262 
ANTIQUITIES OY SELEOENE. 
reign of Hen. YIL, we find that a farmhouse and two barns were built 
to the south of the Priory, and undoubtedly out of its materials. 
Avarice again has much contributed to the overthrow of this stately 
pile, as long as the tenants could make money of its stones or timbers. 
Wantonness, no doubt, has had a share in the demolition ; for boys love 
to destroy what men venerate and admire. A remarkable instance of 
this propensity the writer can give from his own knowledge. When a 
schoolboy, more than fifty years ago, he was eye-witness, perhaps a 
party concerned, in the undermining a portion of that fine old ruin at 
the north end of Basingstoke town, well known by the name of Holy 
Ghost Chapel. Yery providentially the vast fragment, which these 
thoughtless little engineers endeavoured to sap, did not give way so 
soon as might have been expected ; but it fell the night following, 
and with such violence that it shook the very ground, and, awakening 
the inhabitants of the neighbouring cottages, made them start up in their 
beds as if they had felt an earthquake. The motive for this dangerous 
attempt does not so readily appear ; perhaps the more danger the more 
honour thought the boys, and .the notion of doing some mischief gave 
a zest to the enterprise. As Dryden says upon another occasion — 
**It look'd so like a sin it pleas'd the more." 
Had the Priory been only levelled to the surface of the ground, the 
discerning eye of an antiquary might have ascertained its ichnography, 
and some judicious hand might have developed its dimensions. But, 
besides other ravages, the very foundations have been torn up for the 
repair of the highways ; so that the site of this convent is now become 
a rough, rugged pasture-field, full of hillocks and pits, choaked with 
nettles, and dwarf-elder, and trampled by the feet of the ox and the heifer. 
As the tenant at the priory was lately digging among the founda- 
tions, for materials to mend the highways, his labourers discovered 
two large stones, with which the farmer was so pleased that he ordered 
them to be taken out whole. One of these proved to be a large Doric 
capital, worked in good taste ; and the other a base of a pillar ; both 
formed out of the soft freestone of this district. These ornaments, 
from their dimensions, seem to have belonged to massive columns ; 
and show that the church of this convent was a large and costly 
edifice. They were found in the space which has always been supposed 
to have contained the south transept of the priory church. Some frag- 
ments of large pilasters were also found at the same time. The diameter 
of the capital was two feet three inches and an half ; and of the column, 
where it had stood on the base, eighteen inches and three quarters. 
Two years ago, some labourers, digging again among the ruins 
sounded 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 
* 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 measures for grain, &c. 
