SPARSHOLT, a parish partly in the hundred of SHRIVENHAM, but chiefly in that of WANTAGE, county of BERKS, 3 miles (W.) from Wantage, containing, with the joint chapelry of Kingston-Lisle with Farlow, 817 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Berks, and diocese of Salisbury, rated in the king's books at £20. 2. Z\s and in the patronage of the Provost and Fellows of Queen's College, Oxford. The church, dedicated to the Holy Cross, is principally in the Norman style; it contains three stone stalls, and a piscina, highly enriched with trefoil ornaments' and crocketed pinnacles. The Wilts and Berks canal passes through the parish, and the Iknield road through the vale of White Horse, to the southward of the village. Abraham Atkins, in 1788, gave a school-house, and endowed it with a moiety of the rents arising from a certain estate; the annual income is about £ 63, for which the master instructs all the children of the parish who apply. Eight others are taught for £2. 10. a year, the gift of Richard Edmondson, in 1713.