512 
ANTIQUITIES 
not easily solved, since the usage has long survived the 
knowledge of the intention thereof. We can only suppose 
that as the prior, besides thurset and pillory, had also f ureas, 
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 
WAY LEADING TO GRACIOUS STREET. 
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 Hed- 
leigh, in the county of Hants. This strange denomination 
we do not at all comprehend, and conclude that it may be a 
corruption from some Saxon word, itself perhaps forgotten. 
It has been observed already, that Bishop Tanner was 
mistaken when he refers to an evidence of Dodsworth, " De 
mercatu ct peria de 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 
