![\"PXL_20260806_115659907.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/23494a2e.webp\")
Let's discuss the US of A. It's a country where I have lived on both coasts, took a company public on NASDAQ and was even briefly married to a girl from Michigan. Yet today I believe that it is the biggest problem facing people in the UK. Forget the desparate economic refugees fleeing their collapsed and war torn countries for a better life on our hallowed shores on inflatable tyres, forget the EU and Brexit. No, our problem is that the UK is little more than a vassal state to the good ol' USA these days.
You want to advertise your local business to people in Reading ? Well, you'd better pay Google or Meta or NextDoor or Checkatrade (ah, sorry, they're Canadian owned..). If you want to sell or buy stuff, pay your Amazon or Etsy tax. And then everything you buy or sell involves another tax to US giants Mastercard or Visa. And then they go and stick tariffs on our goods and threaten to back the Argies over the Falklands because we won't partake in a stupid war they started and now can't finish.
Worse still is the cultural appropriation, with Halloween taking over from Bonfire Night and schoolkids going to 'proms' and sticking 'like' in between every other word.
\r\nYou see what I mean ? Odious orange leader aside, we have a problem with the USA - and don't get me started on food. I never remember a memorable meal in all my time in the USA. passable, yes, but usually in the USA food means fuel. Even their recipes seems to involve throwing a can of Campbell's soup on some meat and baking it in the oven.
They gave us McDonalds, KFC, Popeyes, Wendys, and Miller & Carter.
OK, I'm being disingenious again, the first Miller & Carter's was opened by English pubco Mitchell & Butler in 2006 in Penn, Wolverhampton.
But steak houses are quite a thing in the US. In the UK you go to a pub after work. In the US if there is serious business to discuss you're off to a steak restaurant - when I lived in New York City I was often to be found at the city's most famous historic and classic steakhouses such as Keens and Gallaghers in Midtown Manhattan and Peter Luger's in Brooklyn.
Smith & Wollensky has an outpost on The Strand in London, catering for homesick bankers and US tourists as far as I can tell, but have ventured no further. So it was up to Miller & Carter to take the great American steakhouse to the English provinces. I have previously eaten at a branch in Worle (look it up) and Cannock. It's worth noting that they have no branches in central London.
They have their quirks - they used to serve their steaks with a grilled lettuce segment and now serve something they call 'onion cake' and many of my friends and neighbours regard the joint (or should I say joints ? There are two in Reading and over 120 across the UK) as their favourite place to go.
\r\nSo it was high time that they featured in these pages. In the past I never made it here due to the fact that LBS and Côte were in between and that steak restaurants are not my favourite foodstuff.
\r\nLast weekend was G's sixtieth birthday, so a debrief was called for after a wonderful bash down at his gorgeous pile in Arborfield. Apparently we went through fifty bottles of champagne before we started to drink and eat. Dear me. He and his wife K are generous to a fault and, after all, you're only 60 once... He worked for his whole career for a major US corporation who produce much of the software you probably use and has travelled extensively in the US. Now that he is retired he still can't keep away and this was a sejourn before he headed off to the national parks of Utah and Idaho, provided the orange one hasn't turned them into oilfields by then.
\r\nThe location of this branch is Oracle Riverside two doors down from Côte and in the bit eventually set for demolishing and redevelopment as flats.
\r\nOutside it's dull - no pavement seating, which seems to be the very point of this rather glum location (many US steakhouses are based in in windowless 'lots' in my experience). Demolition and rebuilding might be for the best. Having an eating and drinking location by the canal might once upon a time have seen like a genius idea, but it has turned into a culvert that floods all too often and has none of the charm of the many lovely riverside locations which we have in our town. But the best Reading can do in its usual brutalist way is The Oracle Riverside and The Back Of Beyond Spoons. It's tragic that Bel & The Dragon closed down, The Island off Caversham Bridge has been empty for a decade and that the outlets in Huntley Wharf remain empty.
\r\nAnd will someone please take on The Lower Old Ship Inn and turn it into the pub that this part of Reading really needs ? It is finally for sale as Geene King finally see some sense. But I suspect that finding a buyer in this current culinary climate will be tough.
\r\nInside it's plush and luxurious as any steak restaurant world over should be. It's a large space with probably a hundred covers, but on a Friday lunchtime barely six people graced the place. Our waitress said that their Caversham outpost in the old Grosvenor pub was even quieter.
\r\nWe sat by the window and tackled the various menus. One for cocktails and drinks. one for wines, one for food and the other for the lunchtime deal. I want the printing contract for Miller & Carter. There was me thinking that the internet was going to put printers out of business, but it seems restaurants seem obliged to visit large pieces of printed cards at you. Or maybe they just want to obscure you from your dining companions.
\r\nThat said, they do a very generous lunchtime deal. A starter and main course for twenty quid and change, with a desert added for another four quid or so, which is what we settled on. The set menu features a decent choice of starters and just the right portions. Mushroom and cheese for G and the chicken bites for me.
\r\n\r\n
The mushrooms had a decent depth of flavour and the Cheddar cheese on top was fine until it dried out. There were some small toasts on the side. It was passable.
\r\nMy fried chicken pieces with a dipping sauce were surprisingly good. Crisp. well seasoned and sharp with a glaze and a tamarindy sweet chilli dip.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260806_115640106.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/634496ad.webp\")
We could also have had calimari, a soup or a Cesar salad with avocado. Checking back on the menu when writing this it seems that some of the dishes have been changed with the current choice of calimari, spiced cauliflower, pork belly, burrata, the sticky chicken and baked camembert.
\r\nWe had started off with a bottle of Albarino which was very decent - dry and slightly fruity.
\r\nAs ever we were nattering away endlessly about conversations that we had already had and the characters I had met anew despite having been mates with G for over thirty years. Our attentive waitress hovered many times as we completed our course before we finally allowed her to clear the table. And this is where service in a restaurant falls down.
\r\nAs soon as our starters were cleared, our mains arrived seconds later, barely warm.
\r\nThe two small fillet stakes (at a £8 premium) had been clearly waiting on the pas for some time. I say small, but I did not eat all of mine. Both were medium rare and cooked bang on, if missing some caramelisation. Larger steaks are available as part of the deal for a £10 supplement - this is clever prix fixe marketing).
\r\n![\"PXL_20260806_122107929.MP.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/8f760d9a.webp\")
The weird onion bhaji loaf ( which apparently traces its American restaurant roots back to mid-20th-century Chicago-area establishments like Hackney's and the 1970s rise of the Tony Roma's BBQ chain) and a fried tomato were the accompaniments.
\r\nYou can add a sauce for an ungenerous £3.95. I had peppercorn and G had bearnaise. Just watch that bill mount up. The lunchtime menu also offers burgers, cod, a risotto, half a chicken and BBQ ribs. All the foodstuffs.
\r\nThe dishes come with either chips or a tomato salad sides. We shared. Both sides were generous, but the chips were soggy and pretty ug. The salad was fine - rocket, red onions and heritage tomatoes. By now we had moved on to a red Rhone - the Chateauneuf du Pape is decent value at just over £50.
\r\nNow, I just can't get by that onion cake that is even more weird than the burnished lettuce they used to serve. It is a big greasy and unpleasant - onions obviously go well with beef, but this was just strange. I'll ask for it to be left off the plate next time.
\r\n\r\n
![\"PXL_20260806_130946735.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/c8ada263.webp\")
\r\n
Now, since the dessert is included in the menu (OK, we paid four quid more for it), we both decided on the salted caramel profiteroles. In for a penny, in for twenty three pounds ninety five. They came with a sauce and a dipping sauce and were perfectly fine but the dough was totally covered in the topping. It just seemed like an afterthought from the freezer.
\r\nIt was a nice meal. A good meal even. Just right for two old blokes in their sixties with a decent amount in their pensions and lots of things to discuss. I can see why so many of my neighbours like the place so much, but steak is something I left behind in the US - their corn oil-fed GM meat is amongst the many things I do not miss about the USA, but G will pack his suitcase and make up for that, no doubt.
For myself, I would boycott Miller & Carter over that onion loaf alone, but boycotting Meta, recently proven to be damaging to our children's welfare as well as our pockets and shopping from UK retailers instead of Amazon might be a better, if inconvenient, place to start.
", "content_text": "Let's discuss the US of A. It's a country where I have lived on both coasts, took a company public on NASDAQ and was even briefly married to a girl from Michigan. Yet today I believe that it is the biggest problem facing people in the UK. Forget the desparate economic refugees fleeing their collapsed and war torn countries for a better life on our hallowed shores on inflatable tyres, forget the EU and Brexit. No, our problem is that the UK is little more than a vassal state to the good ol' USA these days.You want to advertise your local business to people in Reading ? Well, you'd better pay Google or Meta or NextDoor or Checkatrade (ah, sorry, they're Canadian owned..). If you want to sell or buy stuff, pay your Amazon or Etsy tax. And then everything you buy or sell involves another tax to US giants Mastercard or Visa. And then they go and stick tariffs on our goods and threaten to back the Argies over the Falklands because we won't partake in a stupid war they started and now can't finish.\r\nWorse still is the cultural appropriation, with Halloween taking over from Bonfire Night and schoolkids going to 'proms' and sticking 'like' in between every other word.\r\nYou see what I mean ? Odious orange leader aside, we have a problem with the USA - and don't get me started on food. I never remember a memorable meal in all my time in the USA. passable, yes, but usually in the USA food means fuel. Even their recipes seems to involve throwing a can of Campbell's soup on some meat and baking it in the oven.They gave us McDonalds, KFC, Popeyes, Wendys, and Miller & Carter.OK, I'm being disingenious again, the first Miller & Carter's was opened by English pubco Mitchell & Butler in 2006 in Penn, Wolverhampton.\r\nBut steak houses are quite a thing in the US. In the UK you go to a pub after work. In the US if there is serious business to discuss you're off to a steak restaurant - when I lived in New York City I was often to be found at the city's most famous historic and classic steakhouses such as Keens and Gallaghers in Midtown Manhattan and Peter Luger's in Brooklyn.Smith & Wollensky has an outpost on The Strand in London, catering for homesick bankers and US tourists as far as I can tell, but have ventured no further. So it was up to Miller & Carter to take the great American steakhouse to the English provinces. I have previously eaten at a branch in Worle (look it up) and Cannock. It's worth noting that they have no branches in central London.\r\nThey have their quirks - they used to serve their steaks with a grilled lettuce segment and now serve something they call 'onion cake' and many of my friends and neighbours regard the joint (or should I say joints ? There are two in Reading and over 120 across the UK) as their favourite place to go.\r\nSo it was high time that they featured in these pages. In the past I never made it here due to the fact that LBS and Côte were in between and that steak restaurants are not my favourite foodstuff.\r\nLast weekend was G's sixtieth birthday, so a debrief was called for after a wonderful bash down at his gorgeous pile in Arborfield. Apparently we went through fifty bottles of champagne before we started to drink and eat. Dear me. He and his wife K are generous to a fault and, after all, you're only 60 once... He worked for his whole career for a major US corporation who produce much of the software you probably use and has travelled extensively in the US. Now that he is retired he still can't keep away and this was a sejourn before he headed off to the national parks of Utah and Idaho, provided the orange one hasn't turned them into oilfields by then.\r\nThe location of this branch is Oracle Riverside two doors down from Côte and in the bit eventually set for demolishing and redevelopment as flats. \r\nOutside it's dull - no pavement seating, which seems to be the very point of this rather glum location (many US steakhouses are based in in windowless 'lots' in my experience). Demolition and rebuilding might be for the best. Having an eating and drinking location by the canal might once upon a time have seen like a genius idea, but it has turned into a culvert that floods all too often and has none of the charm of the many lovely riverside locations which we have in our town. But the best Reading can do in its usual brutalist way is The Oracle Riverside and The Back Of Beyond Spoons. It's tragic that Bel & The Dragon closed down, The Island off Caversham Bridge has been empty for a decade and that the outlets in Huntley Wharf remain empty.