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 nearly 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 pleasing parklike 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

B

plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, wood-lands, 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 Guilford, 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 further, 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 wood and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank.

* It is doubted by many naturalists whether the beech (fagus sylvatica) can strictly be consi dered a truly British tree, the older examples of it being mostly situate in places where they may probably have been planted. It is now, however, at least most thoroughly naturalized, and in many districts certainly assumes an indigenous aspect, particularly in the extensive woods surrounding Stokenchurch, Bucks, where the young timber is manufactured on a large scale into chairs, bedsteads, and the like, many waggon-loads of which are weekly sent up to Loudon. It appears to thrive most upon a chalky soil, where it will attain considerable dimensions, especially when growing ou a slope. Some very beautiful examples of it may be seen on that charming spot, the bold chalk-escarpment of Box-bill, near Dorking, in Surrey; and several of surpassing magnitude in Norbury-park, in the same neighbourhood, where also are some noble yews, and many Spanish chestnuts of prodigious size, together with some gigantic oaks, and within a short distance several remarkably fiue common elms and huge aspen poplars, which last tree attains a magnificent growth in Surrey. The interior of this county will indeed vie with any part of England for the growth of most of our forest-trees; but, unfortunately, the finer examples are fast disappearing before the woodman's axe-the need, or avarice, or want of taste of one proprietor of ten dooming to destruction that which for centuries had been the pride and admiration of a long line of predecessors. An aged and curious remnant of a beech, now growing in the Windsor Great Park, and figured and described by Mr. Jesse, in the stud series of his delightful "Gleanings in Natural History," measures 36 feet in circumference; and a very splendid and far more beautiful tree of the same species, now in the pride of its growth, situate within a short distance of Lyndhurst, in the New-furest, Hauts, is well known and deservedly celebrated as the "queen" of that princely forest.-ED.

At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to northwest, 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 Well-head* This breaks out of some high grounds joining 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 Tilford-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 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 a hungry lean sand, till it mingles with the forest; and will produce little without the assistance of lime and turnips.

* 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 twentyfour hours, or one natural day. At this time many of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vales were dry.

This soil produces good wheat and clover.

LETTER II. To T. PENNANT, Esq.

IN the court of Norton farm-house, a manor farm to the northwest 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 butt, where it measured nearly eight feet in the 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 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 the amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, to the infinite regret of the inhabitants and the vicar, who bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again: but all his care could not avail; the tree sprouted for a time, then withered and

* Ulmus montanus of botanists, the common elm of Scotland and the north of England, and which is far from being of rare occurrence in the south, is a valuable timber tree, of very different growth from the U. campestris, which latter is more generally known as the "common elm." It is a fine and handsome species, but seldom attains the magnitude of the largest specimens of U. campestris, nor is it so stately and cumbrous in its aspect. It does not usually present so fine a bole, the strength being more in the branches, which, in young specimens, are often of nearly equal size with the main stem, and, being loaded with a profusion of foliage, the sprays in consequence become pendent and "give the idea," as is well observed in KNAPP'S JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST, "of luxuriance with weakness, of a growth beyond strength." Advancing in age, these boughs become in time less pensile, and project boldly into the air, whence the species has a very pleasing effect planted in an avenue, its huge arms extending across in every picturesque form, and finely contrasting with the rich green of its leaves, which, for the most part, are distributed in dense umbrageous masses. The Wych elm has however one grand defect as an ornamental tree, being generally, in exposed situations, the very first to intimate, by its denuded boughs, the unwelcome approach of winter-a character in which it remarkably differs from the common species, the latter retaining its foliage for a much longer period, and, "ere at length its season does arrive," being finely mellowed with the golden hues of autumn. The largest example of the Wych elm on record is one that grew in the park of Sir Walter Baggot, in Staffordshire, and which is mentioned in the second vol. of Evelyn's SYLVA, p. 189. This noble tree, after two men had been five days felling it, lay 120 feet in length, and was 17 feet diameter at the stool. As Mr. Evelyn remarks, "this was truly a goodly tree." Five species of elm are enumerated by Sir J. E. Smith as indigenous to Britain, and at least as many more have been introduced. They are all closely allied, and some are very difficult to distinguish.-ED.

+ Vide description in the Antiquities.

died. This oak I mention to show to what a bulk planted oaks also may arrive and planted this tree must certainly have been, as will appear from what will be said further concerning this area, when we enter on the antiquities of Selborne.*

On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losel's, of a few acres, that was lately furnished with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth and great value: they were tall and taper-like firs, but standing near together had very small heads, only a little brush without any large limbs. About twenty years ago the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court, being much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs that were fifty feet long without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter at the little end. Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little wood, with this advantage, that many of them answered the description at sixty feet.† These trees were sold for twenty pounds a-piece.

In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of

years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of the Raven-tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But, when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted

Raven.

out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazardous. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle or mallet, the tree nodded to its fall; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest, and, though her parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to the ground.

Probably the finest and most stately oak, now growing in the south-east of England, is that

in the park at Pansanger, in Hertfordshire, the seat of earl Cowper.-ED.

+ An oak table of one solid plank, seventy-five feet long, and three wide in its entire length, is mentioned in Dr. Plot's Nat. Hist. of Staffordshire, as to be seen in the hall of Dudley. castle, in that county. The tree grew in the adjoining park.-ED.