ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
327 
LETTER III. 
From the silence of Domesday respecting churches, it has been 
supposed that few villages had any at the time when that record 
was taken ; but Selborne, we see, enjoyed the benefit of one : 
hence we may conclude, that this place was in no abject state 
even at that very distant period. How many fabrics have suc- 
ceeded each other since the days of Radfredrus the presbyter, we 
cannot pretend to say ; our business leads us to a description of 
the present edifice, in which we shall be circumstantial. 
SelboTne Church. 
Our church, which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, con- 
sists of three aisles, and measures fifty-four feet in length by 
forty-seven in breadth, being almost as broad as it is long. The 
present building has no pretensions to antiquity ;* and is, as I 
suppose, of no earlier date than the beginning of the reign of 
Henry VH. It is perfectly plain and unadorned, without painted 
glass, carved work, sculpture, or tracery. But when I say it has 
* The churches of some of the adjoining parishes are of very great antiquity, and particularly 
deserving of the attention of the antiquary. Those of Empshot and Hartley (especially the latter) 
are very curious structures, and may I think be referrible to a period antecedent to the Norman 
conquest. Hartley church has been most ridiculously " beautified" by a sort of Inigo-Jones gable 
end, a piece of workmanship by no means bad in itself, but so outrageously out of character with 
the original architecture as to draw a smile of contempt from every observer of taste. — D. 