\r\nAnd will someone please take on The Lower Old Ship Inn and turn it into the pub that this part of Reading really needs ? It is finally for sale as Geene King finally see some sense. But I suspect that finding a buyer in this current culinary climate will be tough.\r\nInside it's plush and luxurious as any steak restaurant world over should be. It's a large space with probably a hundred covers, but on a Friday lunchtime barely six people graced the place. Our waitress said that their Caversham outpost in the old Grosvenor pub was even quieter.\r\nWe sat by the window and tackled the various menus. One for cocktails and drinks. one for wines, one for food and the other for the lunchtime deal. I want the printing contract for Miller & Carter. There was me thinking that the internet was going to put printers out of business, but it seems restaurants seem obliged to visit large pieces of printed cards at you. Or maybe they just want to obscure you from your dining companions.\r\nThat said, they do a very generous lunchtime deal. A starter and main course for twenty quid and change, with a desert added for another four quid or so, which is what we settled on. The set menu features a decent choice of starters and just the right portions. Mushroom and cheese for G and the chicken bites for me.\r\n \r\n\r\nThe mushrooms had a decent depth of flavour and the Cheddar cheese on top was fine until it dried out. There were some small toasts on the side. It was passable.\r\nMy fried chicken pieces with a dipping sauce were surprisingly good. Crisp. well seasoned and sharp with a glaze and a tamarindy sweet chilli dip. \r\n\r\nWe could also have had calimari, a soup or a Cesar salad with avocado. Checking back on the menu when writing this it seems that some of the dishes have been changed with the current choice of calimari, spiced cauliflower, pork belly, burrata, the sticky chicken and baked camembert.\r\nWe had started off with a bottle of Albarino which was very decent - dry and slightly fruity.\r\nAs ever we were nattering away endlessly about conversations that we had already had and the characters I had met anew despite having been mates with G for over thirty years. Our attentive waitress hovered many times as we completed our course before we finally allowed her to clear the table. And this is where service in a restaurant falls down.\r\nAs soon as our starters were cleared, our mains arrived seconds later, barely warm.\r\nThe two small fillet stakes (at a £8 premium) had been clearly waiting on the pas for some time. I say small, but I did not eat all of mine. Both were medium rare and cooked bang on, if missing some caramelisation. Larger steaks are available as part of the deal for a £10 supplement - this is clever prix fixe marketing).\r\n\r\nThe weird onion bhaji loaf ( which apparently traces its American restaurant roots back to mid-20th-century Chicago-area establishments like Hackney's and the 1970s rise of the Tony Roma's BBQ chain) and a fried tomato were the accompaniments.\r\nYou can add a sauce for an ungenerous £3.95. I had peppercorn and G had bearnaise. Just watch that bill mount up. The lunchtime menu also offers burgers, cod, a risotto, half a chicken and BBQ ribs. All the foodstuffs.\r\nThe dishes come with either chips or a tomato salad sides. We shared. Both sides were generous, but the chips were soggy and pretty ug. The salad was fine - rocket, red onions and heritage tomatoes. By now we had moved on to a red Rhone - the Chateauneuf du Pape is decent value at just over £50.\r\nNow, I just can't get by that onion cake that is even more weird than the burnished lettuce they used to serve. It is a big greasy and unpleasant - onions obviously go well with beef, but this was just strange. I'll ask for it to be left off the plate next time.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nNow, since the dessert is included in the menu (OK, we paid four quid more for it), we both decided on the salted caramel profiteroles. In for a penny, in for twenty three pounds ninety five. They came with a sauce and a dipping sauce and were perfectly fine but the dough was totally covered in the topping. It just seemed like an afterthought from the freezer.\r\nIt was a nice meal. A good meal even. Just right for two old blokes in their sixties with a decent amount in their pensions and lots of things to discuss. I can see why so many of my neighbours like the place so much, but steak is something I left behind in the US - their corn oil-fed GM meat is amongst the many things I do not miss about the USA, but G will pack his suitcase and make up for that, no doubt.For myself, I would boycott Miller & Carter over that onion loaf alone, but boycotting Meta, recently proven to be damaging to our children's welfare as well as our pockets and shopping from UK retailers instead of Amazon might be a better, if inconvenient, place to start.\r\n ", "summary": "What did the USA ever do for us ? After a 60th birthday bash we review the Miller & Carter steak house at Oracle Riverside.", "date_published": "2026-09-01T09:30:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-08-31T08:57:18.355582+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Iolo Jones" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/89e03cb2.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog", "Food & Drink", "Oracle Riverside", "Reading", "Restaurant Reviews" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/89e03cb2.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "Iolo Jones", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Miller & Carter at Oracle Riverside", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1813, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
Let's discuss the US of A. It's a country where I have lived on both coasts, took a company public on NASDAQ and was even briefly married to a girl from Michigan. Yet today I believe that it is the biggest problem facing people in the UK. Forget the desparate economic refugees fleeing their collapsed and war torn countries for a better life on our hallowed shores on inflatable tyres, forget the EU and Brexit. No, our problem is that the UK is little more than a vassal state to the good ol' USA these days.
You want to advertise your local business to people in Reading ? Well, you'd better pay Google or Meta or NextDoor or Checkatrade (ah, sorry, they're Canadian owned..). If you want to sell or buy stuff, pay your Amazon or Etsy tax. And then everything you buy or sell involves another tax to US giants Mastercard or Visa. And then they go and stick tariffs on our goods and threaten to back the Argies over the Falklands because we won't partake in a stupid war they started and now can't finish.
Worse still is the cultural appropriation, with Halloween taking over from Bonfire Night and schoolkids going to 'proms' and sticking 'like' in between every other word.
\r\nYou see what I mean ? Odious orange leader aside, we have a problem with the USA - and don't get me started on food. I never remember a memorable meal in all my time in the USA. passable, yes, but usually in the USA food means fuel. Even their recipes seems to involve throwing a can of Campbell's soup on some meat and baking it in the oven.
They gave us McDonalds, KFC, Popeyes, Wendys, and Miller & Carter.
OK, I'm being disingenious again, the first Miller & Carter's was opened by English pubco Mitchell & Butler in 2006 in Penn, Wolverhampton.
But steak houses are quite a thing in the US. In the UK you go to a pub after work. In the US if there is serious business to discuss you're off to a steak restaurant - when I lived in New York City I was often to be found at the city's most famous historic and classic steakhouses such as Keens and Gallaghers in Midtown Manhattan and Peter Luger's in Brooklyn.
Smith & Wollensky has an outpost on The Strand in London, catering for homesick bankers and US tourists as far as I can tell, but have ventured no further. So it was up to Miller & Carter to take the great American steakhouse to the English provinces. I have previously eaten at a branch in Worle (look it up) and Cannock. It's worth noting that they have no branches in central London.
They have their quirks - they used to serve their steaks with a grilled lettuce segment and now serve something they call 'onion cake' and many of my friends and neighbours regard the joint (or should I say joints ? There are two in Reading and over 120 across the UK) as their favourite place to go.
\r\nSo it was high time that they featured in these pages. In the past I never made it here due to the fact that LBS and Côte were in between and that steak restaurants are not my favourite foodstuff.
\r\nLast weekend was G's sixtieth birthday, so a debrief was called for after a wonderful bash down at his gorgeous pile in Arborfield. Apparently we went through fifty bottles of champagne before we started to drink and eat. Dear me. He and his wife K are generous to a fault and, after all, you're only 60 once... He worked for his whole career for a major US corporation who produce much of the software you probably use and has travelled extensively in the US. Now that he is retired he still can't keep away and this was a sejourn before he headed off to the national parks of Utah and Idaho, provided the orange one hasn't turned them into oilfields by then.
\r\nThe location of this branch is Oracle Riverside two doors down from Côte and in the bit eventually set for demolishing and redevelopment as flats.
\r\nOutside it's dull - no pavement seating, which seems to be the very point of this rather glum location (many US steakhouses are based in in windowless 'lots' in my experience). Demolition and rebuilding might be for the best. Having an eating and drinking location by the canal might once upon a time have seen like a genius idea, but it has turned into a culvert that floods all too often and has none of the charm of the many lovely riverside locations which we have in our town. But the best Reading can do in its usual brutalist way is The Oracle Riverside and The Back Of Beyond Spoons. It's tragic that Bel & The Dragon closed down, The Island off Caversham Bridge has been empty for a decade and that the outlets in Huntley Wharf remain empty.
\r\nAnd will someone please take on The Lower Old Ship Inn and turn it into the pub that this part of Reading really needs ? It is finally for sale as Geene King finally see some sense. But I suspect that finding a buyer in this current culinary climate will be tough.
\r\nInside it's plush and luxurious as any steak restaurant world over should be. It's a large space with probably a hundred covers, but on a Friday lunchtime barely six people graced the place. Our waitress said that their Caversham outpost in the old Grosvenor pub was even quieter.
\r\nWe sat by the window and tackled the various menus. One for cocktails and drinks. one for wines, one for food and the other for the lunchtime deal. I want the printing contract for Miller & Carter. There was me thinking that the internet was going to put printers out of business, but it seems restaurants seem obliged to visit large pieces of printed cards at you. Or maybe they just want to obscure you from your dining companions.
\r\nThat said, they do a very generous lunchtime deal. A starter and main course for twenty quid and change, with a desert added for another four quid or so, which is what we settled on. The set menu features a decent choice of starters and just the right portions. Mushroom and cheese for G and the chicken bites for me.
\r\n\r\n
The mushrooms had a decent depth of flavour and the Cheddar cheese on top was fine until it dried out. There were some small toasts on the side. It was passable.
\r\nMy fried chicken pieces with a dipping sauce were surprisingly good. Crisp. well seasoned and sharp with a glaze and a tamarindy sweet chilli dip.
\r\n
We could also have had calimari, a soup or a Cesar salad with avocado. Checking back on the menu when writing this it seems that some of the dishes have been changed with the current choice of calimari, spiced cauliflower, pork belly, burrata, the sticky chicken and baked camembert.
\r\nWe had started off with a bottle of Albarino which was very decent - dry and slightly fruity.
\r\nAs ever we were nattering away endlessly about conversations that we had already had and the characters I had met anew despite having been mates with G for over thirty years. Our attentive waitress hovered many times as we completed our course before we finally allowed her to clear the table. And this is where service in a restaurant falls down.
\r\nAs soon as our starters were cleared, our mains arrived seconds later, barely warm.
\r\nThe two small fillet stakes (at a £8 premium) had been clearly waiting on the pas for some time. I say small, but I did not eat all of mine. Both were medium rare and cooked bang on, if missing some caramelisation. Larger steaks are available as part of the deal for a £10 supplement - this is clever prix fixe marketing).
\r\n
The weird onion bhaji loaf ( which apparently traces its American restaurant roots back to mid-20th-century Chicago-area establishments like Hackney's and the 1970s rise of the Tony Roma's BBQ chain) and a fried tomato were the accompaniments.
\r\nYou can add a sauce for an ungenerous £3.95. I had peppercorn and G had bearnaise. Just watch that bill mount up. The lunchtime menu also offers burgers, cod, a risotto, half a chicken and BBQ ribs. All the foodstuffs.
\r\nThe dishes come with either chips or a tomato salad sides. We shared. Both sides were generous, but the chips were soggy and pretty ug. The salad was fine - rocket, red onions and heritage tomatoes. By now we had moved on to a red Rhone - the Chateauneuf du Pape is decent value at just over £50.
\r\nNow, I just can't get by that onion cake that is even more weird than the burnished lettuce they used to serve. It is a big greasy and unpleasant - onions obviously go well with beef, but this was just strange. I'll ask for it to be left off the plate next time.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
Now, since the dessert is included in the menu (OK, we paid four quid more for it), we both decided on the salted caramel profiteroles. In for a penny, in for twenty three pounds ninety five. They came with a sauce and a dipping sauce and were perfectly fine but the dough was totally covered in the topping. It just seemed like an afterthought from the freezer.
