35-691: Wokingham , or the Borough of Wokingham , is a local government district with borough status in Berkshire , England. Since 1998 its council has been a unitary authority , having taken on county-level functions when Berkshire County Council was abolished. The borough is named after its main town, Wokingham . Other places in the district include Arborfield , Barkham , Charvil , Earley , Finchampstead , Hurst , Remenham , Ruscombe , Shinfield , Sonning , Spencers Wood , Three Mile Cross , Twyford , Wargrave , Winnersh and Woodley . The population of
70-434: A borough or district council. In these cases local government functions are divided between county and district councils, to the level where they can be practised most efficiently: Many districts have borough status , which means the local council is called a borough council instead of district council and gives them the right to appoint a mayor . Borough status is granted by royal charter and, in many cases, continues
105-425: A district will consist of a market town and its more rural hinterland. However districts are diverse with some being mostly urban such as Dartford, and others more polycentric such as Thurrock. Non-metropolitan districts are subdivisions of English non-metropolitan counties which have a two-tier structure of local government. Two-tier non-metropolitan counties have a county council and several districts, each with
140-485: A little visited corner of the campus, although demolition had been proposed in the 2007 campus development plan. However, in March 2009 the threatened building was given Grade II listed status, so demolition seems unlikely. The bunker is currently maintained and used by the campus library as a storage and cataloguing facility for books not present in the library itself. In the years after the second World War some traces of
175-457: A style enjoyed by a predecessor authority, which can date back centuries. Some districts such as Oxford or Exeter have city status , granted by letters patent , but this does not give the local council any extra powers other than the right to call itself a city council . By 1899, England had been divided at district level into rural districts , urban districts , municipal boroughs , county boroughs and metropolitan boroughs . This system
210-491: A type of local government district in England. As created, they are sub-divisions of non-metropolitan counties (colloquially shire counties ) in a two-tier arrangement. Non-metropolitan districts with borough status are known as boroughs , able to appoint a mayor and refer to itself as a borough council. Some shire counties now have no sub divisions so are a single Non-metropolitan district such as Cornwall. Typically
245-626: A unitary authority or those that transferred from one county to another, including those that changed name. Nor does it include unitary authorities that have been abolished ( Bournemouth and Poole ). Whiteknights Park Whiteknights Park , or the Whiteknights Campus of the University of Reading , is the principal campus of that university. The park covers the area of the manor of Earley Whiteknights , also known as Earley St Nicholas and Earley Regis . Whiteknights Park
280-464: A wide range of small retail and visitor facilities: Wargrave and Twyford. In major employment areas of trading and manufacturing Winnersh and Finchampstead are prominent. The village of Crowthorne is shared between Wokingham and the neighbouring borough of Bracknell Forest. The local authority is Wokingham Borough Council, which has its headquarters at Shute End in Wokingham. State-funded schools in
315-566: Is some two miles south of the centre of the town of Reading in the English county of Berkshire . The campus is 1.3 square kilometres (321 acres) in size and includes lakes, conservation meadows and woodlands as well as being home to most of the university's academic departments and several halls of residence . The site was the home of John De Erleigh II , the famous foster-son of the Regent of England, William Marshal , but takes its name from
350-476: Is sometimes nicknamed 'The Maze' due to its significant size and complex layout of corridors. The RUSU building comprises the students' union itself, a small parade of shops including a bubble tea shop, cafe and an oriental mini supermarket as well as two of the university's bars and clubs. Next door to the RUSU building is a branch of Co-op Food . To the east of the lakes and surrounding conservation meadowland
385-713: Is the Earley Gate area of the campus. The second-world war era buildings here house the Fine Art Department, the Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, and various service functions. More recent buildings, dating from the 1990s and 2000s, house the Department of Applied Statistics; the Department of Meteorology; the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development; and the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences. Also in this area can be found
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#1732783285198420-687: The Banham Review . The district was granted borough status in 2007, following a petition to the Queen. Elevations range between 30 and 70 metres above sea level except higher in about 5% of the borough. The highest is an escarpment containing parts of the rural and wooded northern area, the hinterland of three Thames-side villages, facing the 30-mile long Chilterns AONB, west and north. A geological part of that range of hills, Bowsey Hill reaches 137m, in Wargrave civil parish, 1 mile (1.6 km) from
