THE

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE,

ARRANGED FOR YOUNG PERSONS.

PART I.

IN A SERIES OF LETTERS ADDRESSED TO

THOMAS PENNANT, Esq.

LETTER I.

THE parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the county of Surrey; is about fifty miles southwest of London, in latitude 51°, and near midway between the towns of Alton and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which are in Sussex, viz., Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from the south and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence, Faringdon, Harteley, Mau. duit, Great Ward-le-ham, Kingsley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse, and Greatham. The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects. The high part to the southwest consists of a vast hill of chalk,

B

rising three hundred feet above the village, and is divided into a sheepdown, the high wood, and a long hanging wood called the Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down or sheepwalk is a pleasing park-like spot of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of the hill-country, where it begins to break down into the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, woodlands, heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to the southeast and east by the vast range of mountains called the Sussex Downs, by Guild-down near Guildford, and by the Downs round Dorking, and Ryegate in Surrey, to the northeast; which altogether, with the country beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline.

At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies the village, which consists of one single straggling street, three quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and running parallel with the Hanger. The houses are divided from the hill by the vein of stiff clay (good wheat-land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in appearance removed from chalk, but seems so far from being calcareous that it endures extreme heat. Yet that the freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous to chalk, is plain from the beeches, which descend as low as those rocks extend, and no far. ther, and thrive as well on them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks.

The cartway of the village divides in a remark

able manner two very incongruous soils. To the southwest a rank clay, which requires the labour of years to render it mellow; while the gardens to the northeast, and small enclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling mould, called black malm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal manure; and these may perhaps have been the original site of the town, while the woods and coverts might have extended down to the opposite bank.

At each end of the village, which runs from southeast to northwest, arises a small rivulet; that at the northwest end frequently fails; but the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet seasons, called Well-head.* This breaks out of some high grounds adjoining to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending forth two streams into two different seas. The one to the south becomes a branch of the Arun, running to Arundel, and so falling into the British Channel; the other to the north. The Selborne stream makes one branch of the Wey; and, meeting the Black-down stream at Hedleigh, and the Alton and Farnham stream at Titford Bridge, swells into a considerable river, navigable at Godalming; from whence it passes to Guildford, and so into, the Thames at Weybridge, and thus at the Nore into the German Ocean.

Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three

This spring produced, September 14, 1781, after a severe hot summer, and preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, which is five hundred and forty in an hour, and twelve thousand nine hundred and sixty, or two hundred and sixteen hogsheads, in twenty-four hours, or one natural day. At this time many of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vales were dry.

feet, and, when sunk to that depth, seldom fail, but produce a fine limpid water, soft to the taste, and much commended by those who drink the pure element, but which does not lather well with soap.

To the northwest, north, and east of the village is a range of fair enclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain, moulders to pieces, and becomes manure to itself.*

Still on to the northeast, and a step lower, is a kind of white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops, which root deep into the freestone, and have their poles and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. This white soil produces the brightest hops.

As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer Forest, at the juncture of the clays and sand the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for timber, and infamous for roads. The oaks of Temple and Blackmoor stand high in the estima. tion of purveyors, and have furnished much naval timber; while the trees on the freestone grow large, but are what workmen call shaky, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes a hungry, lean sand till it mingles with the forest, and will produce little without the assistance of lime and turnips.

LETTER II.

In the court of Norton farmhouse, a manor farm to the northwest of the village, on the white malms, * This soil produces good wheat and clover.

stood within these twenty years a broad-leaved elm or wych hazel, ulmus folio latissimo scabro of Ray, which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough in the great storm in the year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained eight loads of timber; and, being too bulky for a carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the but, where it measured near eight feet in diameter. This elm I mention, to show to what a bulk planted elms may attain, as this tree must certainly have been such, from its situation. In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square piece of ground, surrounded by houses, and commonly call. ed the Plestor.* In the midst of this spot stood,

* Sir Adam Gurdon,* in conjunction with his wife Constantia, in the year 1271, granted to the prior and convent of Selborne all his right and claim to a certain place, placea, called La Pleystow, in the village aforesaid, "in liberam, puram, et perpetuam elemosinam." This Pleystow, locus ludorum, or play place, is a level area, near the church, of about forty-four yards by thirtysix, and is known now by the name of the Plestor. It continues still, as it was in old times, to be the scene of recreation for the youths and children of the neighbourhood, and impresses an idea on the mind that this village, even in Saxon times, could not be the most abject of places, when the inhabitants thought proper to assign so spacious a spot for the sports and amusements of its young people.

* Sir Adam Gurdon was an inhabitant of Selborne, and a man of the first rank and property in the parish: By Sir Adam Gurdon I would be understood to mean that leading and accomplished malcontent in the Mountfort faction, who distinguished himself by his daring conduct in the reign of Henry III. He has been noticed by all the writers of English history for his bold disposition and disaffected spirit, in that he not only figured during the successful rebellion of Leicester, but kept up the war after the defeat and death of that baron, intrenching himself in the woods of Hampshire, towards the town of Farnham. After the battle of Evesham, in which Mountfort fell, in the year 1265, Gurdon might not think it safe to return to his house for fear of a surprise, but cautiously fortified himself amid the forests and woodlands with which he was so well acquainted. Prince Edward, desirous of putting an end to the troubles which bad so long harassed the kingdom, pursued the arch-rebel into his fastnesses, attacked his camp, leaped over the intrenchments, and, singling