\r\nIt was a nice meal. A good meal even. Just right for two old blokes in their sixties with a decent amount in their pensions and lots of things to discuss. I can see why so many of my neighbours like the place so much, but steak is something I left behind in the US - their corn oil-fed GM meat is amongst the many things I do not miss about the USA, but G will pack his suitcase and make up for that, no doubt.
For myself, I would boycott Miller & Carter over that onion loaf alone, but boycotting Meta, recently proven to be damaging to our children's welfare as well as our pockets and shopping from UK retailers instead of Amazon might be a better, if inconvenient, place to start.
", "description": "What did the USA ever do for us ? After a 60th birthday bash we review the Miller & Carter steak house at Oracle Riverside.", "dateModified": "2026-08-31T08:57:18.355582+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-09-01T09:30:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/dining-review-putting-miller-carter-at-oracle-riverside-to-the-test-after-a-milestone-birthday-bash/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "587", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/eating-out-in-reading-lebanese-village-in-caversham/", "title": "Lebanese Village in Caversham", "content_html": "
An almost full eclipse so my wife and I jumped onto the 18 bus, caught a swift drink at The Moderation and then went onto Caversham Bridge with our special solar eclipse glasses, which had cost some exorbitant amount online, to view the spectacle.
\r\nThere we met a friendly bunch of locals and visitors and shared our glasses amongst them. Some had come prepared with Blue Peter style pinhole contraptions and others were even less prepared and it turned out that this, not being a totally full eclipse, required the paraphernalia to appreciate the phenomenon fully.
\r\n\r\n
![\"PXL_20260812_181506287.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/3b9d5cfb.webp\")
\r\n
Without the glasses you could see little. It is amazing how much light 8% of the sun throws out.
\r\nAs the celestial bodies uncoupled and the crowd dispersed, we debated where to have dinner and I realised, to my horror, that I had never reviewed anywhere north of the river in this magazine. The neglect of Caversham is something that will be put right over coming months, but does show how unconnected this part of Reading seems to those of us living south of the river. Likewise, I remember the owner of one of the better restaurants on Caversham Bridge Road berating that she could not get the good people of Caversham to cross the bridge to her restaurant.
\r\nWhen I moved to London in the eighties I also lived 'south of the river', but once I moved north I rarely ventured to the other side of the Thames any more. Likewise, apart from Friday trips to Waitrosé to pick up their excellent sushi or to visit my lawyer, trips to Caversham are erroneously lacking in my life. Now that the summer is here, I think it is time to stretch my legs some more and, wonders of wonders, walk to the north bank of the Thames far more often. The Thames corridor between town and village is, after all, one of the most delightful parts of our conurbation.
\r\nSo, we wandered north, up to Church St, passing the new Pathaan's Afghan and Pakistani Cuisine that has taken over from the Persian Palace and settled on Lebanese Village next door.
\r\n\r\n
![\"lebanese](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/b7753448.webp\")
\r\n
It is situated in a narrow room which goes on for some way. It was busy when we walked in and more and more groups came in all evening. Sitting beside us were some ex BBC Caversham employees, one of whom had worked for the Persian Service, which I took as a good indication that we had made the right choice.
\r\nThe menu is, as you would expect, basically mezze and grilled meats with a few fish and specials. You can have set menus, but they are always too much, and, as it turned out, what we did order was good for the following day's lunch. The quantities are generous.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260812_185333281.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/6a714a44.webp\")
\r\n
To start, we had the borek and felafel, followed by the mixed grill for two. The borek were what the Turks would call sigari - long and round, crispy and with mild goat's cheese and some dill inside. They came with an overly sharp and slightly thin yoghurty dip. This is amongst my wife's favourite dishes and she's not big on dips anyway, so declared them excellent.
\r\n\r\n
![\"PXL_20260812_185347593.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/18778d5f.webp\")
\r\n
However, the felafel were like none I have ever tasted before. Very crispy on the outside but stodgy in the middle and sprinkled with sesame seeds. My wife literally commented that they did not taste like any falafel she has ever had, and she is almost a pro at them - as regular readers will know, we are not long back from the spiritual home of these balls of goodness in Cairo. These were rightly made with broad beans not just chickpeas, with a lot of herbs and some spicing, but were a bit wet in the middle for my liking. They grew on my wife, but when we tried them again the following day we concluded that they were pretty horrible and not to be tasted again.
\r\nThey were served with hummus which was good but a bit bland and I would have preferred a more tahini orientated dip by choice.
\r\nThe main course came on a large sharing platter with a mixed salad with sumac dressing, some spicy rice and peas which was a little overcooked for my liking and some excellent grilled meats.
\r\n\r\n
![\"PXL_20260812_190620195.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/1b65bede.webp\")
\r\n
The lamb chops and kofta were particularly good, but I was increasingly thinking that there was something odd about this meal, and not necessarily in a bad way. It somehow tasted more like a similar menu from Pakistan. I am used to vermicelli pilaf with Lebanese food, the served rice was more like something from the Punjab with turmeric and peas. The chilli sauce was good if a bit mild. The yoghurt sauce was gloopy like shop mayonnaise and I didn't like it. This was not a Lebanese restaurant like any I had been to before and I was beginning to wonder if there was a revolving door with the Afghan and Pakistani restaurant next door.
\r\nHowever, the buzzy crowd seemed to be enjoying their food tremendously and it was great to see a small indie restaurant in Reading so busy.
\r\nWe shared a bottle of Domaine des Tourelles - a nice dry Lebanese rosé. The wine list is short and very good value for money. Indeed, the whole menu is very reasonably priced. Most starters are seven to eight quid. Main courses are largely under twenty pounds and a bottle of wine is around thirty pounds.
\r\nI'm not sure how this more rustic take on Lebanese food compares to Hala or Lebanese Flavours. Certainly the meat is a tad better here, but I prefer the mezze, rice and sauces from the other local Lebanese.
\r\nAnd none stand up to Yaprak in Woodley and its Turkish cuisine. The reality is that there is not much differentiation in the food from Bulgaria via Greece, Turkey and Lebanon to Afghanistan and Pakistan (with the exception of the rather more unique Persian cuisine). I suspect we would have seen a very similar menu two doors up at Pathaan's, even without any interconnecting doors. It is a shame that there are not more variations on the usual mezze, rice and grilled meats since there are more nuances to these cuisines and some strong regional traditions beyond the familiar, but they are clearly cooking for a regular local crowd who truly appreciate their food and hospitality. Just as Indian and Chinese restaurants and English pubs are expected to serve their 'greatest hits', so it is with Middle Eastern restaurants.
\r\nIf Lebanese Village was a bit closer it may well be a regular haunt, and if you live in Caversham, or have cause (heaven forbid..) to cross Caversham Bridge, then it is well worth dropping in. For me, it will have to wait for the next eclipse because on future visits I have many more restaurants and cafes to explore now that I have finally ventured north of the river.
\r\nAn almost full eclipse so my wife and I jumped onto the 18 bus, caught a swift drink at The Moderation and then went onto Caversham Bridge with our special solar eclipse glasses, which had cost some exorbitant amount online, to view the spectacle.
\r\nThere we met a friendly bunch of locals and visitors and shared our glasses amongst them. Some had come prepared with Blue Peter style pinhole contraptions and others were even less prepared and it turned out that this, not being a totally full eclipse, required the paraphernalia to appreciate the phenomenon fully.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
Without the glasses you could see little. It is amazing how much light 8% of the sun throws out.
\r\nAs the celestial bodies uncoupled and the crowd dispersed, we debated where to have dinner and I realised, to my horror, that I had never reviewed anywhere north of the river in this magazine. The neglect of Caversham is something that will be put right over coming months, but does show how unconnected this part of Reading seems to those of us living south of the river. Likewise, I remember the owner of one of the better restaurants on Caversham Bridge Road berating that she could not get the good people of Caversham to cross the bridge to her restaurant.
\r\nWhen I moved to London in the eighties I also lived 'south of the river', but once I moved north I rarely ventured to the other side of the Thames any more. Likewise, apart from Friday trips to Waitrosé to pick up their excellent sushi or to visit my lawyer, trips to Caversham are erroneously lacking in my life. Now that the summer is here, I think it is time to stretch my legs some more and, wonders of wonders, walk to the north bank of the Thames far more often. The Thames corridor between town and village is, after all, one of the most delightful parts of our conurbation.
\r\nSo, we wandered north, up to Church St, passing the new Pathaan's Afghan and Pakistani Cuisine that has taken over from the Persian Palace and settled on Lebanese Village next door.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
It is situated in a narrow room which goes on for some way. It was busy when we walked in and more and more groups came in all evening. Sitting beside us were some ex BBC Caversham employees, one of whom had worked for the Persian Service, which I took as a good indication that we had made the right choice.
\r\nThe menu is, as you would expect, basically mezze and grilled meats with a few fish and specials. You can have set menus, but they are always too much, and, as it turned out, what we did order was good for the following day's lunch. The quantities are generous.
\r\n
\r\n
To start, we had the borek and felafel, followed by the mixed grill for two. The borek were what the Turks would call sigari - long and round, crispy and with mild goat's cheese and some dill inside. They came with an overly sharp and slightly thin yoghurty dip. This is amongst my wife's favourite dishes and she's not big on dips anyway, so declared them excellent.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
However, the felafel were like none I have ever tasted before. Very crispy on the outside but stodgy in the middle and sprinkled with sesame seeds. My wife literally commented that they did not taste like any falafel she has ever had, and she is almost a pro at them - as regular readers will know, we are not long back from the spiritual home of these balls of goodness in Cairo. These were rightly made with broad beans not just chickpeas, with a lot of herbs and some spicing, but were a bit wet in the middle for my liking. They grew on my wife, but when we tried them again the following day we concluded that they were pretty horrible and not to be tasted again.
\r\nThey were served with hummus which was good but a bit bland and I would have preferred a more tahini orientated dip by choice.
\r\nThe main course came on a large sharing platter with a mixed salad with sumac dressing, some spicy rice and peas which was a little overcooked for my liking and some excellent grilled meats.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
The lamb chops and kofta were particularly good, but I was increasingly thinking that there was something odd about this meal, and not necessarily in a bad way. It somehow tasted more like a similar menu from Pakistan. I am used to vermicelli pilaf with Lebanese food, the served rice was more like something from the Punjab with turmeric and peas. The chilli sauce was good if a bit mild. The yoghurt sauce was gloopy like shop mayonnaise and I didn't like it. This was not a Lebanese restaurant like any I had been to before and I was beginning to wonder if there was a revolving door with the Afghan and Pakistani restaurant next door.
\r\nHowever, the buzzy crowd seemed to be enjoying their food tremendously and it was great to see a small indie restaurant in Reading so busy.
\r\nWe shared a bottle of Domaine des Tourelles - a nice dry Lebanese rosé. The wine list is short and very good value for money. Indeed, the whole menu is very reasonably priced. Most starters are seven to eight quid. Main courses are largely under twenty pounds and a bottle of wine is around thirty pounds.
\r\nI'm not sure how this more rustic take on Lebanese food compares to Hala or Lebanese Flavours. Certainly the meat is a tad better here, but I prefer the mezze, rice and sauces from the other local Lebanese.
\r\nAnd none stand up to Yaprak in Woodley and its Turkish cuisine. The reality is that there is not much differentiation in the food from Bulgaria via Greece, Turkey and Lebanon to Afghanistan and Pakistan (with the exception of the rather more unique Persian cuisine). I suspect we would have seen a very similar menu two doors up at Pathaan's, even without any interconnecting doors. It is a shame that there are not more variations on the usual mezze, rice and grilled meats since there are more nuances to these cuisines and some strong regional traditions beyond the familiar, but they are clearly cooking for a regular local crowd who truly appreciate their food and hospitality. Just as Indian and Chinese restaurants and English pubs are expected to serve their 'greatest hits', so it is with Middle Eastern restaurants.
