CHOLSEY, Description and History from Gazetteers

"CHOLSEY, a parish in the hundred of Moreton, in the county of Berks, 3 miles S.W. of the Wallingford, and 1½ mile from Wallingford Road station of the Great Western line, which intersects this parish. The parish is bounded by the Thames, which is here crossed by the railway bridge. An abbey formerly stood here, which was founded by Ethelred as an atonement for the murder of his brother, which, with the manor, came to Lord Kensington through the Warwicks. The village, which is widely scattered, is about 1½ mile from the bank of the Thames. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford, value £340, in the patronage of the lord chancellor. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, was built about the 11th century, and is in good repair. In the churchyard stands a yew-tree said to be 900 years old. The charities are of the value of £3 per annum. James Morrison, M.P., is lord of the manor."
From The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland(1868). Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003

"CHOLSEY, in the hundred of Reading, lies about three miles to the south-west of Wallingford. King Ethelred founded a monastery at this place in 986, to make atonement for the murder of his brother Edward the Martyr. It is supposed to have been destroyed by the Danes in 1006, when we are told the burnt Reading, Ceolsey, and other places in Berkshire. [...] When the Survey of Doomsday was taken, the church of Cholsey belonged to the abbey of Mount St. Michael, in Normandy; it was afterwards given to Reading abbey. Lord Kensington is the present impropriator of the great tythes. The Lord Chancellor is patron of the vicarage, which is in the deanery of Wallingford."
From Lyson's Magna Britannia - Berkshire (1806)