Selborne

Selborne
Hampshire
Gilbert White's House
Location
Grid reference:	SU741366
Location:	51°5’49"N, -0°56’31"W
Data
Local Government
Council:	East Hampshire
Parliamentary constituency:	East Hampshire

Selborne is a village in Hampshire, on the eastern side of the county where the South Downs spread into Hampshire; the village is just within the extreme northern boundary of the South Downs National Park. It is to be found four miles south of Alton.

The village receives visitors on almost every day of the year because of its links with the world famous naturalist, Revd. Gilbert White, who was a pioneer of birdwatching.

Parish church

St Mary the Virgin is a grade I listed church that dates back to the late 12th century.

The village

This is a small village. It has a village shop and a primary school. There are two public houses the "Selborne Arms" and "The Queen's Hotel".

At the back of the village, behind the Selborne Arms and Gilbert White's Field Studies Centre, is the Zig-Zag Path, which was cut into the hillside in the 1760s by Gilbert White and his brother John, to provide easier access to the Hanger and Selborne Common on the summit of Selborne Hill.

A complete history of Selborne, from its geology through its establishment as a settlement in the Dark Ages to the present day, including a study of local architecture, was locally published in March 2009: Knights, Priests & Peasants was written by Dr. Edward Yates, a retired academic polymath and long-time resident of the village. Its 400 pages include oral histories from the turn of the 19th/20th centuries.

Gilbert White

Selborne is famous for its association with the 18th-century naturalist Gilbert White (1720–1793), who wrote The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne. Tourism helps to support two pubs and a thriving village shop, which the resident population alone would make unviable. Many people combine their visit with one to Jane Austen’s House in nearby Chawton.

First published in 1789 by Benjamin White, Gilbert's brother, the book has not been out of print in over 200 years.

White is recognised as being the first ecologist or environmentalist. Most of his observations on wildlife remain pertinent, although he did have some strange theories; most notorious is his belief that not all swallows, martins and swifts migrate, but that some might hibernate instead, although he mocked the peculiar Swedish notion that swallows spent the winter beneath the surface of the local ponds. White was writing before seasonal migration was fully understood. However, White was the first person to discover that swifts mate on the wing.

Museum and Field Studies Centre

White's home, The Wakes, has been converted into a museum, known as Gilbert White's House. This museum also contains the Oates Museum and family archive. This comprises an exhibition relating to the life of Captain Lawrence Oates, who died on Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated expedition to Antarctica in the early 20th century, and Frank Oates, his uncle. Frank Oates was an explorer and naturalist, who mounted expeditions in the late 19th century into Central America and Africa.

In 2002 The Gilbert White Field Studies Centre moved into new premises, a restored and extended 16th-century Hampshire barn, which had been moved from Weston Patrick near Basingstoke and re-erected in the parkland of Gilbert White’s home. This was achieved with financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and Hampshire County Council. It was officially opened by HRH Prince of Wales on 10 July 2002. Selborne is still a good base for birdwatching, although White observed some species in the area which are no longer to be found. An example of a bird which disappeared is the Great Bustard, which became extinct in Britain in the 19th century, though now the subject of a reintroduction project.

The Wakes was substantially refurbished and updated in 2003–2004.

Local business

• Selborne Pottery, established in 1985, manufactures and sells a range of hand thrown and decorated stoneware pottery using rich copper red and cobalt blue glazes. Each piece of pottery is hand thrown and turned on a wheel; no industrial techniques or moulds are used in the making process. The pottery has a shop in the village, and also has 'seconds' available.

• Selborne Biological Services, originally formed in 1974 on a hundred-acre farm in Selborne, makes animal-derived products for the biotech, pharmaceutical, veterinary, and diagnostics industries. They moved their main production facilities to Tasmania in 1992 following the 'mad cow disease' outbreak in Britain in the late 1980s, but maintain its European sales, marketing and distribution centre in Selborne.

• Tower Brick & Tile Company Limited have been making handmade Selborne bricks and roof tiles at their site near Selborne since 1872. However, the company went into administration on 6 November 2009.

• Selborne Gallery is the only art gallery in Britain devoted entirely to the work of mouth and foot painting artists. Formed in 1992, it was visited by Prince Charles on its tenth anniversary in 2002. The displayed work includes painting, printmaking, drawing, textiles, ceramics, glass and jewellery.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Selborne)

• Gilbert White’s House and the Oates Museum
• Selborne Parish Council
• Selborne Village Hall
• Selborne & Headley workhouse riots of 1830
• St Mary,s Church, Selborne, Hampshire
• Works by Gilbert White at Project Gutenberg