\r\nIf Lebanese Village was a bit closer it may well be a regular haunt, and if you live in Caversham, or have cause (heaven forbid..) to cross Caversham Bridge, then it is well worth dropping in. For me, it will have to wait for the next eclipse because on future visits I have many more restaurants and cafes to explore now that I have finally ventured north of the river.
\r\nOver the centuries, the town of Reading has transformed from a site of severe state-sponsored persecution into a vibrant epicenter of modern LGBTQ+ visibility, advocacy, and cultural preservation. To understand this evolution, one must examine the physical spaces that witnessed both profound oppression and resilient community-building, tracing the path from the bleak cells of the 19th century to the open parades of the 21st century.
\r\nThe defining 19th-century chapter of LGBTQ+ history in Reading centers undeniably on Reading Gaol, situated prominently on the corner of the IDR at Forbury Road. Built in the mid-19th century on the site of a former reading abbey, the prison became a grim symbol of Victorian moral policing.
\r\nThe most famous inmate associated with this imposing structure was the celebrated Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. Following his high-profile conviction for gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, Wilde was transferred to Reading Gaol on November 20, 1895.
\r\nRegistered strictly as Prisoner C.3.3., denoting Cell 3 on the third floor of C-wing, Wilde endured an agonizing 18 months characterized by a rigid regime of hard labor, silent isolation, and psychological torment.
\r\nDespite the brutal conditions of his imprisonment, Wilde's time in Reading Gaol catalyzed a profound creative output that would influence generations of writers and social critics.
\r\nHis harrowing experiences inside the prison walls directly produced two of his most enduring and haunting works. The first was De Profundis, a long, emotionally raw letter addressed to his former lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, which reflected on suffering, art, and spirituality. The second was The Ballad of Reading Gaol, published in 1898 under his prison identifier, C.3.3. This epic poem exposed the merciless realities of the Victorian penal system, particularly capital punishment and the psychological destruction wrought by isolation, bringing international attention to the inhumane conditions endured by inmates. (Ironically, it was only through the compassion of the prison governor that he had access to pens and paper at all.)
\r\nWilde was not an isolated case in Reading Gaol - he was an unusually conspicuous one. Peter Stoneley's work on the prison's own registers found at least three young men, two labourers and a sailor, already serving sentences for buggery and \"indecent acts with another male person\" in 1893–94, two years before Wilde arrived in November 1895; Albert Kipping was inside for buggery during Wilde's own term, and was released early on petition, a mercy Wilde never received. The wider Berkshire record, recovered by the National Lottery–funded Broken Futures project from Reading Borough Quarter Sessions (1836–1969), the Berkshire Assizes after-trial calendars (1854–1930) and Reading Prison's admission registers and prisoner photograph albums (1889–1920), runs \"from the poorest agricultural labourer to the landed gentry\": two young men from Ruscombe, aged 17 and 24, charged with buggery at the 1885 Assizes and saved only by a grand jury's \"No Bill\"; a barman turned insurance agent who drew six weeks' hard labour in 1901 and nine months in 1913; a curate born in 1866 tried at the Autumn Assizes of November 1905; a timber dealer indicted on seventeen counts in 1918 and given twelve months. These men were charged under the same overlapping statutes as Wilde, but they left no De Profundis, and most of them survive today only as a line in a calendar of prisoners and a face in a police photograph album at the Royal Berkshire Archives.
\r\nMoving forward into the mid-to-late 20th century, the landscape of queer social life in Reading began to shift away from hidden danger toward clandestine solidarity. Before any meaningful legal reform took place, queer social existence operated through informal networks and discreet, hidden spaces. Following the partial decriminalization of male homosexuality in England and Wales via the Sexual Offences Act of 1967, dedicated social venues and early support groups began to slowly emerge from the shadows. However, decriminalization did not instantly translate into social safety or acceptance, forcing communities to rely heavily on local geography to carve out safe havens.
\r\nDuring the turbulent decades of the 1970s and 1980s, local venues—often discreetly tucked away near the historic town centre or along the meandering banks of the River Kennet—offered vital, safe gathering spots for gay men and lesbians seeking community. Grassroots organizing took root during this period as well. Groups such as the Berkshire Gay and Bisexual Men’s Group, alongside various autonomous women's networks, began organizing local potluck dinners, consciousness-raising circles, and informal support networks. These early pioneers laid the crucial organisational groundwork necessary for future political mobilization and community infrastructure across the Berkshire region.
\r\n![\"wynford](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/4bbed20e.webp\")
A monumental turning point for Reading's visible queer community arrived in October 1992, when landlord Simon Hallam opened The Wynford Arms on Kings Road. Affectionately known by locals as The Wynnie, this establishment became Reading's first dedicated, full-time gay pub. For over two decades, The Wynnie served as the indisputable anchor of the town's LGBTQ+ social life. It was far more than a mere drinking establishment; it functioned as a vital community center hosting charity fundraisers, political meetings, and early organisational efforts for regional Pride celebrations. Until its unfortunate closure in May 2015 and conversion by owners Heineken into 'The Thirsty Bear', The Wynford Arms provided a welcoming sanctuary for generations of local residents navigating their identities in a changing world.
\r\nThe recently closed Blagrave Arms on Blagrave Street, situated conveniently near Reading station, also evolved into a major pillar of the local queer community. Maintaining an inclusive, welcoming environment, The Blagrave Arms became renowned for hosting vibrant social events, lively drag entertainment, and fostering intergenerational connections among community members. These pubs were critical lifeboats, offering spaces where queer individuals could socialize openly without fear of immediate ejection or harassment, thereby anchoring the social geography of Reading's town centre for decades.
\r\nDecriminalisation in 1967 did not close the pattern the Berkshire calendars record. Recorded homosexual offences in England and Wales stood at 5,027 in the year of the Sexual Offences Act and were still 4,781 in 1971 — and since consenting adults in private had by then been removed from the count altogether, the historian John-Pierre Joyce reads those figures not as a decline in policing but as its 'redirection'.
\r\nWhat eventually broke the silence in Reading was ironically not the law but the AIDS epidemic. Reading Area AIDS Support was formed in 1985, the same year an AIDS Support Group appeared in the Slough and Windsor area, running an AIDSLINE telephone helpline, a hardship fund and a volunteer \"buddy\" scheme; in 1986 RAAS volunteers launched Reading Body Positive with four HIV-positive clients, and in 1987 — the year the government posted Don't Die of Ignorance through every letterbox in the country — the strands were drawn together as the Thames Valley AIDS Network, which merged in 1990 to become Thames Valley Positive Support.
\r\nReading was among the first councils in Britain to employ an HIV support officer. What started as a helpline in borrowed rooms had a lottery-funded drop-in centre by 1999 and the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service by 2013. The same decades built a public life to go with the private one: Reading Pride, founded in 2003, first filled King's Meadow on 4 September 2004 with some 6,000 people, added a parade in 2007 and drew more than 13,000 in 2022.
\r\nThe dawn of the 2000s marked a decisive transition from private social circles and discreet pub culture to visible, organized public advocacy across the Thames Valley.
\r\nThis era of modern activism saw the establishment of enduring institutions. Chief among these was Reading Pride, which was co-founded in 2003 by dedicated local activists including Lorna McArdle and Leslee Hopper. Driven by a desire to foster community pride and demand civic visibility, the organizing committee held its inaugural festival on September 4, 2004, at King's Meadow. Notably, it was established as one of the first completely free town-level Pride events in the entire United Kingdom, ensuring barrier-free access for everyone regardless of economic status.
\r\n\r\n
![\"reading](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/6b0bc13d.webp\")
\r\n
The momentum of Reading Pride continued to surge throughout its formative years. In 2007, the festival introduced a formal parade winding directly through the town centre, a milestone that significantly raised the public profile of the local LGBTQ+ community. This inaugural parade was marshaled in partnership with The Wynford Arms, cementing the deep synergy between Reading's commercial social spaces and its activist vanguards. The parade saw Reading transformed from a place of historical repression and punishment into celebratory avenues of community strength, political expression, and joyful solidarity.
\r\nAs the community's needs expanded beyond annual celebrations, grassroots organizers recognized critical gaps in local health and social support services. To address this urgent need, Lorna McArdle teamed up with Andrew Stonehill-Brooks in 2010 to found Support U. This groundbreaking organisation established a dedicated Resource Centre right in the heart of Reading, designed to provide comprehensive professional services tailored to the LGBTQ+ population. Support U offered confidential counseling, specialized hate-crime reporting support, and essential sexual health guidance across the entire Berkshire region, bridging a vital gap in statutory health and welfare provision.
\r\nThe organisational ecosystem continued to diversify in the mid-2010s to ensure that marginalized voices within the broader queer umbrella received dedicated attention. In 2015, activists Christina Dearlove and Kerry Kleis launched MyUmbrella LGBT+ initially as a specialized subgroup within Reading Pride. MyUmbrella was specifically created to raise awareness, provide tailored resources, and build community for lesser-represented and intersectional identities within the queer spectrum, including asexual, aromantic, genderqueer, non-binary, and transgender individuals. This initiative ensured that Reading's modern advocacy remained fiercely inclusive and responsive to the evolving language of gender and sexual diversity.
\r\nAnd in 2022 the town finally acquired what it had never given the men in the prison registers — somewhere to grieve: a cherry tree in Christchurch Meadows, planted as a living memorial and unveiled by Councillor Rachel Eden. When TVPS marked its fortieth year, six panels of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt — a quilt that names 384 dead, first unveiled in Hyde Park in 1994 — hung in the University of Reading Students' Union, not so far from the gaol where the state had once done its remembering in registers.
\r\n![\"Banksy](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/01522d58.webp\")
In recent years, the physical landmarks of Reading's queer history have become sites of intense public art, heritage preservation, and political campaigning. No site embodies this more than the disused Reading Gaol, which has remained a focal point for intense debate regarding its future use. In March 2021, the world-renowned street artist Banksy made international headlines when he painted a mural on the outer brick wall of the abandoned prison. Entitled Create Escape, the mural depicts a prisoner—widely interpreted as a representation of Oscar Wilde—escaping from the facility using a makeshift rope woven from bedsheets tied securely to a typewriter.
\r\nBanksy’s mural served as a brilliant visual synthesis of Reading's complex history, explicitly honoring Oscar Wilde’s enduring literary legacy while injecting massive global momentum into local campaign efforts. Activists, heritage groups, and local politicians rallied around the artwork to demand that the historic Victorian prison be transformed into a permanent arts, cultural, and heritage centre rather than being sold off for commercial development. The campaign linked the physical preservation of the prison with the honoring of its queer past, illustrating how local architecture can become a powerful canvas for historical reckoning and community aspiration, but was ultimately unsuccessful with the building still laying moribund in the hands of its new Chinese owners.
\r\nReflecting further on the regional history of public spaces in Reading, it is vital to acknowledge the darker chapters of prejudice and violence that have also marked the town's parks and open spaces. Public parks, while functioning as vital recreational areas, have historically been sites of vulnerability for marginalized populations. Although not specifically targeted, three members of the local LGBTQ+ community were murdered in Forbury Park on 20th June 2020 by a mentally challenged asylum seeker. A memorial to them now stands in the gardens.
\r\n\r\n
![\"Memorial_to_2020_terrorist_attack_2023-07-23_14.51.20.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/f7b00a7c.webp\")
The legacy of anti-queer hostility in the region serves as a somber reminder of the dangers faced by generations of men and women who sought intimacy and community in public domains.
The history of Pride movements in Reading also mirrors the broader nationwide trajectory of LGBTQ+ rights in the United Kingdom. From the early clandestine meetings in 1970s drawing rooms and riverside spots to the establishment of permanent pubs like The Wynford Arms and The Blagrave Arms, and onward to the massive multi-thousand-strong festivals at King's Meadow managed by organisations like Support U and MyUmbrella, Reading has consistently punched above its weight in community organisation. The transition from survival to celebration required immense courage from generations of local residents who refused to be erased by oppressive legal frameworks.
