As we have said, Berkshire is essentially an agricultural county,
and the cloth-making which in the days of Ashmole was so great a
trade that almost the whole nation was supplied from our county,
has become practically obsolete. There are however at the present
day several industries which give employment to a large number of
workers in the county. Probably the one most definitely connected
with our county town Reading is the making of biscuits, an industry
of quite modern growth. Printing, too, is carried on at important
works at Reading belonging in many cases to London firms, and there
are also more or less active printing presses at nearly all our towns
and in country places too. Printing in Berkshire goes back certainly
to 1528, when John Scolar set up a press in the Abbey of Abingdon and
printed a breviary, a copy of which is preserved at Emmanuel College,
Cambridge. One of the oldest of existing newspapers is the Reading
Mercury, started in that town in 1723.
Brewing has been carried on from the days of the monks, and no
doubt plenty of good ale was brewed in the Abbeys of Abingdon and
Reading. There is a record of malting mills in Wallingford Castle
in 1300. At the present time there are large breweries at Reading,
Windsor, and other places. Tanning is another very old industry
which is still carried on with activity. The bark of the oak was
formerly used to a large extent in tanning, and there has always been
an abundance of oak trees in the county. Oak bark is still used to
some extent. Shoe-making used to be an important cottage industry,
but the introduction of machinery has carried the work to large
factories elsewhere.
Newbury was at one time a great place for barge building, and boats of
many kinds are now built at various places on the Thames and Kennet,
indeed boat building counts amongst the more important of our active
industries.
We have already mentioned cloth-making as one of the great industries
of the county in former times. The chief centres were Reading,
Abingdon, and Newbury. A fulling mill at Newbury is mentioned in
1205. The interesting Cloth Hall at that place, now a museum, was
built by the Guild of Clothworkers of Newbury, which was incorporated
in 1601, and the beautiful old house of Shaw was built by a Newbury
clothier named Thomas Dolman in 1581. The most famous of the Berkshire
clothiers was John Winchcombe or Smalwoode, known as Jack of Newbury
(died 1520). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the
clothing trade declined. This was partly due to the activity of the
northern clothiers and to the introduction of machinery with the
resulting factory system. Still as late as 1816 there were works
in Katesgrove Lane, Reading, where sail-cloth for the navy was
manufactured in large quantity.
The silk industry too, once of some importance, has left the
district. At the end of the sixteenth century silk-stocking making
was quite an important industry at Wokingham, and many mulberry trees
were planted in and near the town. Silk manufactures were also active
at Reading, Newbury, Kintbury, Twyford, and other places.
Seed-growing is an important industry at Reading and employs a large
number of people.
Iron and brass foundries of some importance are established at
Reading and many other places, and there are large engineering works
at Wantage.
There was a good bell-foundry at Wokingham in the last quarter of the
fourteenth century (temp. Richard II), and several bells made there
still exist. About 1495 the business was transferred to Reading,
and bell-founding was carried on at that place until the beginning
of the eighteenth century.
Lastly, the open country near Lambourn has long been used for training
race-horses, and there are very large stables in this part of the
country. The "gallops" now extend from Compton, Ilsley, and Wantage
to Lambourn.