Berkshire, A Bit of British History

Berkshire is the Home County in the South East of Britain. It is also very often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in it.

This use of this Castle for Royalty dates back to the 19th century at least, and it was recognized as such by the Queen in 1958 and Letters Patent were issued for confirming this in 1974 as her preferred home.

Berkshire touches the borders of Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Surrey, Hampshire and Greater London. Its county town was Abingdon but these days it is Reading. It does not have a county council, with the highest tier of native government that is the governing authorities of Reading, West Berkshire, Bracknell Forest, Wokingham, Windsor, Maidenhead and Slough.

It is one of the oldest counties of Britain and was created around 840 AD and most probably during period of the joining of Sunningum or East Berkshire and Ashdown or the Berkshire Downs and most probably it also included the Kennet Valley. The county's name was first mentioned in 860. Asser said that it took its name from a big forest of box trees that were called Bearroc thought to be in Celtic and this word meaning hilly.

Berkshire has witnessed many battles on its lands. Many rulers came and went away. A new county town was formed 1867, called Reading, it took over from Abingdon which also settled in the county. Berkshire County Council had control over functions of the Berkshire Quarter Sessions according to the Local Government Act 1888. It covered an area which was known as the administrative county of Berkshire, which did not include the county borough of Reading. There were minor boundary changes in the early 20th century. With Caversham from Oxfordshire it became a part of the Reading county borough, and cessions went to Oxford region.

Following the Local Government Act 1972, on April fools day in 1974, the northern portion of the county became a part of Oxfordshire, with Faringdon, Wantage and Abingdon and hinterland went to the Vale of White Horse district, Didcot and Wallingford became parts of the South Oxfordshire district.

Berkshire gained the towns of Slough and Eton in return and a part of the initial Eton Rural District from Buckinghamshire. The earlier Government White Paper had to transfer Henley on Thames from Oxfordshire to Berkshire, but this advice did not materialize into the Bill as was introduced.

Berkshire County Council was done away with on 1 April 1998, under an advice of the Banham Commission and the districts became governing authorities. Unlike these reforms elsewhere subsequently the non-metropolitan county was still intact.
Signs depicting Welcome to the Royal County of Berkshire had all but disappeared but can still be seen on the boundaries of West Berkshire District, on the eastern side of Virginia Water and on the M4 highway.

This chart depicts the regional gross value added of Berkshire at present basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British pounds sterling