Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/399

Rh very spot which tradition has always pointed out as having been the site of the convent kitchen. This clumsy utensil,* whether intended for holy water, or whatever purpose, we were going to procure, but found that the labourers had just broken it in pieces, and carried it out on the highways.

The priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a grange, an usual appendage to manerial estates, where the fruits of their lands were stowed and laid up for use, at a time when men took the natural produce of their estates in kind. The mansion of this spot is still called the Grange, and is the manor-house of the convent possessions in this place. The author has conversed with very ancient people who remembered the old original Grange but it has long given place to a modern farm-house. Magdalen College holds a court-leet and court-baron† in the great wheatbarn of the said Grange, annually, where the president usually superintends, attended by the bursar and steward of the college.‡

The following uncommon presentment at the court is not unworthy of notice. There is on the south side of the king’s field (a large common-field, so called) a considerable tumulus, or hillock, now covered with thorns and bushes, and known by the name of Kite’s Hill, which is presented, year by year, in court as not ploughed. Why this injunction is still kept up respecting this spot, which is surrounded on all sides by arable land, may be a question not easily solved, since the usage has long survived the knowledge of the intention thereof. We can only suppose that as the prior, besides thurset and pillory, had also furcas, a power of life and death, he might have reserved this little eminence as the place of execution for delinquents. And there is the more