

 to the prior and canons quiet possession of all the tenements 

 and gardens, " curtillagia," 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 more- 

 over 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 tene- 

 ment shall belong to Magdalen College in the university of 

 Oxford, and the next to Norton Powlet, 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 and crofts which Sir 

 Adam reserved at the time of granting the Plestor should 

 still remain a part of the Gurdon manor, though so desirable 

 an addition to the vicarage that is not as yet possessed of one 

 inch of glebe at home : but of late, viz. in January, 1785, 

 Magdalen College purchased that little estate, which is life- 

 holding, in reversion, for the generous purpose of bestowing 

 it and its lands, being twelve acres (three of which abut 

 on the churchyard and vicarage garden) as an improvement 

 hereafter to the living, and an eligible advantage to future 

 incumbents. 



