XXVI,] 
OF SELBORNE. 
553 
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, 
a usual appendage to manorial 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 autlior has conversed 
with very ancient people who remembered the old original 
Grange ; but it has long given place to a modern farm-liouse. 
Magdalen College holds a court-leet and court-baron^ in the 
great wheat-barn of the said Grange, annually, wdiere the 
president usually superintends, attended by the bursar and 
steward of the v^ullege.^ 
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. AVhy 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 suj^pose 
that as the prior, besides tliursct and pillory, had also fitrcas, 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 appellation 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. Tliis 
The time when this court is held is the mid-week between Easter and 
Whitsuntide. 
2 Owen Oglethorp, president, &c. an. Edw. Sexti, primo [viz. 1,547.] demised 
to Eobert Arden, Selborne Grange, for twenty years. Kent v^'. — Index of 
Leases. 