\r\nUltimately, Reading’s queer history is a testament to the resilience of grassroots organizing in the face of systemic adversity and misinformed social hostility. From the isolated suffering of Prisoner C.3.3. in his Victorian cell to the colorful, vibrant marches through the town centre, the narrative of LGBTQ+ Reading is etched into the very bricks and mortar of its local landmarks.
It's sad to conclude that now, once more, in 2026, there are new and old battles to be fought as the political rhetoric turns to mistrust and ignorance.
The 2026 Reading Pride Love Unites Parade takes place on Saturday, September 5, 2026, starting with assembly at 10:30 AM and setting off from outside Reading Station at 11:00 AM.
Over the centuries, the town of Reading has transformed from a site of severe state-sponsored persecution into a vibrant epicenter of modern LGBTQ+ visibility, advocacy, and cultural preservation. To understand this evolution, one must examine the physical spaces that witnessed both profound oppression and resilient community-building, tracing the path from the bleak cells of the 19th century to the open parades of the 21st century.
\r\nThe defining 19th-century chapter of LGBTQ+ history in Reading centers undeniably on Reading Gaol, situated prominently on the corner of the IDR at Forbury Road. Built in the mid-19th century on the site of a former reading abbey, the prison became a grim symbol of Victorian moral policing.
\r\nThe most famous inmate associated with this imposing structure was the celebrated Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. Following his high-profile conviction for gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, Wilde was transferred to Reading Gaol on November 20, 1895.
\r\nRegistered strictly as Prisoner C.3.3., denoting Cell 3 on the third floor of C-wing, Wilde endured an agonizing 18 months characterized by a rigid regime of hard labor, silent isolation, and psychological torment.
\r\nDespite the brutal conditions of his imprisonment, Wilde's time in Reading Gaol catalyzed a profound creative output that would influence generations of writers and social critics.
\r\nHis harrowing experiences inside the prison walls directly produced two of his most enduring and haunting works. The first was De Profundis, a long, emotionally raw letter addressed to his former lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, which reflected on suffering, art, and spirituality. The second was The Ballad of Reading Gaol, published in 1898 under his prison identifier, C.3.3. This epic poem exposed the merciless realities of the Victorian penal system, particularly capital punishment and the psychological destruction wrought by isolation, bringing international attention to the inhumane conditions endured by inmates. (Ironically, it was only through the compassion of the prison governor that he had access to pens and paper at all.)
\r\nWilde was not an isolated case in Reading Gaol - he was an unusually conspicuous one. Peter Stoneley's work on the prison's own registers found at least three young men, two labourers and a sailor, already serving sentences for buggery and \"indecent acts with another male person\" in 1893–94, two years before Wilde arrived in November 1895; Albert Kipping was inside for buggery during Wilde's own term, and was released early on petition, a mercy Wilde never received. The wider Berkshire record, recovered by the National Lottery–funded Broken Futures project from Reading Borough Quarter Sessions (1836–1969), the Berkshire Assizes after-trial calendars (1854–1930) and Reading Prison's admission registers and prisoner photograph albums (1889–1920), runs \"from the poorest agricultural labourer to the landed gentry\": two young men from Ruscombe, aged 17 and 24, charged with buggery at the 1885 Assizes and saved only by a grand jury's \"No Bill\"; a barman turned insurance agent who drew six weeks' hard labour in 1901 and nine months in 1913; a curate born in 1866 tried at the Autumn Assizes of November 1905; a timber dealer indicted on seventeen counts in 1918 and given twelve months. These men were charged under the same overlapping statutes as Wilde, but they left no De Profundis, and most of them survive today only as a line in a calendar of prisoners and a face in a police photograph album at the Royal Berkshire Archives.
\r\nMoving forward into the mid-to-late 20th century, the landscape of queer social life in Reading began to shift away from hidden danger toward clandestine solidarity. Before any meaningful legal reform took place, queer social existence operated through informal networks and discreet, hidden spaces. Following the partial decriminalization of male homosexuality in England and Wales via the Sexual Offences Act of 1967, dedicated social venues and early support groups began to slowly emerge from the shadows. However, decriminalization did not instantly translate into social safety or acceptance, forcing communities to rely heavily on local geography to carve out safe havens.
\r\nDuring the turbulent decades of the 1970s and 1980s, local venues—often discreetly tucked away near the historic town centre or along the meandering banks of the River Kennet—offered vital, safe gathering spots for gay men and lesbians seeking community. Grassroots organizing took root during this period as well. Groups such as the Berkshire Gay and Bisexual Men’s Group, alongside various autonomous women's networks, began organizing local potluck dinners, consciousness-raising circles, and informal support networks. These early pioneers laid the crucial organisational groundwork necessary for future political mobilization and community infrastructure across the Berkshire region.
\r\n
A monumental turning point for Reading's visible queer community arrived in October 1992, when landlord Simon Hallam opened The Wynford Arms on Kings Road. Affectionately known by locals as The Wynnie, this establishment became Reading's first dedicated, full-time gay pub. For over two decades, The Wynnie served as the indisputable anchor of the town's LGBTQ+ social life. It was far more than a mere drinking establishment; it functioned as a vital community center hosting charity fundraisers, political meetings, and early organisational efforts for regional Pride celebrations. Until its unfortunate closure in May 2015 and conversion by owners Heineken into 'The Thirsty Bear', The Wynford Arms provided a welcoming sanctuary for generations of local residents navigating their identities in a changing world.
\r\nThe recently closed Blagrave Arms on Blagrave Street, situated conveniently near Reading station, also evolved into a major pillar of the local queer community. Maintaining an inclusive, welcoming environment, The Blagrave Arms became renowned for hosting vibrant social events, lively drag entertainment, and fostering intergenerational connections among community members. These pubs were critical lifeboats, offering spaces where queer individuals could socialize openly without fear of immediate ejection or harassment, thereby anchoring the social geography of Reading's town centre for decades.
\r\nDecriminalisation in 1967 did not close the pattern the Berkshire calendars record. Recorded homosexual offences in England and Wales stood at 5,027 in the year of the Sexual Offences Act and were still 4,781 in 1971 — and since consenting adults in private had by then been removed from the count altogether, the historian John-Pierre Joyce reads those figures not as a decline in policing but as its 'redirection'.
\r\nWhat eventually broke the silence in Reading was ironically not the law but the AIDS epidemic. Reading Area AIDS Support was formed in 1985, the same year an AIDS Support Group appeared in the Slough and Windsor area, running an AIDSLINE telephone helpline, a hardship fund and a volunteer \"buddy\" scheme; in 1986 RAAS volunteers launched Reading Body Positive with four HIV-positive clients, and in 1987 — the year the government posted Don't Die of Ignorance through every letterbox in the country — the strands were drawn together as the Thames Valley AIDS Network, which merged in 1990 to become Thames Valley Positive Support.
\r\nReading was among the first councils in Britain to employ an HIV support officer. What started as a helpline in borrowed rooms had a lottery-funded drop-in centre by 1999 and the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service by 2013. The same decades built a public life to go with the private one: Reading Pride, founded in 2003, first filled King's Meadow on 4 September 2004 with some 6,000 people, added a parade in 2007 and drew more than 13,000 in 2022.
\r\nThe dawn of the 2000s marked a decisive transition from private social circles and discreet pub culture to visible, organized public advocacy across the Thames Valley.
\r\nThis era of modern activism saw the establishment of enduring institutions. Chief among these was Reading Pride, which was co-founded in 2003 by dedicated local activists including Lorna McArdle and Leslee Hopper. Driven by a desire to foster community pride and demand civic visibility, the organizing committee held its inaugural festival on September 4, 2004, at King's Meadow. Notably, it was established as one of the first completely free town-level Pride events in the entire United Kingdom, ensuring barrier-free access for everyone regardless of economic status.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
The momentum of Reading Pride continued to surge throughout its formative years. In 2007, the festival introduced a formal parade winding directly through the town centre, a milestone that significantly raised the public profile of the local LGBTQ+ community. This inaugural parade was marshaled in partnership with The Wynford Arms, cementing the deep synergy between Reading's commercial social spaces and its activist vanguards. The parade saw Reading transformed from a place of historical repression and punishment into celebratory avenues of community strength, political expression, and joyful solidarity.
\r\nAs the community's needs expanded beyond annual celebrations, grassroots organizers recognized critical gaps in local health and social support services. To address this urgent need, Lorna McArdle teamed up with Andrew Stonehill-Brooks in 2010 to found Support U. This groundbreaking organisation established a dedicated Resource Centre right in the heart of Reading, designed to provide comprehensive professional services tailored to the LGBTQ+ population. Support U offered confidential counseling, specialized hate-crime reporting support, and essential sexual health guidance across the entire Berkshire region, bridging a vital gap in statutory health and welfare provision.
\r\nThe organisational ecosystem continued to diversify in the mid-2010s to ensure that marginalized voices within the broader queer umbrella received dedicated attention. In 2015, activists Christina Dearlove and Kerry Kleis launched MyUmbrella LGBT+ initially as a specialized subgroup within Reading Pride. MyUmbrella was specifically created to raise awareness, provide tailored resources, and build community for lesser-represented and intersectional identities within the queer spectrum, including asexual, aromantic, genderqueer, non-binary, and transgender individuals. This initiative ensured that Reading's modern advocacy remained fiercely inclusive and responsive to the evolving language of gender and sexual diversity.
\r\nAnd in 2022 the town finally acquired what it had never given the men in the prison registers — somewhere to grieve: a cherry tree in Christchurch Meadows, planted as a living memorial and unveiled by Councillor Rachel Eden. When TVPS marked its fortieth year, six panels of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt — a quilt that names 384 dead, first unveiled in Hyde Park in 1994 — hung in the University of Reading Students' Union, not so far from the gaol where the state had once done its remembering in registers.
\r\n
In recent years, the physical landmarks of Reading's queer history have become sites of intense public art, heritage preservation, and political campaigning. No site embodies this more than the disused Reading Gaol, which has remained a focal point for intense debate regarding its future use. In March 2021, the world-renowned street artist Banksy made international headlines when he painted a mural on the outer brick wall of the abandoned prison. Entitled Create Escape, the mural depicts a prisoner—widely interpreted as a representation of Oscar Wilde—escaping from the facility using a makeshift rope woven from bedsheets tied securely to a typewriter.
\r\nBanksy’s mural served as a brilliant visual synthesis of Reading's complex history, explicitly honoring Oscar Wilde’s enduring literary legacy while injecting massive global momentum into local campaign efforts. Activists, heritage groups, and local politicians rallied around the artwork to demand that the historic Victorian prison be transformed into a permanent arts, cultural, and heritage centre rather than being sold off for commercial development. The campaign linked the physical preservation of the prison with the honoring of its queer past, illustrating how local architecture can become a powerful canvas for historical reckoning and community aspiration, but was ultimately unsuccessful with the building still laying moribund in the hands of its new Chinese owners.
\r\nReflecting further on the regional history of public spaces in Reading, it is vital to acknowledge the darker chapters of prejudice and violence that have also marked the town's parks and open spaces. Public parks, while functioning as vital recreational areas, have historically been sites of vulnerability for marginalized populations. Although not specifically targeted, three members of the local LGBTQ+ community were murdered in Forbury Park on 20th June 2020 by a mentally challenged asylum seeker. A memorial to them now stands in the gardens.
\r\n\r\n
The legacy of anti-queer hostility in the region serves as a somber reminder of the dangers faced by generations of men and women who sought intimacy and community in public domains.
