Crowthorne, Berkshire

Description
Crowthorne, a village and ecclesiastical parish formed in 1874 from the civil parish of Sandhurst in Berks. The village is 1 mile from the Wellington College station on the S.E.R., and 4 miles SE from Wokingham. There is a post, money order, and telegraph office at Wellington College station. Population, 2254. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; endowment, £48 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Oxford. The church is a building of red brick in the Gothic style, and was erected in 1873 and completed in 1889. There is a Wesleyan chapel. Owlsmoor is an adjacent hamlet. Wellington College here was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1853, for the education of sons of officers in the army, and the first stone was laid by Her Majesty the Queen in 1856. The buildings are of brick in the Louis XV. style, with a chapel in Italian Gothic. The college grounds consist of an estate of about 430 acres, of which 20 acres form a playground. The number of boys in the college is about 400. Another and very different institution here is the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, an extensive range of brick buildings opened in 1863, and which have since been several times altered and enlarged. The total amount expended has been nearly £200,000, and the asylum affords accommodation to about 630 inmates.