Sparsholt (Holy Cross)

SPARSHOLT (Holy Cross), a parish, in the union of Wantage, partly in the hundred of Shrivenham, but chiefly in that of Wantage, county of Berks, 3¾ miles (W.) from Wantage; containing, with the hamlet of Fawler, and the chapelry of Kingston-Lisle, 903 inhabitants, of whom 506 are in Sparsholt township. The Wilts and Berks canal, and the Great Western railway, pass through the parish; and the Ikeneld road through the vale of White Horse, to the south of the village. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £20. 2. 3½.; patrons and impropriators, the Provost and Fellows of Queen's College, Oxford. The great tithes have been commuted for £530, and the vicarial for £358. 12.; there is a glebe-house, and the respective glebes comprise 132¼ and 12 acres. The church is principally in the Norman style, and contains three stone stalls and a piscina. Abraham Atkins, in 1788, gave a school-house at Kingston-Lisle, and endowed a school with a moiety of the rents arising from a certain estate; the income is about £63.