Winkfield

"WINKFIELD, a parish in the hundred of Ripplesmere, county Berks, 5½ miles S.W. of Windsor, and 26 from London. The parish is 8 miles across, and includes the course on which the Ascot races are held: a smooth surface formed by William, Duke of Cumberland, and recently much improved. The village is situated on the road from London through Windsor Forest to Reading. The parish includes the hamlet of Cranbourne. Petty sessions are held on the third Monday in every month. The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Oxford, value £500, in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, contains a brass representing one of the Montagues, and several monuments to the Metcalfe family. There is besides a new church recently erected in the village of Cranbourne. There are two public schools: one called the School of Industry, was established in 1835 by Rham, who once held the living, and wrote the agricultural articles in the Penny Cyclopædia; and a free school, built and endowed by Lord Ranelagh in 1710, on Winkfield Plain, with a chapel attached."

From The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland(1868). Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003.

Other descriptions can be found from other periods in various trade directories covering Berkshire from the early 19th century onwards, from Berkshire FHS, and from A Vision of Britain Through Time.