STRATFIELD-SAYE, a parish partly in the hundred
of READING, county of BERKS, but chiefly in the hundred
of HOLDSHOTT, Basingstoke division of the county
of SOUTHAMPTON, 7 miles (N.E. by N.) from Basingstoke,
containing, with the tything of Beech-Hill, 769
inhabitants. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry
and diocese of Winchester, rated in the king's books
at £24. 13., and in the patronage of the Duke of Wellington.
The church is dedicated to St. Mary. Lora
Pitt, and others, in 1739, erected a school-house, and
endowed it with £400, now producing an annual incoine
of about £ 18. 18., for which thirty-six children are instructed.
There is also an annuity of £.5, the bequest
of James Christmas, for the education and relief of
the poor. A Benedictine priory, in honour of St. Leonard,
was founded here, in 1170, by Nicholas de Stotevile,
as a cell to the abbey ofVallemont in Normandy,
and at the" suppression was granted to Eton College:
it stood in that part of the parish which is in Berkshire.