Tradition says a dying Lady Tichborne crawled round 23 acres for a bread dole and cursed the family if it ever stopped

Tradition says that Lady Mabella Tichborne, dying and lame, asked her husband, Sir Roger, to give food to the poor each year. He agreed to give the produce of as much land as she could crawl around while a torch burned. She crawled around 23 acres, still called the Crawls. The legend adds a curse. If the dole ever stopped, the family would have seven sons, then a generation of seven daughters, and the name would die out and the house fall down. In 1796 magistrates suspended the dole because of disorder among the crowds who came for it. In 1803 part of the house subsided. Sir Henry Tichborne, one of seven brothers, succeeded in 1821 and had seven daughters. The English Folk Dance and Song Society dates the restoration of the dole to 1835. His nephew Roger was born before it was restored, and a younger nephew, Alfred, after. After the Second World War residents sent more than 5,000 bread coupons to the Ministry of Food so the dole could go on under rationing; the ministry let it continue and returned the coupons. The dole is still given each year on Lady Day, 25 March. A Catholic priest blesses the flour, and families in Tichborne, Cheriton and Lane End receive a gallon per adult and half a gallon per child, up to four gallons a household. Tradfolk reports that the lease of Tichborne House requires the custom to continue.