Arreton or Atherton, a village and a parish in the Isle of Wight. The village stands 2 3/4 miles SE of Newport; consists of a long straggling street, leading down to the river Main; and has a post office under Newport, which is the money order and telegraph office. The parish contains also the hamlet of Briddlesford. Acreage, 9192; population of the civil parish, 1903; of the ecclesiastical, 1722. Arreton Down, adjacent to the NW end of the village, forms part of the range of chalk hills extending from Culver Cliff to the Needles, commands an extensive and very brilliant view, and is crowned by two barrows. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Winchester; value, £280. The church stands in a vale at the foot of the Down, at the head of the village; is an ancient structure, in mixed Norman and Early English, with a low tower of Perpendicular date, and contains some fine monuments of the family of Holmes, and a curious brass of a knight of 1430. It was one of the six churches given by Fitz-Osborne, soon after the Conquest, to the abbey of Lire in Normandy; it was completely restored in 1886. There are chapels for Bible Christians and Wesleyans. Elizabeth Wallbridge, the "Dairyman's Daughter" of the Rev. Legh Richmond's well-known narrative, was a native. Her father's cottage is on the right of the road to Sandown, and her grave is in the churchyard, marked by a headstone.
