Newbury/Thatcham, ENG - Postcode - RG14 1LA - Post Codes & Zip Codes List

Berkshire

A ceremonial and geographical county in southern England, Berkshire. The county is located directly to the west of London, in the valleys of the main Thames and its tributary, the Kennet. Bracknell Forest, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Wokingham are the six local governments that make up Berkshire.

The territory covered by the original county is larger and distinct in certain ways. Slough, which is now part of its own unitary authority, is not included. However, the district of Vale of White Horse and the portion of South Oxfordshire that sits west of the Thames are included, both of which are now located in the administrative county of Oxfordshire. The administrative functions of the former county of Berkshire were transferred to the six unitary authorities in 1998.

In the county's eastern portion, where Windsor Forest is located, you'll find infertile, frequently wooded ground underlain by the Thames River gravels and terraces. There are high chalk downs in the western portion of the county, with Inkpen Beacon rising to a height of 975 feet (297 meters). By way of the Goring Gap, the Thames winds its way through these downs. From London, trains can travel west to Oxford, Bristol, and the rest of the west coast of England via the Thames and Kennet valleys. The highway that links southern Wales with London passes through the county.

Many ancient communities in the Berkshire Downs were connected by ridgeways that ultimately led to Wiltshire and the famous Stonehenge. The Uffington White Horse, a carving in the chalk of White Horse Hill that dates back to the Iron Age, is the most important archaeological monument in the county. The monument's peak height is 130 feet and its length is 360 feet (110 meters) (40 metres). Finds of Iron Age settlements have been uncovered in the river basins and eastern Berkshire, and the Belgic site at Silchester, southwest of Reading, was transformed into a Roman thoroughfare. Alfred the Great, who was born in Wantage in 848, was a native of Berkshire and its county was contested between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. The first Windsor Castle was constructed after the Norman Conquest of 1066, when the Thames Valley's strategic importance was understood, and it went on to become the primary residence of the British royal family outside of London.

Geography

As a result of its size, the Thames drains the entire county. The topographic (and thus geological) landscape of Berkshire can be roughly divided in half between the areas east and west of Reading. To the north of Surrey and Hampshire lies the Bagshot Formation, while to the south of Earley and Windsor is a large, clayey, gravelly former watery plain or belt. To the south are parcels and belts of uneroded higher sands, flints, shingles, and lightly acid soil. Many pine, silver birch, and other trees that thrive in lightly acidic soil may be found in Swinley Forest (formerly known as Bracknell Forest), Windsor Great Park, Crowthorne, and Stratfield Saye Woods. Slough, Eton, Eton Wick, Wraysbury, Horton, and Datchet, together with the majority of East Berkshire, are located on the left (north) bank of the Thames, reflecting the clay belt to the east of the grassy and forested bends. Caversham, a northern Reading neighborhood, is situated on that bank but rises sharply into the Chiltern Hills, making it a prominent feature of the county.

The Loddon and its tributary, the Blackwater, drain portions of two counties to the south, and the Kennet drains a portion of highland Wiltshire to the west, both of which bypass Reading. While the Thames runs from the north-northwest before Goring Gap, the western portion of the county is just as wide and features the variable-width plain of the River Kennet, which rises to high chalk hills via lower clay slopes and rises. The highest point of South-East and Eastern England is located here, where the soil rises to a crest at the border with Hampshire. Walbury Hill, at 297 meters, is the highest point (974 ft) Located to the north of the Kennet River are the Berkshire Downs. The land here is mountainous, with smaller, forested valleys like the ones formed by the Lambourn and Pang rivers, both of which flow into the Thames. The upland districts, with their ample fields of barley, wheat, and other cereal crops, compete with Newmarket, Suffolk as a major horse racing training and breeding hub.

England, UK Description

England is the UK's largest constituent unit, occupying more than half of the island. Despite its political, economic, and cultural legacy, England is no longer a governmental or political unit. 

With its rich soil and crisscrossing network of rivers and streams, England has been and remains a thriving agricultural economy. England became the epicenter of the global Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s, quickly rising to the top of the global industrialization rankings. Manufacturing industries in Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool turned raw materials into finished goods for export. London, the country's capital, became one of the world's most important cities, a hub for a global political economy. The London metropolitan area continues to be Europe's financial center and a hotbed of innovation, particularly in the fields of popular culture.

At the same time, the UK is a place with a very developed tourism industry. The culture and scenery of the UK attract a lot of tourists to come for vacation all year round. If you also want to travel to the UK or have been there and want to leave some traces of your visit, you can try to customize Custom Keyrings with a UK theme, such as the British flag, Buckingham Palace, etc.  Customized keychains can be carried with you and retain beautiful travel memories.

