APPLETON, a parish in the hundred of OCK, county
of BERKS, 5 miles (N. W.) from Abingdon, containing,
with the township of Eaton, 389 inhabitants. The living
is a rectory, in the archdeaconry of Berks, and diocese
of Salisbury, rated in the king's books at £13. 5.,
and in the patronage of the President and Fellows of
Magdalene College, Oxford.. The church is dedicated
to St. Lawrence. This parish is bounded on one side
by the river Thames, which separates it from Oxfordshire,
and on the other by the Ouse. Near the church
is the manor-house, a moated mansion, remarkable for
its great antiquity, the architecture being of the reign
of Henry II. Sir R. Fettiplace, in the first of James I.,
endowed a free school, to which subsequent benefactions
have been added; and, in 1757, George Knibb, D.D.,
left £3 per annum for teaching six boys. Dr. Edmund
Dickinson, who published a learned work, entitled
Delphi Phcenicizanies, tracing the origin of heathen mythology
to the Bible, was born here, in 1624.