OF 8ELB0RNE. 
611 
1 wo years ago some labourers digging again among the 
ruins found a sort of rude thick vase or urn of soft stone, 
containing about two gallons in measure, on the verge of 
the brook, in the very spot which tradition has always 
pointed out as having been the site of the convent kitchen. 
This clumsy utensil, whether intended for holy water, or 
whatever purpose, we were going to 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, an 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 author has conversed with very ancient people 
who remembered the old original Grange ; but it has long 
given place to a modern farm-house. Magdalen College 
holds a court-leet and court-baron^ in the great wheat-barn 
of the said Grange, annually, where the president usually 
superintends, attended by the bursar and steward of the 
college.^ 
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 consider- 
able 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. Why 
this injunction is still kept up respecting this spot, which 
is surrounded on all sides by arable land, may be a question 
^ A judicious antiquary, who saw this vase, observed, that it possibly 
might have been a standard measure between the monastery and its 
tenants. The Priory we have mentioned claimed the assize of bread 
and beer in Selborne manor ; and probably the adjustment of dry mear 
sures for grain, &c. — G. W. 
2 The time when this court is held is the mid-week between Easter 
and Whitsuntide. — G. W. 
^ Owen Oglethorp, president, &c. an. Edw. Sexti primo [viz. 1547] 
demised to Robert Arden, Selborne Grange, for twenty years. Rent 
vi". — Index of Leases. — G. W. 