455-604: The District Councils' Network , special interest group which sits within the Local Government Association . The network's purpose is to "act as an informed and representative advocate for districts to government and other national bodies, based on their unique position to deliver for local people." This is a list of two-tier non-metropolitan counties and their districts. All unitary authorities are also non-metropolitan districts, which, with
490-644: The Duke of Marlborough , became bankrupt and moved to his family home at Blenheim Palace at Woodstock in Oxfordshire. The gardens of the Whiteknights estate have been described in a book by Barbara Hofland with engraved pictures of the gardens and its multitude of bridges, fountains, seats and grottoes by her husband Thomas Christopher Hofland . The book was ordered by the then Marquess of Blandford, but like many other items that he ordered or purchased, it
525-659: The Reading Enterprise Centre , the Science & Technology Centre , the University Atmospheric Observatory , and an NHS Speech and Language Therapy clinic, used by the students and staff of the Department of Clinical Language Sciences. Although the campus is much closer to the centre of Reading than it is to the town of Wokingham , the boundary between the unitary authorities of Reading and Wokingham meanders across
560-597: The Roman road from London to Bath through a highly coniferous Swinley Forest which sits in geology on the naturally acidic, Bagshot Formation . The whole borough is divided into civil parishes . The parish councils of Wokingham, Earley and Woodley have officially declared their parishes to be towns, allowing them to take the style 'town council'. Villages include Arborfield, Barkham, Charvil, Finchampstead, Hurst, Sonning, Remenham, Ruscombe, Shinfield, Twyford, Wargrave, Three Mile Cross, Winnersh, Spencers Wood. Two villages have
595-681: The University of Reading immediately north-west, most of which falls within the Wokingham Borough boundary. The borough has the highest proportion of home ownership of the six local authorities in Berkshire: combining the social (housing association and local authority provided) and private (private landlord) rented sectors, Slough's returns recorded in 2011 that its rented sector comprised 46% of its housing, whereas 18% of Wokingham's residents rented their homes. Excluding lower-tier districts, Central Government has classified Wokingham as
630-585: The 1950s to the 2000s. The Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology , University of Reading Herbarium and the Cole Museum of Zoology are both found in this area. The largest building on the campus, the Edith Morley Building, forms one end of the central courtyard. Previously known as the HumSS (Humanities and Social Sciences) building before being renamed in commemoration of Edith Morley in 2017, it
665-589: The Second World War, part of the park closest to the Earley Gate entrance was used for 'temporary' government offices, and several ranges of these single story, brick built, corridor and spur buildings still stand. After the war, this area became home to the Region 6 War Room responsible for civil defence in south-central England. The resulting nuclear bunker constructed in the 1950s still stands in
700-585: The Shinfield Road and the adjacent Elmhurst Road. The centre of the campus is bisected into two unequal halves by a chain of lakes which are crossed by several pedestrian bridges but with no vehicular link. To the west of the lakes can be found most of the academic departments, catering services, the university administration and the students union building. With the exception of a couple of surviving Victorian residences, including Foxhill House, all of these are housed in purpose built buildings dating from
735-454: The areas for Wales and England had been enacted separately and there were no Welsh metropolitan areas, the term 'non-metropolitan district' does not apply to Wales. A similar system existed in Scotland , which in 1975 was divided into regions and districts, this was also abolished in 1996 and replaced with a fully unitary system . In England most of the district councils are represented by
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#1732783285198770-527: The borough include nine secondary schools , two special schools and numerous primary schools . There are also a number of private schools . Bracknell and Wokingham College is the main further and adult education provider for the borough, just outside the borough its headquarters is in Bracknell . The Borough's closest higher education provider is the main Whiteknights Park campus of
805-578: The borough is 177,500 according to 2021 census. The district was formed on 1 April 1974 as Wokingham District , under the Local Government Act 1972 , by the merger of the Municipal Borough of Wokingham and Wokingham Rural District . It is governed by Wokingham Borough Council (formerly Wokingham District Council), which has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1998, following the abolition of Berkshire County Council under