The history of Pride movements in Reading also mirrors the broader nationwide trajectory of LGBTQ+ rights in the United Kingdom. From the early clandestine meetings in 1970s drawing rooms and riverside spots to the establishment of permanent pubs like The Wynford Arms and The Blagrave Arms, and onward to the massive multi-thousand-strong festivals at King's Meadow managed by organisations like Support U and MyUmbrella, Reading has consistently punched above its weight in community organisation. The transition from survival to celebration required immense courage from generations of local residents who refused to be erased by oppressive legal frameworks.
\r\nUltimately, Reading’s queer history is a testament to the resilience of grassroots organizing in the face of systemic adversity and misinformed social hostility. From the isolated suffering of Prisoner C.3.3. in his Victorian cell to the colorful, vibrant marches through the town centre, the narrative of LGBTQ+ Reading is etched into the very bricks and mortar of its local landmarks.
It's sad to conclude that now, once more, in 2026, there are new and old battles to be fought as the political rhetoric turns to mistrust and ignorance.
The 2026 Reading Pride Love Unites Parade takes place on Saturday, September 5, 2026, starting with assembly at 10:30 AM and setting off from outside Reading Station at 11:00 AM.
To many in Reading, Caversham is another place. Divided from the centre of town by the River Thames, its resident certainly see themselves as apart. But it is not homogenous - Lower Caversham and its terraced housing has more in common with other parts of Reading, whilst Upper Caversham seems contiguous with the leafy, prosperous villages of Southern Oxfordshire.
\r\nStill, Caversham possesses a distinct, fiercely independent identity that even predates the founding of Reading itself by centuries, from Anglo-Saxon roots, medieval religious upheaval, Civil War sieges, Victorian industrial expansion, and a controversial 20th-century political merger that forever bound its fate to the town across the water.
\r\nCaversham's origins stretch back into the Anglo-Saxon era - indeed, the very name Caversham offers a linguistic clue to its past. Etymologically, it is believed to derive from the Old English 'Cofres ham', meaning the homestead or settlement of a man named Cofre. Long before the Domesday Book cataloged the realm for William the Conqueror in 1086, people had recognized the strategic and agricultural advantages of this pocket of land between a Chiltern escarpment and the Thames. The river was both a barrier and a highway, and the location of a natural crossing point or early ford made it an attractive spot for early agrarian communities to establish roots.
\r\nDomesday Book Entries and Early Feudal Life
\r\nWhen the Domesday Book surveyed England in the late eleventh century, Caversham was recorded as 'Cahersham'. At the time, it was held by Walter Gautier Giffard, Lord of Longueville, a Norman baron and a Christian knight who fought against the Saracens in Spain during the Reconquista and was one of the 15 or so known companions of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He was rewarded for his loyalty with vast estates across the country, including Cahersham.
\r\nThe Domesday entry details a thriving rural settlement comprising agricultural land, woodland, and fisheries on the Thames, which were immensely valuable commodities for feeding local populations and generating trade. Life in medieval Caversham revolved heavily around the soil, the seasonal patterns of farming, and the spiritual oversight of the church. The community was small, tightly knit, and inextricably linked to the feudal structures that governed post-Conquest England. Over the subsequent centuries, ownership of the manor shifted through various noble families, including the Marshals, Earls of Pembroke, and the de Spencers. Each left their mark on the local landscape and economic development. William Marshal, Lord of Pembroke, was regent to the your Henry III and ran the country from his estate at what is now Deans Farm in Caversham. You can find out more of his story in a plaque on Caversham Bridge.
\r\n\r\n
![\"William_Marshal,_1st_Earl_of_Pembroke.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/ff257c2a.webp\")
William Marshal, 'the greatest knight'
\r\n
The Religious Landscape and Caversham Priory
Religion played a monumental role in shaping medieval settlement. Caversham Priory was an Augustinian cell or house that was established near the riverbanks where Caversham Court Gardens and the church of St Peter currently sit. Founded around 1162 by William Marshal, the priory became famous far beyond the borders of Berkshire due to its holy relics. Most notably, the priory housed the supposed 'Anima Christi' - a relic claimed to be the holy spear or drops of Christ's blood, along with other sacred items associated with the Virgin Mary.
\r\nPilgrims flocked to Caversham by the thousands, seeking miraculous healings and spiritual salvation. This steady stream of travelers transformed the local economy, giving rise to inns, alehouses, and services to accommodate the pious visitors. However, this religious golden age came to a dramatic and abrupt end during the sixteenth century under the reign of King Henry VIII. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the King's commissioners, led by the infamous visitor John London, descended upon Caversham Priory. They confiscated the valuable gold and silver reliquaries, smashed the holy images, and suppressed the monastic community. Today, very little physical trace of the priory remains above ground, but its legacy is preserved in local street names and historical folklore, reminding modern residents of a time when the neighborhood was a bustling medieval destination for pilgrims from across Christendom.
Caversham in the Crucible of the English Civil War
\r\nSituated directly between royalist Oxford and parliamentarian London, during the English Civil War, Berkshire became a heavily contested military corridor, and Caversham found itself on the frontline of several major conflicts. Because of its strategic river crossing, possessing the bridge at Caversham was of paramount tactical importance for both the King and Parliament. In 1643, during the height of the conflict, the area witnessed significant military activity. King Charles I himself spent time in Caversham, staying at the ancient manor house, and later, in 1647, the King was held here under a form of honorable imprisonment by the parliamentary army, meeting with his children at Caversham House while negotiations took place. The old medieval bridge across the Thames, which had stood for centuries, suffered severe damage during these military maneuvers, as both sides repeatedly fortified, damaged, or destroyed crossing points to impede enemy advancement. The scars of war ran deep through the community, disrupting trade, agriculture, and daily life, but the resilient population rebuilt their homes and infrastructure once the cannons fell silent.
Bridges, Boats, and the Transformation of Transport
\r\nThe history of Caversham cannot be told without looking at its relationship with the River Thames and the various means devised to cross it. For generations, communication and commerce between Caversham and Reading relied on ferries and the ancient bridge.
\r\nThe medieval bridge, a sturdy stone and timber structure, was vital for connecting the Oxford road network to the south. The original medieval Caversham Bridge over the River Thames was built between 1163 and 1231 and famously housed the Chapel of Saint Anne on the bridge.
\r\n![\"3-caversham.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/8c3992eb.webp\")
\r\n
However, by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the old bridge was increasingly inadequate for the demands of a growing industrial nation. In 1869, a new iron bridge was constructed to replace the aging medieval crossing, significantly improving transport links.
\r\n\r\n
![\"4-caversham.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/7b8c96c6.webp\")
\r\n
Later, in 1926, the current Caversham Bridge was opened to accommodate the burgeoning automobile traffic of the twentieth century. Alongside road transport, the river itself remained a bustling artery of trade. Barges laden with timber, grain, and coal navigated the Thames, passing through the nearby Caversham Lock, which was first established by the Thames Navigation Commissioners to manage water levels and improve navigation. The riverbanks also gradually evolved from purely industrial and agricultural zones into recreational spaces, with the late Victorian and Edwardian eras witnessing a boom in boating, regattas, and leisurely weekend promenades along the water.
Victorian Expansion and the Rise of the Suburb
\r\nThe nineteenth century brought profound changes to Caversham, transforming it from a quiet rural parish into a thriving residential settlement.
\r\nAs nearby Reading experienced explosive industrial growth fueled by the 'Three Bs' - Biscuits (Huntley & Palmers), Beer (Simonds), and Bulbs (Suttons) - workers and wealthy entrepreneurs alike looked across the river for cleaner air and more spacious living conditions. Caversham Court - historically known as the Old Rectory and site of the former priory - was a prominent estate on the north bank of the River Thames in Reading owned and redeveloped by the prominent Simonds Family of brewers and bankers from 1799 until the early 20th century.
\r\nCaversham began to expand rapidly. Large Victorian and Edwardian villas were constructed along main thoroughfares like Caversham Road, Gosbrook Road, and the sweeping heights of the Heights and the Mount. Wealthy businessmen, successful merchants, and professionals working in Reading chose Caversham as their sanctuary, commuting across the bridge each day. This influx of population spurred the development of local infrastructure, including schools, churches, and the bustling high street shops that we are all familiar with today.
\r\nArchitectural styles shifted from rustic farmhouses and vernacular cottages to grand brick-and-slate family homes and terraced streets that still give Caversham its distinctive character. It was during this Victorian and Edwardian boom that Caversham truly began to feel like a distinct community caught in a fascinating tension between independent village life and economic dependence on its bustling southern neighbour.
Absorbed by Reading: The 1911 Boundary Extension
\r\nFor centuries, Caversham was proudly part of Oxfordshire, administered from Oxford rather than Berkshire, creating a curious administrative quirk for a settlement sitting immediately adjacent to the rapidly growing town of Reading and its mainline rail and canal connections.
\r\nHowever, as the twentieth century dawned, the administrative division became increasingly impractical. The physical footprint of Reading had expanded across the Thames, and urban development blurred the traditional parish boundaries. Local authorities recognised the urgent need for unified municipal governance, standardised public services, and coordinated urban planning. The immediate solution was the founding of Caversham Urban District, which had been formed in 1894, but this was merely a stepping stone toward a much larger administrative shift.
\r\nOn November 9, 1911, following prolonged discussions, local lobbying, and an Act of Parliament, Caversham was officially amalgamated into the County Borough of Reading. With a single stroke of a pen, Caversham crossed the county border, shifting from Oxfordshire into Berkshire, and became an integral part of Reading. While the political union was designed to streamline local government, sanitation, education, and policing, many traditional residents viewed the move with skepticism, fearing the loss of their historic identity.
\r\nOver a century later, whilst Caversham is undeniably a part of greater Reading, its residents maintain a fiercely proud, distinct local consciousness, often quick to correct outsiders who mistakenly refer to Caversham simply as a part of Reading rather than acknowledging its unique historical standing.
Fascinating Personalities and Local Lore
\r\nDown the years, has Caversham boasted many personalities that have lived, worked, or passed through its boundaries. One of the most famous figures associated with Caversham is the artist and poet William Thomas Horton, a prominent figure of the late nineteenth-century Decadent movement and a close friend of Aubrey Beardsley. Horton spent part of his life in the area, drawing inspiration from the mystical landscape of the Thames valley. Another notable literary connection is found in the life of the Victorian novelist and travel writer Mary Russell Mitford, whose works frequently touched upon the picturesque scenery of Berkshire and who had deep social ties throughout the region. In more recent times, Caversham has been home to numerous artists, musicians, and writers, attracted by its creative village atmosphere and proximity to London.
\r\nMany locals tell the story of the time when John Lennon and Paul McCartney briefly stayed in Caversham, working at the Fox & Hounds pub and performing locally as 'The Nerk Twins'. In April 1960, during their Easter holidays, the teenage duo took their first holiday together by hitchhiking from Liverpool down to Berkshire. The pub was being managed at the time by Paul McCartney’s cousin, Bett Robbins, and her husband, Mike.
\r\nCaversham also holds a unique place in sporting and broadcasting history. The BBC Monitoring service, which listens to and analyses broadcasts from around the world, established one of its most important listening stations at Caversham Park during the Second World War. With the onset of war, the property was requisitioned by the government and purchased by the BBC. In the spring of 1943, BBC Monitoring moved its headquarters to Caversham Park.
\r\n\r\n
![\"CavershamParkOpsRoom.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/34b113af.webp\")
\r\n
During WWII and the Cold War, the station served as a critical global listening post, monitoring foreign radio broadcasts to gather open-source intelligence for the British government and Allied forces. At its peak in 1945, over 1,000 staff worked at the site. In the 1980s, a 10-meter satellite dish was added to the grounds (painted green to blend into the landscape), alongside updated wings and newsrooms. The site also served as the home of BBC Radio Berkshire. After 75 years of continuous broadcasting and monitoring operations, the BBC officially vacated Caversham Park in November 2018.
