BERKSHIRE (abbreviated Berks), a southern county of England, bounded on the north by Oxfordshire and Buckingham shire, east by Surrey, south by Hampshire and west by Wiltshire. Its entire northern boundary is formed by the River Thames, in the basin of which practically the whole county is included. The key to the structure of the county is to be found in a consideration of the chalk which dominates south-east England. The chalk is folded along east-west lines, here represented by an anticline running through Kingsclere and Ham and along the Vale of Pewsey, where the anticline is orographically weak. The centre of the county is occupied by the broad-backed Berkshire or White Horse downs, which are related to the Marlborough downs on the west, and to the Chilterns beyond the Goring gap. These represent the worn edge of the chalk rising from the London basin and from its western extension, the Vale of Kennet. The Eocene clays of this structural basin occur in patches on the downs and once covered most of the chalk. Below 5oof t. they help to form inter fluvial plateaux, and become definitively continuous below the junction of the Lambourn and the Kennet east of Newbury. The Reading beds are exposed in and take their name from the brick fields about Reading. The London clay is found throughout the south of the county, while the Bagshot beds occur in the Kennet valley and in the extreme south-east. Among the more super ficial deposits we note the clay-with-flints, typically developed on the summits and slopes of the Berkshire downs and making arable cultivation and settlement possible. Plateau and valley gravels are widely distributed, and a good deal of alluvium, in cluding fairly thick beds of peat, occurs at intervals near the River Kennet between Hungerford and Reading. The scarped slopes to the south, the Sydmonton range, send few tributaries to the Kennet. These hills are mainly outside the county, but their highest point, Inkpen Beacon (nearly i,000ft.), which is one of the highest portions of the chalk in England, falls in Berkshire. The River Enborne, rising there, and flowing east parallel to the Kennet until turning north to join it, is for a considerable distance the county boundary. The Kennet naturally receives more con tributions from the dip-slope of the Berkshire downs, and of these tributaries the Lambourn is the chief, probably because it follows a slight syncline of the chalk. From Newbury to Lambourn the valley furnishes a line of approach into the heart of the downs. Towards the west the Kennet valley almost meets the Vale of Pewsey beyond the confines of the county near Savernake, and forms an east-west lowland route of great historic importance, composed of two entirely different structural portions.
Another important route is provided by the Goring gap, where the Thames breaks from the Oxford valley between the Ilsley downs and the Chilterns to join the Kennet, probably the main headwater of the original Thames, at Reading. The north and east of the county are entirely in the Thames valley. In the north face of the escarpment of the Berkshire downs we find the lower chalk with a hard bed, Totternhoe stone. At the foot of the chalk escarpment is the upper greensand with a narrow crop towards the west which is broken up into patches eastwards. Looking northward from the chalk hills, the low-lying ground is occupied successively by the gault clay, the Kimmeridge clay, and finally by the Oxford clay, which extends beyond the Thames into Oxfordshire. This low-lying tract is relieved by an elevated ridge of Corallian beds, between the Kimmeridge clay and the gault. It extends from near Faringdon past Abingdon to Cumnor and Wytham hills. These hills fill a deep northward bend of the Thames and overlook the city of Oxford. Between this line of hills and the Berkshire downs is the famous Vale of White Horse (q.v.) traversed by the small River Ock. Between Reading and Windsor the Thames makes a large bend to the north, and is bordered by low hills. The only tributary of any size in this flat part of the county is the Loddon, south of Reading. In the extreme south-east, however, there is .a sandy plateau forming part of Bagshot heath, over 400ft. in elevation and extending into Surrey.
