Selborne Common - History and Management

History and Management

From the prehistoric or Romano-British period there is evidence of a field system, which may have been re-used during the Middle Ages. The Common has not been ploughed since then.

Earthworks on the western boundary have tentatively been dated to the mid thirteenth century, when Newton Park was emparked. An earth bank, running across the Common, has been dated to around 1750 and was probably used to protect coppice woodland from grazing animals.

During the eighteenth century, the lord of the manor felled beeches on the Common. Local people exercised their common rights to graze cattle and sheep and to collect firewood, activities which continued into the 1950s.

In mediaeval times the nearby Selborne Priory was lord of the manor of Selborne; the manor subsequently passed to Magdalen College, Oxford, which donated it to the National Trust in 1932. Cattle have recently been reintroduced in an attempt to reconstruct the ancient, flower-rich, wood-pasture habitat which commoning produced and which has almost disappeared from England.

A dew pond, Wood Pond, is situated near the western boundary.