\r\nToday, Caversham retains its villagey feel, but suffers tremendously from poor public transport connections, with the recent withdrawal of services causing controversy and seemingly endless roadworks causing total gridlock at times for those trying to either passing through or using it as a shopping destination. Well over a century on, the benefits of being part of the wider Reading area remain controversial, especially when large swathes of the town lie in other boroughs such as Wokingham and West Berkshire.
\r\n\r\n
", "content_text": "To many in Reading, Caversham is another place. Divided from the centre of town by the River Thames, its resident certainly see themselves as apart. But it is not homogenous - Lower Caversham and its terraced housing has more in common with other parts of Reading, whilst Upper Caversham seems contiguous with the leafy, prosperous villages of Southern Oxfordshire.\r\nStill, Caversham possesses a distinct, fiercely independent identity that even predates the founding of Reading itself by centuries, from Anglo-Saxon roots, medieval religious upheaval, Civil War sieges, Victorian industrial expansion, and a controversial 20th-century political merger that forever bound its fate to the town across the water.\r\nCaversham's origins stretch back into the Anglo-Saxon era - indeed, the very name Caversham offers a linguistic clue to its past. Etymologically, it is believed to derive from the Old English 'Cofres ham', meaning the homestead or settlement of a man named Cofre. Long before the Domesday Book cataloged the realm for William the Conqueror in 1086, people had recognized the strategic and agricultural advantages of this pocket of land between a Chiltern escarpment and the Thames. The river was both a barrier and a highway, and the location of a natural crossing point or early ford made it an attractive spot for early agrarian communities to establish roots.\r\nDomesday Book Entries and Early Feudal Life\r\nWhen the Domesday Book surveyed England in the late eleventh century, Caversham was recorded as 'Cahersham'. At the time, it was held by Walter Gautier Giffard, Lord of Longueville, a Norman baron and a Christian knight who fought against the Saracens in Spain during the Reconquista and was one of the 15 or so known companions of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He was rewarded for his loyalty with vast estates across the country, including Cahersham.\r\nThe Domesday entry details a thriving rural settlement comprising agricultural land, woodland, and fisheries on the Thames, which were immensely valuable commodities for feeding local populations and generating trade. Life in medieval Caversham revolved heavily around the soil, the seasonal patterns of farming, and the spiritual oversight of the church. The community was small, tightly knit, and inextricably linked to the feudal structures that governed post-Conquest England. Over the subsequent centuries, ownership of the manor shifted through various noble families, including the Marshals, Earls of Pembroke, and the de Spencers. Each left their mark on the local landscape and economic development. William Marshal, Lord of Pembroke, was regent to the your Henry III and ran the country from his estate at what is now Deans Farm in Caversham. You can find out more of his story in a plaque on Caversham Bridge.\r\n \r\n\r\nWilliam Marshal, 'the greatest knight'\r\nThe Religious Landscape and Caversham Priory\r\nReligion played a monumental role in shaping medieval settlement. Caversham Priory was an Augustinian cell or house that was established near the riverbanks where Caversham Court Gardens and the church of St Peter currently sit. Founded around 1162 by William Marshal, the priory became famous far beyond the borders of Berkshire due to its holy relics. Most notably, the priory housed the supposed 'Anima Christi' - a relic claimed to be the holy spear or drops of Christ's blood, along with other sacred items associated with the Virgin Mary. \r\nPilgrims flocked to Caversham by the thousands, seeking miraculous healings and spiritual salvation. This steady stream of travelers transformed the local economy, giving rise to inns, alehouses, and services to accommodate the pious visitors. However, this religious golden age came to a dramatic and abrupt end during the sixteenth century under the reign of King Henry VIII. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the King's commissioners, led by the infamous visitor John London, descended upon Caversham Priory. They confiscated the valuable gold and silver reliquaries, smashed the holy images, and suppressed the monastic community. Today, very little physical trace of the priory remains above ground, but its legacy is preserved in local street names and historical folklore, reminding modern residents of a time when the neighborhood was a bustling medieval destination for pilgrims from across Christendom.\r\nCaversham in the Crucible of the English Civil War\r\nSituated directly between royalist Oxford and parliamentarian London, during the English Civil War, Berkshire became a heavily contested military corridor, and Caversham found itself on the frontline of several major conflicts. Because of its strategic river crossing, possessing the bridge at Caversham was of paramount tactical importance for both the King and Parliament. In 1643, during the height of the conflict, the area witnessed significant military activity. King Charles I himself spent time in Caversham, staying at the ancient manor house, and later, in 1647, the King was held here under a form of honorable imprisonment by the parliamentary army, meeting with his children at Caversham House while negotiations took place. The old medieval bridge across the Thames, which had stood for centuries, suffered severe damage during these military maneuvers, as both sides repeatedly fortified, damaged, or destroyed crossing points to impede enemy advancement. The scars of war ran deep through the community, disrupting trade, agriculture, and daily life, but the resilient population rebuilt their homes and infrastructure once the cannons fell silent.\r\nBridges, Boats, and the Transformation of Transport\r\nThe history of Caversham cannot be told without looking at its relationship with the River Thames and the various means devised to cross it. For generations, communication and commerce between Caversham and Reading relied on ferries and the ancient bridge. \r\nThe medieval bridge, a sturdy stone and timber structure, was vital for connecting the Oxford road network to the south. The original medieval Caversham Bridge over the River Thames was built between 1163 and 1231 and famously housed the Chapel of Saint Anne on the bridge.\r\n\r\n \r\nHowever, by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the old bridge was increasingly inadequate for the demands of a growing industrial nation. In 1869, a new iron bridge was constructed to replace the aging medieval crossing, significantly improving transport links.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nLater, in 1926, the current Caversham Bridge was opened to accommodate the burgeoning automobile traffic of the twentieth century. Alongside road transport, the river itself remained a bustling artery of trade. Barges laden with timber, grain, and coal navigated the Thames, passing through the nearby Caversham Lock, which was first established by the Thames Navigation Commissioners to manage water levels and improve navigation. The riverbanks also gradually evolved from purely industrial and agricultural zones into recreational spaces, with the late Victorian and Edwardian eras witnessing a boom in boating, regattas, and leisurely weekend promenades along the water.\r\nVictorian Expansion and the Rise of the Suburb\r\nThe nineteenth century brought profound changes to Caversham, transforming it from a quiet rural parish into a thriving residential settlement.\r\nAs nearby Reading experienced explosive industrial growth fueled by the 'Three Bs' - Biscuits (Huntley & Palmers), Beer (Simonds), and Bulbs (Suttons) - workers and wealthy entrepreneurs alike looked across the river for cleaner air and more spacious living conditions. Caversham Court - historically known as the Old Rectory and site of the former priory - was a prominent estate on the north bank of the River Thames in Reading owned and redeveloped by the prominent Simonds Family of brewers and bankers from 1799 until the early 20th century.\r\nCaversham began to expand rapidly. Large Victorian and Edwardian villas were constructed along main thoroughfares like Caversham Road, Gosbrook Road, and the sweeping heights of the Heights and the Mount. Wealthy businessmen, successful merchants, and professionals working in Reading chose Caversham as their sanctuary, commuting across the bridge each day. This influx of population spurred the development of local infrastructure, including schools, churches, and the bustling high street shops that we are all familiar with today.\r\nArchitectural styles shifted from rustic farmhouses and vernacular cottages to grand brick-and-slate family homes and terraced streets that still give Caversham its distinctive character. It was during this Victorian and Edwardian boom that Caversham truly began to feel like a distinct community caught in a fascinating tension between independent village life and economic dependence on its bustling southern neighbour.\r\nAbsorbed by Reading: The 1911 Boundary Extension\r\nFor centuries, Caversham was proudly part of Oxfordshire, administered from Oxford rather than Berkshire, creating a curious administrative quirk for a settlement sitting immediately adjacent to the rapidly growing town of Reading and its mainline rail and canal connections.\r\nHowever, as the twentieth century dawned, the administrative division became increasingly impractical. The physical footprint of Reading had expanded across the Thames, and urban development blurred the traditional parish boundaries. Local authorities recognised the urgent need for unified municipal governance, standardised public services, and coordinated urban planning. The immediate solution was the founding of Caversham Urban District, which had been formed in 1894, but this was merely a stepping stone toward a much larger administrative shift.\r\nOn November 9, 1911, following prolonged discussions, local lobbying, and an Act of Parliament, Caversham was officially amalgamated into the County Borough of Reading. With a single stroke of a pen, Caversham crossed the county border, shifting from Oxfordshire into Berkshire, and became an integral part of Reading. While the political union was designed to streamline local government, sanitation, education, and policing, many traditional residents viewed the move with skepticism, fearing the loss of their historic identity.\r\nOver a century later, whilst Caversham is undeniably a part of greater Reading, its residents maintain a fiercely proud, distinct local consciousness, often quick to correct outsiders who mistakenly refer to Caversham simply as a part of Reading rather than acknowledging its unique historical standing.\r\nFascinating Personalities and Local Lore\r\nDown the years, has Caversham boasted many personalities that have lived, worked, or passed through its boundaries. One of the most famous figures associated with Caversham is the artist and poet William Thomas Horton, a prominent figure of the late nineteenth-century Decadent movement and a close friend of Aubrey Beardsley. Horton spent part of his life in the area, drawing inspiration from the mystical landscape of the Thames valley. Another notable literary connection is found in the life of the Victorian novelist and travel writer Mary Russell Mitford, whose works frequently touched upon the picturesque scenery of Berkshire and who had deep social ties throughout the region. In more recent times, Caversham has been home to numerous artists, musicians, and writers, attracted by its creative village atmosphere and proximity to London.\r\nMany locals tell the story of the time when John Lennon and Paul McCartney briefly stayed in Caversham, working at the Fox & Hounds pub and performing locally as 'The Nerk Twins'. In April 1960, during their Easter holidays, the teenage duo took their first holiday together by hitchhiking from Liverpool down to Berkshire. The pub was being managed at the time by Paul McCartney’s cousin, Bett Robbins, and her husband, Mike.\r\nCaversham also holds a unique place in sporting and broadcasting history. The BBC Monitoring service, which listens to and analyses broadcasts from around the world, established one of its most important listening stations at Caversham Park during the Second World War. With the onset of war, the property was requisitioned by the government and purchased by the BBC. In the spring of 1943, BBC Monitoring moved its headquarters to Caversham Park.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nDuring WWII and the Cold War, the station served as a critical global listening post, monitoring foreign radio broadcasts to gather open-source intelligence for the British government and Allied forces. At its peak in 1945, over 1,000 staff worked at the site. In the 1980s, a 10-meter satellite dish was added to the grounds (painted green to blend into the landscape), alongside updated wings and newsrooms. The site also served as the home of BBC Radio Berkshire. After 75 years of continuous broadcasting and monitoring operations, the BBC officially vacated Caversham Park in November 2018.\r\nToday, Caversham retains its villagey feel, but suffers tremendously from poor public transport connections, with the recent withdrawal of services causing controversy and seemingly endless roadworks causing total gridlock at times for those trying to either passing through or using it as a shopping destination. Well over a century on, the benefits of being part of the wider Reading area remain controversial, especially when large swathes of the town lie in other boroughs such as Wokingham and West Berkshire.\r\n \r\n ", "summary": "Discover the fascinating history of Caversham, from its Anglo-Saxon roots and medieval religious pilgrimage site to its eventual 20th-century merger with Reading.", "date_published": "2026-09-01T07:50:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-08-31T06:49:13.220193+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Iolo Jones" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/8dcbd4fe.webp", "tags": [ "Local History", "Caversham", "Heritage", "Local History", "Reading" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/documents/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/acc4bb19.png", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "Iolo Jones", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Caversham: From Saxon Settlement to Modern Suburb", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 2098, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
To many in Reading, Caversham is another place. Divided from the centre of town by the River Thames, its resident certainly see themselves as apart. But it is not homogenous - Lower Caversham and its terraced housing has more in common with other parts of Reading, whilst Upper Caversham seems contiguous with the leafy, prosperous villages of Southern Oxfordshire.
