This seems to have been the case with Nore
and Whetham hills; and especially with the ridge between Harteley
Park and Ward-le-ham, where the ground has slid into vast
swellings and furrows; and lies still in such romantic confusion as
cannot be accounted for from any other cause. A strange event that
happened not long since, justifies our suspicions; which, though it
befell not within the limits of this parish, yet as it was within the
hundred of Selborne, and as the circumstances were singular, may
fairly claim a place in a work of this nature.
The months of January and February, in the year 1774, were
remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of rain, so that
by the end of the latter month the land-springs, or lavants, began to
prevail, and to be near as high as in the memorable winter of 1764.
The beginning of March also went on in the same tenor; when, in
the night between the 8th and 9th of that month, a considerable
part of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was torn from its place,
and fell down, leaving a high freestone cliff naked and bare, and
resembling the steep side of a chalk-pit.
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