SONNING, a parish comprising the liberty of Eye-with-Dunsden, in the hundred of BINFIELD, county of OXFORD, the liberty of Early, in the hundred of CHARLTON, and the township of Sandford with Woodley, in that of SONNING, county of BERKS, 3 miles (E.N.E.) from Reading, and containing 2493 inhabitants. The living is a vicarage, in the peculiar jurisdiction and patronage of the Dean of Salisbury, rated in the king's books at £20. 7.1. The church is dedicated to St. Andrew. There is a place of worship for Independents. The river Thames runs through the village. During the separation of Berkshire and Wiltshire from the ancient diocese of Sherborne, this is said to have been a bishop's see, though the fact has not been clearly established: it is certain, however, that the bishops of Salisbury had a palace here, in which Isabel Queen of Richard II. resided, from the period of the king's imprisonment at Pomfret, till his lamentable death. Sir Thomas Rich, in 1766, founded a free school, and endowed it with an estate now producing about £52.10. a year, for educating and clothing twenty poor boys, and apprenticing three of them annually in London, There are also a rentcharge of £ 5, the bequest of Mr. Payne, in 1709, for placing out an additional apprentice, and the interest of £500 South Sea annuities, bequeathed by Dame Harriet Read, towards educating, clothing, and apprenticing children, at the discretion of the vicar, but the latter fund has hitherto been expended in clothing only.