The chalk downs of the central division are dotted over with mounds and earthworks, probably for the most part the work of man before the Roman occupation, for it was an inhabited part of the county in the time of the Britons. On the other hand the Vale of White Horse division was in those days mainly or wholly uncultivated, but it is now the most fertile part of Berkshire. The south or forest division has been thinly populated up to quite modern times, though the Roman town of Silchester stood in the Hampshire part of this forest country.
Berkshire is almost all within the drainage area of the river Thames and its tributaries, and the natural line of communication between our county and the sea is by river, Windsor being some 85 miles from the Nore.
The estuary of the Severn is less than 32 miles from Faringdon, and there seems to have been a tolerably good road from Berkshire to the west coast in quite early times. Formerly a very usual line of communication between our county and the sea was from the south coast across the chalk downs. Hungerford is only 35 miles from Southampton, and the roadways across the Chalk are very old and fairly direct.
3. Size. Shape. Boundaries.
The length of Berkshire on an east and west line is 41 miles. It may be described as a rectangle with a somewhat square projection at the south-eastern corner. Ashmole compares it to a lute and Fuller to a slipper. The northern boundary is practically formed by the river Thames, and is in consequence most irregular. Where the river curves in a southerly direction, the width of the county is contracted until it is less than seven miles at Reading. Until 1844 Three Mile Cross and the country between that place and the Hampshire border was an outlying part of Wiltshire, so that the width of Berkshire at Reading was less than four miles. This little bit of Wiltshire has however now been joined to Berkshire.
Berkshire as it is shown upon most maps is known as the “Geographical” or “Ancient County” of Berkshire, and its area is 462,208 acres, that is about one-seventieth of the area of England.
For administrative purposes the boundaries are slightly different, and the area of Administrative Berkshire including the county borough of Reading is 462,367 acres. By deducting from this the area under water, i.e. rivers, ponds, lakes, etc., we arrive at the figures 459,403, which are used as the area of Berkshire in acres for the purpose of agricultural and other returns issued by Government. The county of Berks for registration purposes, that is for Parliamentary elections, etc., includes all the Administrative County and also Egham in the east, Culham and Crowmarsh in the north-east, small bits of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire in the north, and the rural district of Ramsbury in the west, giving a total area of 573,689 acres.
The Thames near Pangbourne