ENGLEFIELD, a parish in the hundred of THEALE,
county of BERKS, 6 miles (W.) from Reading, containing
343 inhabitants. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry
of Berks, and diocese of Salisbury, rated in the
king's books at £11. 12. 8., and in the patronage of
R. P. W. Benyon de Beauvoir, Esq. The church has
some portions in the early English style, but has been
much modernised; it contains several interesting monuments
to the memory of the ancestors of the Marquis
of Winchester. This parish, which is not unfrequently
called Inglefield, derives its name from the Saxon word
Ingle, a fire or beacon light, and probably had its origin
about the middle of the ninth century, at which time
the Danes, having made themselves masters of Reading,
sent out a detachment from their army to attack the
Saxons, who were encamped at this place, and who
drove them back with great loss. Elias Ashmole, the
herald and antiquary, retired to this place in 1647, where
he pursued his researches.