Berkshire Power Flushing

 

We Power Flush heating systems in these Berkshire towns:

Bracknell
Burghfield
Maidenhead
Reading
Sandhurst
Slough
Thatcham
Twyford
Windsor
Wokingham

Berkshire (phonetically spelled Barkeshire in the 17th century; abbreviated Berks.) is a county in South East England with a long history. Berkshire, one of the home counties, was designated as the Royal County of Berkshire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957 due to the presence of Windsor Castle, and letters patent were issued in 1974. Berkshire is a historic county, a ceremonial county, and a non-metropolitan county that does not have a county council. Reading is the county seat.

From Buscot in the west to Old Windsor in the east, the River Thames served as the historic northern boundary. As a result, the historic county includes territory now administered by the Vale of White Horse and parts of South Oxfordshire in Oxfordshire, but excludes Caversham, Slough, and five less populous settlements east of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. Except for the change to Caversham, all of the changes mentioned occurred in 1974. The towns of Abingdon, Didcot, Faringdon, Wallingford, and Wantage were transferred to Oxfordshire, while the remaining six towns were transferred from Buckinghamshire.  From 1889 to 1998, Berkshire County Council was the main local government of most areas, and it was based in Reading, the county town, which had its own County Borough administration (1888–1974).

Berkshire has been governed by six unitary authorities, namely Bracknell Forest, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Wokingham, since 1998. The ceremonial county is bounded to the north by Oxfordshire, to the north-east by Buckinghamshire, to the east by Greater London, to the south by Surrey, to the west by Wiltshire, and to the west by Hampshire (to the south).  There is no part of the county that is more than 8.5 miles (13.7 kilometres) from the M4 motorway.

HISTORY

According to Asser’s biography of King Alfred, written in 893 AD, its old name Bearrocscir comes from a wood of box trees called Bearroc (a Celtic word meaning “hilly”).

This wood, which may no longer exist, was located west of Frilsham, near Newbury.

Much of the county’s early history is recorded in the Chronicles of Abingdon Abbey, which, at the time of the survey, was second only to the crown in the extent and number of its possessions, including The Abbey, Sutton Courtenay. The abbot also wielded significant judicial and administrative authority, and his court was endowed with the privileges of the hundred court and was immune from interference by the sheriff. Until Elizabeth I’s reign, Berkshire and Oxfordshire shared a sheriff, and the shire court was held at Grandpont. The assizes were previously held in Reading, Abingdon, and Newbury, but by 1911, they were entirely held in Reading. 

Berkshire has seen some significant battles throughout its history. The battles of Englefield, Ashdown, and Reading were part of Alfred the Great’s campaign against the Danes.

The First Battle of Newbury (at Wash Common) in 1643 and the Second Battle of Newbury (at Speen) in 1644 were both fought in Newbury. In the aftermath of the second battle, the nearby Donnington Castle was reduced to ruins. On December 9, 1688, another Battle of Reading took place. It was England’s only significant military action during the Glorious Revolution, and it resulted in a decisive victory for forces loyal to William of Orange. 

Reading was designated as the new county town in 1867, succeeding Abingdon, which remained in the county. Berkshire County Council took over functions of the Berkshire Quarter Sessions under the Local Government Act 1888, covering the administrative county of Berkshire but excluding the county borough of Reading. In the early twentieth century, boundary changes were minor, with Caversham from Oxfordshire becoming part of Reading county borough and cessions in the Oxford area.

Berkshire’s boundaries changed on April 1, 1974, as a result of the Local Government Act 1972. Buckinghamshire handed over administration of Slough and Eton, as well as a portion of the former Eton Rural District, to Berkshire. [5] The northern part of the county was absorbed into Oxfordshire, with Faringdon, Wantage, and Abingdon, as well as their surrounding countryside, forming the Vale of White Horse district, and Didcot and Wallingford becoming part of the South Oxfordshire district. Despite the fact that the Uffington White Horse is now in Oxfordshire, the 94 (Berkshire Yeomanry) Signal Squadron retains the Uffington White Horse in their insignia. The original Local Government White Paper proposed relocating Henley-on-Thames from Oxfordshire to Berkshire; however, this proposal was not included in the Bill as introduced. [Citation required]

Berkshire County Council was abolished on April 1, 1998, in accordance with the Banham Commission’s recommendation, and the districts became unitary authorities. In contrast to similar reforms implemented elsewhere at the same time, the non-metropolitan county was not abolished. “Welcome to the Royal County of Berkshire” signs can be found on the borders of West Berkshire, on the east side of Virginia Water, on the M4 motorway, on the south side of Sonning Bridge, on the A404 southbound by Marlow, and on the A33 northbound past Stratfield Saye.

In 2017, the Flag Institute registered a flag for the historic county of Berkshire.

