Qualla: Berkshire https://qualla.com/berkshire en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Berkshire https://qualla.com/berkshire Berkshire: Introduction https://qualla.com/berkshire/ Asser, the Welsh monk who became King Alfred the Great's tutor and biographer, wrote in 893 that Berkshire takes its name from a wood of box trees called Bearroc, somewhere west of Frilsham near Newbury. Bearroc was Celtic, meaning hilly. The wood is gone now, if it ever existed in quite the form Asser described, but the name has stayed. Berkshire is officially the Royal County, a title granted in 1957 because of Windsor Castle, the official country residence of the British monarch. Windsor sits at the east end of the county. The Berkshire Downs roll across the west, with King Alfred's birthplace at Wantage just over the modern county line. Between the two is one of the densest concentrations of technology companies in Europe and the fastest stretch of the Thames Valley.

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/k/berkshire-wp/gcpk-berkshire-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Berkshire: Asser's Wood https://qualla.com/berkshire/ Berkshire's history runs deep enough to feel mythic. The Uffington White Horse, that great chalk figure carved into the side of the Berkshire Downs, dates from the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age and was historically in Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes shifted it into ...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/k/berkshire-wp/gcpk-berkshire-assers-wood.mp3 0:06 2 full Berkshire: Windsor and the Royal Connection https://qualla.com/berkshire/ Windsor Castle was begun by William the Conqueror in the eleventh century and has been a residence of every English and British monarch since Henry I. The fire of 1992 destroyed part of the State Apartments and led to a five-year restoration paid for partly by opening Buckingham ...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/k/berkshire-wp/gcpk-berkshire-windsor-and-the-royal-connection.mp3 0:06 3 full Berkshire: The M4 Corridor https://qualla.com/berkshire/ Modern Berkshire is split economically along an east-west line. The east is densely urban and obsessively networked. Reading, the county town, has been a software and IT hub since International Computers Limited and Digital Equipment Corporation opened sites there decades ago. Th...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/k/berkshire-wp/gcpk-berkshire-the-m4-corridor.mp3 0:06 4 full Berkshire: Reading Gaol https://qualla.com/berkshire/ On 25 May 1895, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years' hard labour at Reading Gaol for gross indecency under the Labouchere Amendment of 1885. He served the last eighteen months of that sentence in Reading. He wrote De Profundis there as a long letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, his...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/k/berkshire-wp/gcpk-berkshire-reading-gaol.mp3 0:06 5 full Berkshire: The Royal Berkshire Today https://qualla.com/berkshire/ Berkshire is a ceremonial county and a non-metropolitan one, but it has no county council. Berkshire County Council was abolished in 1998 and the county now has six unitary authorities: Bracknell Forest, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Wokingham. The ...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/k/berkshire-wp/gcpk-berkshire-the-royal-berkshire-today.mp3 0:06 6 full