338 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
it. About the year 1759 it was again in the utmost danger by 
the failure of a borrower ; but, by prudent management, has 
since been raised to one hundred pounds stock in the three per 
cents reduced. The trustees are the vicar and the renters or 
owners oi Temple, Priory, Grange, Blackmore, and Oakhanger- 
house, for the time being. This gentleman seemed inclined to 
have put the vicarial premises in a comfortable state ; and began, 
by building a soHd stone wall round the front-court, and another 
in the lower yard, between that and the neighbouring garden ; 
but was interrupted by death from fulfilling his laudable inten- 
tions. 
April, 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar. 
June 1681. This living was now in such low estimation in 
Magdalen College, that it descended to a junior fellow, Gilbert 
White, M. A. who was instituted to it in the thirty-first year of 
his age. At his first coming he ceiled the chancel, and also 
floored and wainscoted the parlour and hall, which before were 
paved with stone, and had naked walls ; he enlarged the kitchen 
and brewhouse, and dug a cellar and well : he also built a large 
new barn in the lower yard, removed the hovels in the front 
court, which he laid out in walks and borders ; and entirely 
planned the back garden, before a rude field with a stone-pit in 
the midst of it. By his will he gave and bequeathed " the sum 
of forty pounds to be laid out in the most necessary repairs of 
the church ; that is, in strengthening and securing such parts as 
seem decaying and dangerous.^' With this sum two large but- 
tresses were erected to support the east end of the south wall of 
the church ; and the gable-end wall of the west end of the south 
aisle was new built from the ground. 
By his will also he gave " One hundred pounds to be laid out 
on lands ; the yearly rents whereof shall be employed in teaching 
the poor children of Selborne parish to read and write, and say 
their prayers and catechism, and to sew and knit : — and be under 
the direction of his executrix as long as she lives ; and, after her, 
under the direction of such of his children and their issue, as 
shall live in or within five miles of the said parish : and on failure 
of any such, then under the direction of the vicar of Selborne for 
the time being ; but still to the uses above named.^^ With this 
sum was purchased, of Thomas Turville, of Hawkeley, in the 
county of Southampton, yeoman, and Hannah his wife, two 
closes of freehold land,' commonly called Collier's, containing by 
