WINKFIELD, a parish in the hundred of RIPPLESMERE,
county of BERKS, 5 miles (S. W. by W.) from
New Windsor, containing, with Ascot, 1676 inhabitants.
The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry
of Berks, and diocese of Salisbury, rated in the king's
books at £8. 5. 10., endowed with £200 private benefaction,
and £200 royal bounty, and in the patronage
of the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury. The church is
dedicated to St. Mary. The Earl of Ranelagh, in 1710,
built a chapel on Winkfield Plain, in which service is
daily performed, and attached to it a free school for
twenty-one boys, and another for twenty-one girls,
endowing them with property in Ireland, and directed
that the schoolmaster should be in holy orders. In
1715, Thomas Maule, Esq. bequeathed £500; in
1783, Thomas Hatch, who had been educated here,
£500; and in 1809, John Tow left £500 four per
cent, stock, in augmentation of the income, which
altogether amounts to upwards of £250. The children
are clothed and educated according to the founder's intention,
and afterwards apprenticed, with a premium of
£5 each.