The distribution of prehistoric remains in the area emphasizes the importance of the unit from which Berkshire was to evolve. The gravel beaches of the Thames have yielded palaeolithic flint tools of various types, but there is not much occupational evi dence. From Neolithic times on, however, the Berkshire downs assume great importance. _ They lie on the north-east outskirts of Salisbury plain, an early focus, and have easy connections with the whole of the open chalk lands of the south. A distribution map of the remains of the Beaker folk and of the men of the full bronze age shows the outstanding position of the chalk and of the old Ridgeway running east from White Horse hill. The hill-top camps are also concentrated on the Berkshire downs (e.g., Uffing ton castle, Membury and Alfred's castle) with Grimsbury (e.g.) farther south and Walbury near Inkpen Beacon. The slopes of the downs are dotted besides with short dykes and barrows of various kinds. The almost complete absence of prehistoric earth works in the east and north of the county illustrates the avoidance of the damp forested lowlands. Belgic tribes occupied the region between the Thames and the south coast during the two centuries preceding the Christian era, and the Atrebates settled in Berk shire with their capital at Silchester. The choice of this site in the iron age and by the Romans (Calleva Atrebatuom) indicates the valley-ward spread of some elements of the upland population. The chief Roman roads within the county are portions of those from Caerleon via Cirencester and Bath to Silchester, crossing the Kennet at Newbury, and from Chichester via Silchester to London. Besides these, for which we have evidence in the An tonine Itinerary, there are several other roads claimed to be of Roman date. The Icknield Way followed the ancient Ridgeway from Goring to White Horse hill. The miscellaneous evidences of the Roman period are fairly evenly distributed over the county. Several villas have been found near the Thames from Abingdon to Maidenhead.
Of the Saxon invasion we know little, but there are graveyards at (e.g.) Reading, Frilford and Shefford. The earliest known settlements, "Hams," were near the rivers, but the essential base of operations in the "colonizing" of the area, which is supposed to have taken place from the central upland of Hants and Wilts, was the open land of the Berkshire downs, emergent from the forested lowlands. This chalk-land had been the centre of life for centuries, and formed the nucleus for the county of Berk shire. The origin of the county, thus explained, is comparable with that of most of the southern English counties, and contrasts with the origin of the Midland counties (e.g., Bedfordshire, q.v.) round castles on the waterways. That the Thames forms the county boundary along the entire northern side is explicable when we realize this. Eastward the boundaries were pushed as far as Windsor forest, while in the south the Kennet valley was naturally occupied together with some of the downs bordering Hampshire on the north. Berkshire remained a part of Wessex, in spite of the encroachment of its northern neighbour, until 779, when Offa, ruler of Mercia, seems to have annexed the whole county to his kingdom. In 853, however, after the defeat of the Mercians by the Northmen on the lower Thames, it once more became part of Wessex.
At the time of the Norman invasion Berkshire formed part of the earldom of Harold, and supported him staunchly at the battle of Hastings. This loyalty was punished by very sweeping confisca tions, and at the time of the Domesday survey no estates of any importance were in the hands of Englishmen. When Alfred divided the country into shires, this county received the name of Ber rocscir, as Asser says, "from the wood of Berroc, where the box tree grows most plentifully." At the time of the survey it corn prised 2 2 hundreds ; at the present day there are only 20, of which I I retain their ancient names. Many parishes have been trans ferred from one hundred to another, but the actual boundary of the county is practically unchanged. Parts of the parishes of Shil ton and Langford formed detached portions of the shire, until included in Oxfordshire in the reign of William IV. Portions of Combe and Shalbourne parishes have also been restored to Hamp shire and Wiltshire respectively, while the Wiltshire portion of Hungerford has been transferred to Berkshire. The county was originally included in the see of Winchester, but in A.D. 90g it was removed to the newly-formed see of "Wiltshire," afterwards united with Sherborne. In I o 7 5 the seat of the bishopric was re moved to Salisbury, and in 1836, by an order in council, Berk shire was transferred to the diocese of Oxford. The archdeaconry is of very early origin, and is co-extensive with the county. Form erly it comprised four rural deaneries, but the number has lately been increased to nine. Much of the early history of the county is recorded in the Chronicles of the abbey of Abingdon, which at the time of the survey was second only to the Crown in the extent and number of its possessions. It was perhaps largely due to the great influence of the abbey and the large amount of land it possessed, that few other religious foundations succeeded in establishing themselves in the neighbourhood. Another great Benedictine abbey, of which there are scanty remains, was that of Reading. About I 16o a priory for Austin Canons was founded at Ploughley.
