OF SELBORNE. 
495 
It continues still, as it was in old times, to be the scene of 
recreation for tlie youths and children of the neighbourhood ; 
and impresses an idea on the mind that this village, even in 
Saxon times, could not be the most abject of places, when the 
inhabitants thought proper to assign so spacious a spot for the 
sports and amusements of its young people.^ 
As soon as the prior became possessed of this piece of 
ground, he procured a charter for a market^ from King 
Henry III. and began to erect houses and stalls, " seldasj' 
around it. From this period Selborne became a market town : 
but how long it enjoyed that privilege does not 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 church- 
yard. This was, in old days, the manorial house of the street 
manor, though now a poor cottage ; and is knovv^n 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 pre- 
decessors 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 moreover 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 
this supposition the oak was aged four hundred and thirty-two years when 
blown down. 
1 For more circumstances respecting the Plestor, see Letter II. to Mr. 
Pennant. 
^ Bishop Tanner, in his Notitia Monastica," has made a mistake respecting 
the market and fair at Selborne : for in his references to Dodsworth, cart. 
54 Hen. III. m. 3, he says, " Be mercatu, et feria de Selehurn.'' But this 
reference is wrong ; for instead of Seleburn, it proves that the place there 
meant was Lelceborne, or Legeborn, in the county of Lincoln. This error 
was copied from the index of the Cat. MSS. Angl. It does not appear that 
there ever was a chartered fair at Selborne. — For several particulars respect- 
ing the present fair at Selborne see Letter XXVI. of these Antiquities 