GEOGRAPHY

The Thames drains the entire county. Berkshire is divided into two topological (and associated geological) sections: east and west of Reading. North-east Berkshire has the Thames’s low calciferous (limestone) m-shaped bends, south of which is a broader, clayey, gravelly former watery plain or belt from Earley to Windsor, and beyond, south, are parcels and belts of uneroded higher sands, flints, shingles, and lightly acid soil, and in the north of the Bagshot Formation, north of Surrey and Hampshire. Many pine, silver birch, and other lightly acidic-soil trees can be found in Swinley Forest (also known as Bracknell Forest), Windsor Great Park, Crowthorne, and Stratfield Saye Woods. East of the grassy and wooded bends, a large portion of East Berkshire’s land mirrors the clay belt, being low elevation and on the Thames’s left (north) bank: Slough, Eton, Eton Wick, Wraysbury, Horton, and Datchet. Reading’s northern suburb Caversham is also on that bank, but it rises steeply into the Chiltern Hills.

The Loddon and its sub-tributary, the Blackwater, drain parts of two counties to the south, and the Kennet drains parts of upland Wiltshire to the west. Heading west, the county extends further from the Thames, which flows from the north-northwest before the Goring Gap; West Berkshire hosts the varying-width plain of the River Kennet rising to high chalk hills via and lower clay slopes and rises. To the south, the land crests along the Hampshire border; this is where the highest parts of South-East and Eastern England meet. Walbury Hill, at 297 metres, is the highest point (974 ft).  The Berkshire Downs are located to the north of the Kennet. This is hilly terrain with smaller, well-forested valleys such as the Lambourn, Pang, and Thames sub-tributaries. The open upland areas compete with Newmarket, Suffolk, for horse racing training and breeding centres, as well as having good fields of barley, wheat, and other cereal crops.

INDUSTRY

Reading has a long history of involvement in the information technology industry, owing largely to the early presence of International Computers Limited and Digital in the town. These companies have been acquired by other corporations, but their descendants, Fujitsu and Hewlett-Packard, continue to have local operations. Microsoft and Oracle have recently established multi-building campuses on Reading’s outskirts. Huawei Technologies, Agilent Technologies, Audio & Design (Recording) Ltd, Bang & Olufsen, Cisco, Comptel, Ericsson, Harris Corporation, Intel, Nvidia, Rockwell Collins, Sage, SGI, Symantec, Symbol Technologies, Verizon Business, Virgin Media, Websense, Xansa (now Sopra Steria), and Xerox are among the other technology companies with a presence in town. The financial firm ING Direct, as well as the directories firm Hibu, have their headquarters in Reading. Prudential Insurance Company has an administrative centre in town. PepsiCo and Holiday Inn both have offices here. Reading, like most major cities, has offices for the Big Four accounting firms of Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Berkshire Vision, a 110-year-old charity, is also located in Reading’s city centre.

Slough Trading Estate contributes significantly to Slough’s status as a major business hub in South East England.

Reckitt Benckiser’s global headquarters and Mars Incorporated’s UK headquarters are both located in Slough. The town is home to the European headquarters of major IT companies BlackBerry and CA Technologies. O2’s headquarters are spread across four buildings. The National Foundation for Educational Research, which is housed in The Mere, is located in the town. Nintendo, Black & Decker, Amazon, HTC, SSE plc, and Abbey Business Centres are among the other major companies with offices in town. [19] AkzoNobel, which purchased Imperial Chemical Industries in 2008, continues to manufacture Dulux paints in Slough.

Panasonic, Fujitsu (formerly ICL) and Fujitsu-Siemens Computers, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Siemens (originally Nixdorf), Honeywell, Cable & Wireless, Avnet Technology Solutions, and Novell are all headquartered in Bracknell. Companies such as Cable & Wireless, DEC (later Hewlett-Packard), Microsoft, Sharp Telecommunications, Oracle Corporation, Sun Microsystems, and Cognos subsequently expanded into the surrounding Thames Valley or M4 corridor, attracting IT firms such as Cable & Wireless, DEC (later Hewlett-Packard), Microsoft, Sharp Telecommunications, Oracle Corporation, Sun Microsystems, and Cognos. The central Waitrose distribution centre and head office are also located in Bracknell, on a 70-acre (280,000 m2) site on the Southern Industrial Estate. Waitrose has been in town since the 1970s. Honda and BMW have their UK headquarters in the town as well. 

The world headquarters of mobile network operator Vodafone, which employs over 6,000 people in Newbury, are located in the town. Vodafone used 64 buildings in the town centre before moving to their £129 million headquarters on the outskirts of town in 2002.  Newbury is also home to National Instruments, Micro Focus, EValue, NTS Express Road Haulage, Jokers’ Masquerade, and Quantel, in addition to Vodafone. It is also the location of the Newbury Building Society, which operates in the area.

Carbosynth, a chemical manufacturing company, was founded in 2006 in Compton, a small village about 10 miles from Newbury. Since 2019, it has merged with a Swiss company called Biosynth AG to form a major global organisation in the fine chemical industry known as Biosynth Carbosynth®. 

London Heathrow Airport, located in the neighbouring London Borough of Hillingdon, contributes significantly to the economy of Slough in east Berkshire.