IRature IRotes : 
tibe Selbovne Society’s flDagasinc. 
No. 90. JUNE, 1897. VoL. VIII. 
A VISIT TO SELBORNE. 
,T was a bright day in late September when I set out for 
the village of Gilbert White. It seemed to me, a 
pilgrim, impossible to approach the spot except on 
foot, and I chose the way which would lead me 
through the most of the country mentioned in the Natural 
History. We are told in the book that Selborne is near midway 
between the towns of Alton and Petersfield. Both these places 
are now furnished with a railway station, but I noticed that 
Liphook, on the London and Portsmouth line, lies just on the 
eastern skirts of Wolmer Forest, and that from these an eight or 
ten miles walk would take me through the heart of this ancient 
royal demesne to the village of my desire. 
Thus, on stepping out of the train, I at once entered classic 
ground ; for it was here “ near the great road of Lippock ” that 
Queen Anne, “reposing herself on a bank smoothed for that 
purpose, saw with great complacency and satisfaction the whole 
herd of red deer brought by the keepers along the vale before 
her.” 
Lippock, as it is still called, has other reminiscences of 
royalty. It was an important stage on the Portsmouth Road, 
and its ancient hostelry was much beloved by the Sailor King. 
Samuel Pepys also tells us how the Anchor once received him, 
with wife and maid Deb, fresh from the perils of the wild roads 
of Hind Head on a dark August night. It was pleasant to see 
the old inn, after entertaining these generations of travellers, 
still throwing wide its hospitable doors and offering the shade of 
its great chestnut tree and the delights of its garden to the lover 
of rural scenery and comfortable old-fashioned ways. 
The way westward lay at first through level sandy roads 
embowered in great hedges of hazel whose mounds stand high ; 
they offer you nuts and blackberries to your heart’s content, but 
