Flag of Berkshire

Flag of Berkshire
Proportion	3:5
Adopted	Not yet adopted

Berkshire

David Nash Ford proposal

The Berkshire flag is the flag of the county of Berks. It has not yet been registered with the Flag Institute.

Design

This current proposal, created by Michael Garber, retains the locally-meaningful colours and symbols featured in an original design created by Berkshire historian David Nash Ford - see below. As in the Nash Ford flag this design portrays a stag and oak tree, a familiar theme in the county, used previously by the former county council as the crest of its coat of arms. This symbol is held generally to refer to the forestlands of the county and specifically to the legend of Herne the Hunter, a 14th-century royal huntsman. The white hart is described as one of the manifestations of his restless spirit. The colours of gold, white and blue had appeared in the old county council arms and were additionally seen to represent the River Thames and the county's chalk hills.

The original Nash Ford design design has been deemed as an unsuccessful flag because the gold charge on white breaks the rule of tincture, by which two lighter colours do not contrast well and thus the gold charge loses visibility from any distance. It has also been deemed as confusing because the curved form of the oak tree which resembles a letter "C", thereby leads some people to think it represents a county name also beginning with "C".

The Garber proposal thus aims to retain all the design criteria of the original proposal in a more effective arrangement and was completed after extensive consultation with the Flag Institute.