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Berkshire Leasing

Did You Know?

Berkshire is known for its long history of sheep farming and one of the largest sheep fairs in the country is still held at East Ilsley. The county is also home to one the oldest and largest Royal Residences in the World, Windsor Castle.

According to Asser's biography of King Alfred, written in 893 AD, its old name Bearrocscir takes its name from a wood of box trees, which was called Bearroc (a Celtic word meaning "hilly"). This wood, perhaps no longer extant, was west of Frilsham, near Newbury.

Berkshire's origins can be traced back to the mid-seventh century. For the next 200 years, the area was fought over repeatedly until the Saxon kings of Wessex finally secured all of the land to the south of the River Thames.

The Ankerwycke Yew is an ancient yew tree close to the ruins of St Mary's Priory, the site of a Benedictine nunnery built in the 12th century, near Wraysbury in Berkshire. This iconic 2,500 year old yew tress is steeped in history.

The Old Manor Inn in Bracknell Berkshire is said to have been one of Dick Turpin's favourite dwelling places, perhaps because there was an escape tunnel large enough for him to ride through in an emergency. The pub is one of the town's oldest buildings, and as a a 17th-century brick manor house, it features a number of priest holes.

The Berkshire Downs supported numerous prehistoric settlements linked by ridgeways that led particularly to the focus of Stonehenge in the adjoining county of Wiltshire. The major archaeological monument in the historic county, dating from the Iron Age, is the  Uffington White Horse, which is carved into the chalk of the White Horse Hill.

 Berkshire village of Cookham did provide the setting for some of Sir Stanley Spencer’s weird and wonderful theological artwork, in which the dead clamber out of their graves, the living celebrate free love on the local moor, and Jesus and God hang out in the church porch.

We’ll admit that precise statistics are hard to come by, but the colossal Maiwand Lion in Reading’s Forbury Gardens has to be a contender – the cast iron statue weighs 16 tons and measures 31 feet from mane to tail. It was created to commemorate the deaths of 329 men from the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot who died during the Second Anglo-Afghan War between 1878 and 1880.