554 
THE ANTIQUITIES 
[LETT. 
strange denomination we do not at all comprehend, and con- 
clude that it may be a corruption from some Saxon word, 
itself perhaps forgotten. 
It has been observed already, that Bishop Tanner was mis- 
taken when he refers to an evidence of Dodsworth, " De mercatu 
et Fekia cle Seleburne." Selborne never had a chartered fair ; 
the present fair was set up since the year 1681, by a set of 
jovial fellows, who had found in an old almanac that there had 
been a fair here in former days on the 1st of August ; and were 
desirous to revive so joyous a festival. i\ gainst this innovation 
the vicar set his face, and persisted in crying it down, as the 
probable occasion of much intemperance. However the fair 
prevailed ; but was altered to the 29th of May, because the 
former day often interfered with wheat harvest. On that day it 
still continues to be held, and is become a useful mart for cows 
and calves. Most of the lower housekeepers brew beer against 
this holiday, which is dutied by the exciseman ; and their be- 
coming victuallers for the day without a licence is overlooked. 
Monasteries enjoyed all sorts of conveniences within them- 
selves. Thus at the Priory, a low and moist situation, there 
were ponds and stews for their fish : at the same place also, and 
at the Grange in Culver Croft,^ there were dove-houses ; and on 
the hill opposite to the Grange the prior had a warren, as the 
names of The Coney Crofts and Coney Croft Hanger plainly 
testify.^ 
Nothing has been said as yet respecting tlie tenure or holding 
of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton are manor farms 
and freehold ; as is the manor of Chapel near Oakhanger, and 
also the estate at Oakhanger House and Black moor. The 
Priory and Grange are leasehold under Magdalen College, for 
twenty-one years, renewable every seven : all the smaller 
estates in and round the village are copyhold of inheritance 
under the college, except the little remains of the Gurdon 
manor, which had been of old leased out upon lives, but have 
been freed of late by their present lord, as fast as those lives 
have dropped. 
' Culver, as has been observed before, is Saxon for a pigeon. 
- A warren was a usual appendage to a manor. 
