Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/340

318 bespeak great antiquity. This room is only sixteen feet by sixteen feet eight inches; and full seventeen feet nine inches in height. The ceiling is formed of vast joists, placed only five or six inches apart. Modern delicacy would not much approve of such a place of worship; for it has at present much more the appearance of a dungeon than of a room fit for the reception of people of condition. The field on which this oratory abuts is called Chapelfield. The situation of this house is very particular, for it stands upon the immediate verge of a steep abrupt hill.

Not many years since this place was used for a hop-kiln, and was divided into two stories by a loft, part of which remains at present, and makes it convenient for peat and turf, with which it is stowed.

T Priory at times was much obliged to Gurdon and his family. As Sir Adam began to advance in years he found his mind influenced by the prevailing opinion of the reasonableness and efficacy of prayers for the dead; and therefore, 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 Playstow,” in the village aforesaid, "in liberam, puram, et perpetuam elemosinam" This Pleystow,* locus ludorum, or playplace, is a level area near the church of about forty-four yards by thirty-six, 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