BECKLEY, a parish partly in the hundred of
ASHENDON, county of BUCKINGHAM, and partly in the
hundred of BULLINGTON, county of OXFORD, 4 miles
(N.E.) from Oxford, containing, with the chapelry of
Studley with Horton, 825 inhabitants. The living
is a vicarage, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Oxford,
rated in the king's books at £8, endowed with
£400 private benefaction, £800 royal bounty, and
£1300 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of
the Dean and Canons of Christ Church, Oxford. The
church is dedicated to St. Mary. The manor was
part of the private property of Alfred the Great: in
the thirteenth century it belonged to Richard, Earl
of Cornwall, who had -a castellated mansion here, a
portion of the site of which is now occupied by a
dovecote, supposed to be a relic of the fortress. A
court baron is held annually by the lord of the manor,
who claims paramount authority over seven villages
within the tract called Otmoor, for enclosing
which an act was obtained in 1815. Here is a school
with a small endowment, for the instruction of six
poor children. The Roman road from Alchester to
Wallingford passed through the parish, and fragments
of Roman pottery have been found in .the vicinity.