840-541: The campus, with their own vehicular access off those roads and with only pedestrian access to the core of the campus. Along the Wilderness Road and Pepper Lane sides of the campus, the campus is screened from the outside by undeveloped woodland and by the Harris Garden , the university's botanical garden . The campus core is therefore only easily visible from outside in the area around the main entrance on
875-456: The confiscation of Englefield House and its estates in 1585. The Englefield family in turn sold the estate to George Spencer-Churchill , the Marquis of Blandford, in 1798. Between 1798 and 1819, the estate was the scene of vast extravagance and wild entertainments, all at the Marquis' expense. Splendid gardens were laid out, complete with the rarest of plants. In 1819, George Spencer, by now
910-487: The exception of those of Berkshire , are coterminous with non-metropolitan counties. For a full list of districts of all types including unitary authorities, metropolitan districts and London boroughs , see Districts of England . This is a list of former two-tier districts in England which have been abolished, by local government reorganisations such as the 2009 structural changes to local government in England . It does not include districts that still exist after becoming
945-532: The gardens of the Marquess of Blandford have been discovered. There were a few old exotic trees and part of a fountain was found on a skip. The University of Reading purchased Whiteknights Park in 1947, and today it is the home of the university's administration, most of the academic departments and six halls of residence. The halls of residence (Bridges, Childs, MacKinder, Stenton, Windsor, and Wessex) are all along Whiteknights Road and Upper Redlands Road sides of
980-407: The grounds, cast-iron or wooden baskets filled with scarlet sage or the then exotic begonias were scattered throughout the lawns. There were many, some garden-critics commented "too many" seats, covered seats, treillages and pavilions. Mary Soames , who wrote a book about the 5th Duke of Marlborough and his gardens in Whiteknights and Blenheim remarked that the 280 acres were "too small a canvas" for
1015-691: The least needy Local Authority. Government funding is about £120 per head per year. This is the lowest among the combined category of county councils and unitary authorities, the basis on which it is overall assessed, and compares with over £1000 per head in others such as the London Borough of Hackney . The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Borough of Wokingham. Non-metropolitan district Non-metropolitan districts , or colloquially " shire districts ", are
1050-469: The marquesses' "broad brush". The estate was sold off and the house was demolished in 1840, supposedly by a mob of the Duke's angry creditors. The land was broken up into six leasehold units in 1867 and a number of the new houses were designed by Alfred Waterhouse , including his own residence at Foxhill House and the smaller Whiteknights House (now called Old Whiteknights House) for his father. During
1085-419: The nickname of his great grandson, the 13th-century knight, John De Erleigh IV , the 'White Knight'. The De Erleigh (or D'Earley) family were owners of this manor for some two hundred years before 1365. St. Thomas Cantilupe , Bishop of Hereford and advisor to King Edward I , was allowed to live there briefly during the 1270s. In 1606 the estate was purchased by the nephew of Sir Francis Englefield , following
Borough of Wokingham - Misplaced Pages Continue
1120-465: The river. Approximately a right-angled triangle, the borough is long north to south. It uses as its longest edge the course of the Loddon and Thames along its north-west, with a similarly salient-containing eastern boundary and an almost straight southern boundary. Clockwise the boundaries are approximately 10, 8 and 5 miles on a direct path from point to point. The southern boundary is approximately
1155-526: The two-tier structure, but reforms in the 1990s and 2009 reduced their number to 192. A further 55 non-metropolitan districts are now unitary authorities, which combine the functions of county and borough/district councils. In Wales , an almost identical two-tier system of local government existed between 1974 and 1996 (see Districts of Wales ). In 1996, this was abolished and replaced with an entirely unitary system of local government, with one level of local government responsible for all local services. Since
1190-620: Was abolished by the London Government Act 1963 and the Local Government Act 1972 . Non-metropolitan districts were created by this act in 1974 when England outside Greater London was divided into metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan counties. Metropolitan counties were sub-divided into metropolitan districts and the non-metropolitan counties were sub-divided into non-metropolitan districts. The metropolitan districts had more powers than their non-metropolitan counterparts. Initially, there were 296 non-metropolitan districts in
1225-522: Was never paid for. The gardens boasted a "chantilly garden" in the French style, a vineyard, a wilderness, a cottage, a gothic chapel, botanical gardens full of the rarest plants, many of them new from the Americas, an iron bridge, a stone bridge, an extensive sheep walk, an elm grove, an oak grove, a cedar seat, wychelms and cedars, an ice house, several conservatories, greenhouses and heated basins. In
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