OF SELBORNE. 
423 
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 
foundations, for materials to mend the highways, his labourers 
difcovered two large ftones, with which the farmer was fo pleafed 
that he ordered them to be taken out whole. One of thefe proved 
to be a large Doric capital, worked in good tafte ; and the other a 
bafe of a pillar; both formed out of the foft freeftone of this dif- 
trift. 'I hcfe ornaments, from their dimcnfions, feem to have be- 
longed to maffive columns ; and fliew that the church of this convent 
was a large and coftly edifice. They were found in the fpace 
which has always been fuppofed to have contained the fouth 
tranfept of the Priory church. Some fragments of large pilafters 
were alfo found at the fame time. The diameter of the capital 
was two feet three inches and an half ; and of the column, where 
it had flood on the bafe, eighteen inches and three quarters. 
Two years ago fome labourers digging again among the ruins 
founded a fort of rude thick vafe or urn of foft ftone, containing 
about two gallons in mcafure, on the verge of the brook, in the very 
fpot which tradition has always pointed out as having been the 
lite of the convent kitchen. This clumfy utenfd whether in- 
tended for holy water, or whatever purpofe, we were going to 
procure, but found that the labourers had juft broken it in pieces, 
and carried it out on the highways. 
" A judicious antiqviary, who faw this vafe, obferved, that it poffibly might havs 
been a ftandard »^?<7/Ji!)r between the monaftery and it's tenants. The prioi^' we have 
mentioned claimed the affiy.e of bread and beer in Stlborne manor j and probably th» 
adjuiiment of dry meafures for grain, &c. 
The 