One of the most fundamental features of the English language is its diversity within a limited compass. Even England's most remote regions are accessible by car or train within a day's drive or train ride of London. Many English people identify with the regions or shires from which they are descended—for example, Yorkshire, the West Country, or the Midlands—and maintain strong ties to those regions even if they live in other parts of the country. Some differences exist, but many more, especially as England transitioned from a rural to an urban society, began to fade after 1945. The country's island location has shaped the English character, which values social harmony, social harmony, and good manners that ensure orderly relations in a densely populated landscape, among other characteristics.

During the dismantling of Britain's vast overseas empire in the mid-20th century, England suffered an identity crisis, and much attention has been paid to discussions of "Englishness"—that is, what it means to be English in a country that now has large immigrant populations from many former colonies and is far more cosmopolitan than insular. Although influenced by other cultures, English culture is distinct and difficult to define. The Lion and the Unicorn by George Orwell, a self-described "revolutionary patriot" who chronicled politics and society in the 1930s and 1940s, makes this observation. 

Geographical Description of England

Except for Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire in the east, England's topography is low-lying but rarely flat. The area has many rolling hillsides, with the highest elevations in the north, north-west, and southwest. Intricate underlying structures have resulted in intricate patterns in the landscape. The oldest sedimentary rocks and some igneous rocks (found in isolated granite hills) are found in Cornwall and Devon, while the most recent alluvial soils are found in the Fens of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk. Both the sandstone and limestone bands that separate these two regions date from prehistoric times when large sections of central and southern England were submerged under warm seas. Geological forces lifted and folded some of these rocks, forming northern England's spine. Scafell Pike, England's highest point, stands at 3,210 feet (978 metres) and is part of the world's highest mountain range. The northern mountains are mostly slate, while the southern mountains are mostly lava flows. Mountain ranges have developed from the North Downs at 965 feet (294 meters) to the Cotswolds at 1,083 feet (330 meters).

The Chiltern Hills, North Yorkshire Moors, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Wolds, and Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Wolds were rounded into distinctive plateaus with west-facing escarpments during the Pleistocene Epoch (about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago). A land bridge connecting Britain to the rest of Europe was engulfed as the last glacial sheet melted. The retreating glaciers left behind gravel, sand, and glacial mud, further altering the land surface. Rain, rivers, and tides, as well as subsidence, have shaped the hills and coastline of eastern England. Limestone, gritstone, and carboniferous strata plateaus are associated with major coalfields, some visible as surface outcrops.

A great example of England's geologic complexity is its cliff structure. The chalk cliffs of Dover are made up of a series of sedimentary rocks of varying ages that start at Land's End in the far southwest and end at the Isle of Wight. The English coastline is dotted with cliffs, bays, and river estuaries that add to the overall beauty of the landscape. 

England's weather is as varied as its topography. The average temperature in England, like other temperate maritime zones, is moderate, ranging from around 35 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) in January to 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius) in July in the Thames river valley (32 degrees Celsius). Tacitus, the Roman historian, described it as "unpleasant" with "frequent rains and mists but no extreme cold." However, the higher elevations of England receive snow for roughly 50 days out of the year. In fact, the northwest and southwest of England are particularly "wet". These areas receive less than 30 inches (750 mm) of rain per year and are frequently subject to severe drought. Rainfall averages only 20 inches in parts of the southeast (500 mm). The weather has influenced English art and literature not only seasonally but also day-to-day and even hour-to-hour. The bumbershoot's moniker as the stereotypical English gentleman's walking stick is not accidental.

The Economy of England

In the 18th and 19th centuries, England's economy was primarily agricultural until the Industrial Revolution transformed it into a highly urbanized and industrialized region as a result of the Industrial Revolution. A result of the close proximity of coal and iron ore deposits, heavy industries (iron and steel, textiles, and shipbuilding) sprang up in the north-eastern counties, and they continue to thrive today. During the 1930s, the Great Depression and foreign competition both contributed to a decline in manufactured goods production and an increase in unemployment in the industrial north, which contributed to the Great Depression. Residents of these northern counties who were out of work were forced to relocate south to London and its environs. Because of urbanization and industrialization, the southeast has become dominated by industries such as automotive, chemical, electrical, and machine tool manufacturing. Despite the fact that population growth and urbanization significantly reduced farmland in England during the twentieth century, the geographical counties of Cornwall, Devon, Kent, Lincolnshire, Somerset, and North Yorkshire have retained a significant proportion of their agricultural land.

Another period of industrial decline occurred in the late twentieth century, during which coal mining was virtually phased out and job losses in industries such as iron and steel production, shipbuilding, and textile manufacturing were particularly severe. The decline of these industries had a disproportionately negative impact on the economies of the north and the Midlands, while the economies of the south remained relatively prosperous. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the service sector had taken over as the dominant sector of the English economy, with banking and other financial services, retail, distribution, media and entertainment, education, health care, and hotels and restaurants among the leading sectors.