Berkshire: the royal county, and the money that follows it.

Berkshire concentrates an extraordinary amount of wealth along the Thames and the M4 — Windsor and Eton, the Ascot and Sunningdale belt with its private estates and golf, the river houses through Bray and Cookham, and the Newbury racing country to the west. It is a county of gated drives and long lawns within easy reach of Heathrow, and its calendar — race weeks, regattas, the summer season — brings predictable spikes in profile and traffic alike.

For a private residence in Berkshire the survey usually starts at the gate and ends at the staff rota: who holds codes and fobs, which contractors cross the grounds each week, what the drive reveals from the road. Estates on a shared private road add a second question — what the development’s own security covers and what it leaves to the household. Gated and shared developments are covered in their own guide; residential security in Berkshire sets out the survey.

So our Berkshire work is overwhelmingly residential and vehicular: protective surveys for the gated estates and Thames-side houses, where a single controlled approach is the whole design, secure driving for the airport-and-school-run patterns that define the week, and discreet event cover through the racing and river season. The register is quiet, matched to a county that prizes not being discussed.