THE

NATURAL HISTORY

OF

SELBORNE.

LETTER I.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

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 south-west 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, Mauduit, 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 south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet above the village; and is divided into a sheep down, 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 sheep-walk, is a

* While the beech is admitted to be one of the most beautiful trees of the forest, it must yield in grandeur, dignity, and picturesque beauty, to the oak, which, in these respects, stands pre-eminent in the British sylva: like the lion amongst animals, it is the unquestionable king of the forest. Beauty of a sublime kind, united with strength, is characteristic of the oak.

ED.

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 south-east 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 north-east, 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 a 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 farther, and thrive as well on them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks.

The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable manner, two very incongruous soils. To the south-west is a rank clay, that requires the labour of years to render it mellow; while the gardens to the north-east, 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 extend down to the opposite bank.

At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to north-west, arises a small rivulet; that at the north-west end frequently fails; but the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet seasons, called Wellhead.* 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

* This spring produced, September 14, 1781, after a severe hot summer, and a 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.

STREAMS-SOILS.

3

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 Tilfordbridge, 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 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 north-west, 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 north-east, 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 estimation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval timber; while the trees on the freestone grow large, but are what workmen call shakey, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes an hungry lean sand, till it mingles with the forest; and will produce little without the assistance of lime and turnips.

* This hardness of the water is occasioned by the great proportion of earthy salts which it holds in solution, the most common of which is sulphate of lime. These salts have the property of decomposing common soap. Their acids unite with the alkali of the soap, while the earthy basis forms with the oil of the soap a substance not soluble in water, which envelopes the soap and gives it a greasy feel. These waters may in general be cured by dropping into them an alkaline carbonate. - Ed. This soil produces good wheat and clover.

The larch does not thrive on land with a substratum of sandstone. When the roots get deep, and approach the sandstone, the tree makes no progress, and grows crooked. This is probably from the porous nature of the sandstone absorbing the moisture. - ED.

LETTER II.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

In the court of Norton farm-house, a manor farm to the north-west of the village, on the white malms, 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 the diameter. * This elm I mention, to shew 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 vulgarly called the Plestor. In the midst of this spot stood, in old times, a vast oak, with a short squat body, and huge horizontal arms, extending almost to the extremity of the area. This venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps, and seats above them, was the delight of old and young, and a place of much resort in summer evenings; where the former sat in grave debate, while the latter frolicked and danced before them. Long might it have stood, had not

* In Evelyn's Sylva, vol. ii. p. 189, we are informed of a witch elm that grew in the park of Sir Walter Baggot, Staffordshire, which was seventeen feet diameter at the base, and extended, when felled, one hundred and twenty feet. Its timber was estimated at the amazing quantity of ninety-seven tons.- ED.

+ It is a well established fact, that planted trees do not in general attain the size of natural wood. — ED.

The Plestor was left by Sir Adam Gordon, a gentleman of Scottish extraction, who was leader of the Mountfort faction during the reign of Henry III, and is thus described by Mr White in the Antiquities of Selborne, - -"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 Pleystow, in the village aforesaid, in liberam, puram, et perpetuam elemosinam.' This pleystow-locus ludorum, or play-place-is in 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 thought proper to assign so spacious a spot for the sports and amusements of its young people."-ED.