3 [Vol. xxxiii. 



precipitous and stony path which landed him in ' Gracious 

 Street ' * 



It must also be remembered that in Gilbert White's time 

 Selborne village was most inaccessible on account of the 

 wretched state of the surrounding roads. Most of the 

 journeys made had to be performed on horseback. Gilbert 

 White noticing as a fact worthy of record in his ' Garden 

 Kalendar' that on the 15th March, 1756, there was 'Brought 

 a four-wheel' d postchaise to ye door at that early time of 

 year/ While his friend and correspondent, the Rev. John 

 Mulso, although he paid repeated visits to Selborne, writes 

 regularly for a guide to meet him l at the cross roads/ so 

 difficult and intricate were the tracks through the forest. 



Leaving Norton Farm behind we notice also on the right, 

 the road to Farringdon, where Gilbert White served as 

 curate for five and twenty years, and to which he rode from 

 Selborne across the hills by the bridle path over ' North 

 Field,' and passing over the little stream, the f Selborne 

 Stream ' as Gilbert White termed it, which eventually flows 

 into the Wey at Guildford, we enter Selborne Village. The 

 road that branches off to the right and by which the 

 neighbouring parish of Newton Valence can be reached, is 

 called ( Gracious Street,' ' an appellation not at all under- 

 stood/ as White says in the twenty-sixth letter of the 

 ' Antiquities.' On entering the village we have immediately 

 on our left the Plestor or playground referred to by White 

 in his second letter to Pennant, and in the tenth letter of 

 the ' Antiquities.' In that letter he records that Sir Adam 

 Gurdon and Constantia, his wife, in the year 1271 l granted 

 to the prior and convent of Selborne all his right and claim 

 to a certain place, placea, called La Pleystow in the village 

 aforesaid/ and goes on to add ' this Pleystow or play-place 

 is a level area near the church of about fourty-four yards 

 by thirty-six.' In the second letter to Pennant will be 

 found an account of the Plestor and of the mighty oak 

 which once stood in its midst and which perished in the 



* Cf. the map at p. 2 of Jardine's Edition of ' The Natural History/ 

 1853, and that in Blyth's first Edition, 1836. 



a3 