The more settled conditions which followed Norman rule saw an increase of settlement and population throughout the county, though there were frequent interruptions, as during the disorders of Stephen's reign, when Wallingford was the scene of the final treaty in I I 53. A serious blow to the agricultural life of the county, as to the rest of England, was inflicted by the Black Death in 1348. The rearing of sheep must always have been the chief occupation of the open down and heath lands, and even after the valley-ward movement of the population considerable numbers of people must have continued to lead a pastoral life on the high downs. An interesting point is that the population of the royal manor of Lambourn, only one of several of that name, was, in nearly double that of Newbury. The woollen industry, developing especially after the emancipation of labour consequent upon the Black Death and the Peasants' Revolt, had already been established at Reading in the time of Henry I., and at Newbury from the early 13th century. At first this trade was confined to the export of raw material, but the reign of Edward III. saw the introduction of the clothing industry, for which the county after wards became famous. This began to decline in the 17th century, and in 1641 the Berkshire clothiers complained of the state of their trade.
The use of the Kennet-Pewsey valley-way goes back at least to the later middle ages, and there are many bits of evidence, especially referring to Hungerford, to show how important the route was in the 15th century and later. The road probably then ran south on the river from Hungerford to Newbury. This route, during the Civil War, was naturally a thoroughfare from the parliamentary centres to the west, battles being fought near New bury in 1643 and 1644. The famous Bath road was not made until 1746. The road traffic between London and Bristol was then at its height, and it was later suggested that water transit, then so popular throughout the country, should be used. The Kennet and Avon canal, projected in 1794, was completed in 181o. For some time it served to carry goods along this east-west route, but in 1847 it was superseded by the railway from Reading to Hungerford, which was extended to Devizes the following year. About 'goo this line was developed as a main route between Westbury and Newbury. A main G.W. railway line crosses the county from east west by Maidenhead, Reading, the Goring gap and Didcot to Swindon. North-south lines run from Oxford via Didcot to New bury and Hampshire, and south from Reading; while the Lam bourn Valley light railway runs north-west to Lambourn from Newbury. Wide water-communications are afforded by the Thames. The immense increase of motor traffic since the World War has led to an improvement of main roads, and Berkshire, occupying the two main valley routes west from the metropolis, deals with a vast amount of road traffic. The metropolitan char acter of the county is further illustrated by the numerous public schools, e.g., Radley, Wellington, and Bradfield colleges, and the Sandhurst Royal Military college. Besides the royal castle of Windsor there are many large country residences. Reading has a university, chartered in 1926.
The county is mainly agricultural. About seven-ninths of the total area is under cultivation ; a large proportion of this being in permanent pasture, as much attention is paid to dairy-farming. Butter and cheese are largely produced, and the making of con densed milk is a branch of the industry. Many sheep are pas tured on the downs, important sheep-markets being held at the small town of East or Market Ilsley; and an excellent breed of pigs is named after the county. The parts about Faringdon are specially noted for them. Oats are the principal grain crop; although a considerable acreage is under wheat. Turnips and swedes are largely cultivated, and apples and cherries are grown. The Vale of White Horse is especially productive, and Camden speaks of the great crops of barley grown in the district. A modern tendency is towards the planting of conifers in place of the slower growing oak in the woodland and upon the heathland. The prim itive oak woodland is developed equally well on clays, sands and plateau gravels, but there is surprisingly little primitive beech woodland on the chalk, though there are numerous plantations on the downs and occasional "hangers" on the scarp slopes.
The only manufacturing centre of first importance is Reading, which is principally famous for its biscuit factories. The manu facture of clothing and carpets is carried on at Abingdon ; but the ancient woollen industry of the county is long extinct. Engineer ing works and paper mills are established at various places; and boat-building is carried on at Reading and other riverside stations. There are extensive seed warehouses and testing grounds near Reading; and the Kennet and Windsor ales are in high repute. Whiting is manufactured from chalk at Kintbury on the Kennet.
The area of the county, including the county borough of Read ing, is 463,834 ac., with a population, in 1931, of 311,334. The population of the administrative county is 214,181.
The municipal boroughs, with 1931 populations, are :—Abingdon (7,24o), Maidenhead (17,520), Newbury (13,336), New Windsor (2o,284),.Reading, the county town and a county borough (97, 153), Wallingford (2,84o), and Wokingham (7,294). The only urban district is Wantage (3,424). Other towns are Faringdon, Hungerford, Lambourn and Sandhurst. The villages of Bray, Cookham and Tilehurst, like others on the banks of the Thames, have grown into residential towns.