\r\nStill, Caversham possesses a distinct, fiercely independent identity that even predates the founding of Reading itself by centuries, from Anglo-Saxon roots, medieval religious upheaval, Civil War sieges, Victorian industrial expansion, and a controversial 20th-century political merger that forever bound its fate to the town across the water.
\r\nCaversham's origins stretch back into the Anglo-Saxon era - indeed, the very name Caversham offers a linguistic clue to its past. Etymologically, it is believed to derive from the Old English 'Cofres ham', meaning the homestead or settlement of a man named Cofre. Long before the Domesday Book cataloged the realm for William the Conqueror in 1086, people had recognized the strategic and agricultural advantages of this pocket of land between a Chiltern escarpment and the Thames. The river was both a barrier and a highway, and the location of a natural crossing point or early ford made it an attractive spot for early agrarian communities to establish roots.
\r\nDomesday Book Entries and Early Feudal Life
\r\nWhen the Domesday Book surveyed England in the late eleventh century, Caversham was recorded as 'Cahersham'. At the time, it was held by Walter Gautier Giffard, Lord of Longueville, a Norman baron and a Christian knight who fought against the Saracens in Spain during the Reconquista and was one of the 15 or so known companions of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He was rewarded for his loyalty with vast estates across the country, including Cahersham.
\r\nThe Domesday entry details a thriving rural settlement comprising agricultural land, woodland, and fisheries on the Thames, which were immensely valuable commodities for feeding local populations and generating trade. Life in medieval Caversham revolved heavily around the soil, the seasonal patterns of farming, and the spiritual oversight of the church. The community was small, tightly knit, and inextricably linked to the feudal structures that governed post-Conquest England. Over the subsequent centuries, ownership of the manor shifted through various noble families, including the Marshals, Earls of Pembroke, and the de Spencers. Each left their mark on the local landscape and economic development. William Marshal, Lord of Pembroke, was regent to the your Henry III and ran the country from his estate at what is now Deans Farm in Caversham. You can find out more of his story in a plaque on Caversham Bridge.
\r\n\r\n
William Marshal, 'the greatest knight'
\r\n
The Religious Landscape and Caversham Priory
Religion played a monumental role in shaping medieval settlement. Caversham Priory was an Augustinian cell or house that was established near the riverbanks where Caversham Court Gardens and the church of St Peter currently sit. Founded around 1162 by William Marshal, the priory became famous far beyond the borders of Berkshire due to its holy relics. Most notably, the priory housed the supposed 'Anima Christi' - a relic claimed to be the holy spear or drops of Christ's blood, along with other sacred items associated with the Virgin Mary.
\r\nPilgrims flocked to Caversham by the thousands, seeking miraculous healings and spiritual salvation. This steady stream of travelers transformed the local economy, giving rise to inns, alehouses, and services to accommodate the pious visitors. However, this religious golden age came to a dramatic and abrupt end during the sixteenth century under the reign of King Henry VIII. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the King's commissioners, led by the infamous visitor John London, descended upon Caversham Priory. They confiscated the valuable gold and silver reliquaries, smashed the holy images, and suppressed the monastic community. Today, very little physical trace of the priory remains above ground, but its legacy is preserved in local street names and historical folklore, reminding modern residents of a time when the neighborhood was a bustling medieval destination for pilgrims from across Christendom.
Caversham in the Crucible of the English Civil War
\r\nSituated directly between royalist Oxford and parliamentarian London, during the English Civil War, Berkshire became a heavily contested military corridor, and Caversham found itself on the frontline of several major conflicts. Because of its strategic river crossing, possessing the bridge at Caversham was of paramount tactical importance for both the King and Parliament. In 1643, during the height of the conflict, the area witnessed significant military activity. King Charles I himself spent time in Caversham, staying at the ancient manor house, and later, in 1647, the King was held here under a form of honorable imprisonment by the parliamentary army, meeting with his children at Caversham House while negotiations took place. The old medieval bridge across the Thames, which had stood for centuries, suffered severe damage during these military maneuvers, as both sides repeatedly fortified, damaged, or destroyed crossing points to impede enemy advancement. The scars of war ran deep through the community, disrupting trade, agriculture, and daily life, but the resilient population rebuilt their homes and infrastructure once the cannons fell silent.
Bridges, Boats, and the Transformation of Transport
\r\nThe history of Caversham cannot be told without looking at its relationship with the River Thames and the various means devised to cross it. For generations, communication and commerce between Caversham and Reading relied on ferries and the ancient bridge.
\r\nThe medieval bridge, a sturdy stone and timber structure, was vital for connecting the Oxford road network to the south. The original medieval Caversham Bridge over the River Thames was built between 1163 and 1231 and famously housed the Chapel of Saint Anne on the bridge.
\r\n
\r\n
However, by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the old bridge was increasingly inadequate for the demands of a growing industrial nation. In 1869, a new iron bridge was constructed to replace the aging medieval crossing, significantly improving transport links.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
Later, in 1926, the current Caversham Bridge was opened to accommodate the burgeoning automobile traffic of the twentieth century. Alongside road transport, the river itself remained a bustling artery of trade. Barges laden with timber, grain, and coal navigated the Thames, passing through the nearby Caversham Lock, which was first established by the Thames Navigation Commissioners to manage water levels and improve navigation. The riverbanks also gradually evolved from purely industrial and agricultural zones into recreational spaces, with the late Victorian and Edwardian eras witnessing a boom in boating, regattas, and leisurely weekend promenades along the water.
Victorian Expansion and the Rise of the Suburb
\r\nThe nineteenth century brought profound changes to Caversham, transforming it from a quiet rural parish into a thriving residential settlement.
\r\nAs nearby Reading experienced explosive industrial growth fueled by the 'Three Bs' - Biscuits (Huntley & Palmers), Beer (Simonds), and Bulbs (Suttons) - workers and wealthy entrepreneurs alike looked across the river for cleaner air and more spacious living conditions. Caversham Court - historically known as the Old Rectory and site of the former priory - was a prominent estate on the north bank of the River Thames in Reading owned and redeveloped by the prominent Simonds Family of brewers and bankers from 1799 until the early 20th century.
\r\nCaversham began to expand rapidly. Large Victorian and Edwardian villas were constructed along main thoroughfares like Caversham Road, Gosbrook Road, and the sweeping heights of the Heights and the Mount. Wealthy businessmen, successful merchants, and professionals working in Reading chose Caversham as their sanctuary, commuting across the bridge each day. This influx of population spurred the development of local infrastructure, including schools, churches, and the bustling high street shops that we are all familiar with today.
\r\nArchitectural styles shifted from rustic farmhouses and vernacular cottages to grand brick-and-slate family homes and terraced streets that still give Caversham its distinctive character. It was during this Victorian and Edwardian boom that Caversham truly began to feel like a distinct community caught in a fascinating tension between independent village life and economic dependence on its bustling southern neighbour.
Absorbed by Reading: The 1911 Boundary Extension
\r\nFor centuries, Caversham was proudly part of Oxfordshire, administered from Oxford rather than Berkshire, creating a curious administrative quirk for a settlement sitting immediately adjacent to the rapidly growing town of Reading and its mainline rail and canal connections.
\r\nHowever, as the twentieth century dawned, the administrative division became increasingly impractical. The physical footprint of Reading had expanded across the Thames, and urban development blurred the traditional parish boundaries. Local authorities recognised the urgent need for unified municipal governance, standardised public services, and coordinated urban planning. The immediate solution was the founding of Caversham Urban District, which had been formed in 1894, but this was merely a stepping stone toward a much larger administrative shift.
\r\nOn November 9, 1911, following prolonged discussions, local lobbying, and an Act of Parliament, Caversham was officially amalgamated into the County Borough of Reading. With a single stroke of a pen, Caversham crossed the county border, shifting from Oxfordshire into Berkshire, and became an integral part of Reading. While the political union was designed to streamline local government, sanitation, education, and policing, many traditional residents viewed the move with skepticism, fearing the loss of their historic identity.
\r\nOver a century later, whilst Caversham is undeniably a part of greater Reading, its residents maintain a fiercely proud, distinct local consciousness, often quick to correct outsiders who mistakenly refer to Caversham simply as a part of Reading rather than acknowledging its unique historical standing.
Fascinating Personalities and Local Lore
\r\nDown the years, has Caversham boasted many personalities that have lived, worked, or passed through its boundaries. One of the most famous figures associated with Caversham is the artist and poet William Thomas Horton, a prominent figure of the late nineteenth-century Decadent movement and a close friend of Aubrey Beardsley. Horton spent part of his life in the area, drawing inspiration from the mystical landscape of the Thames valley. Another notable literary connection is found in the life of the Victorian novelist and travel writer Mary Russell Mitford, whose works frequently touched upon the picturesque scenery of Berkshire and who had deep social ties throughout the region. In more recent times, Caversham has been home to numerous artists, musicians, and writers, attracted by its creative village atmosphere and proximity to London.
\r\nMany locals tell the story of the time when John Lennon and Paul McCartney briefly stayed in Caversham, working at the Fox & Hounds pub and performing locally as 'The Nerk Twins'. In April 1960, during their Easter holidays, the teenage duo took their first holiday together by hitchhiking from Liverpool down to Berkshire. The pub was being managed at the time by Paul McCartney’s cousin, Bett Robbins, and her husband, Mike.
\r\nCaversham also holds a unique place in sporting and broadcasting history. The BBC Monitoring service, which listens to and analyses broadcasts from around the world, established one of its most important listening stations at Caversham Park during the Second World War. With the onset of war, the property was requisitioned by the government and purchased by the BBC. In the spring of 1943, BBC Monitoring moved its headquarters to Caversham Park.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
During WWII and the Cold War, the station served as a critical global listening post, monitoring foreign radio broadcasts to gather open-source intelligence for the British government and Allied forces. At its peak in 1945, over 1,000 staff worked at the site. In the 1980s, a 10-meter satellite dish was added to the grounds (painted green to blend into the landscape), alongside updated wings and newsrooms. The site also served as the home of BBC Radio Berkshire. After 75 years of continuous broadcasting and monitoring operations, the BBC officially vacated Caversham Park in November 2018.
\r\nToday, Caversham retains its villagey feel, but suffers tremendously from poor public transport connections, with the recent withdrawal of services causing controversy and seemingly endless roadworks causing total gridlock at times for those trying to either passing through or using it as a shopping destination. Well over a century on, the benefits of being part of the wider Reading area remain controversial, especially when large swathes of the town lie in other boroughs such as Wokingham and West Berkshire.
\r\n\r\n
", "description": "Discover the fascinating history of Caversham, from its Anglo-Saxon roots and medieval religious pilgrimage site to its eventual 20th-century merger with Reading.", "dateModified": "2026-08-31T06:49:13.220193+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-09-01T07:50:00", "articleSection": "Local History", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/from-saxon-settlement-to-suburb-the-rich-history-of-caversham-and-reading/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "589", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-dark-legacy-of-amelia-dwyer-uncovering-readings-victorian-baby-farming-horror/", "title": "The Dark Legacy of Amelia Dwyer: Uncovering Reading's Victorian Baby Farming Horror", "content_html": "
The history of Victorian Britain is often romanticized through the lens of industrial progress, literary achievements, and sweeping imperial expansion. But beneath the veneer of Victorian respectability and societal advancement lay a dark and desperate underbelly, born from grinding poverty, a rigid moral code regarding illegitimacy and a glaring lack of social safety nets for the most vulnerable.
\r\nAmong the most harrowing manifestations of this grim reality was the practice of 'baby farming' - a corrupt commercial enterprise where individuals took in unwanted infants in exchange for a lump-sum payment or meager weekly allowance, ostensibly to care for them or arrange for their adoption. In far too many instances, however, this practice served as a legalized death sentence for innocent children. The dark history of nineteenth-century child exploitation and institutional failure is epitomized by the chilling case of Amelia Dwyer, a woman whose horrific actions in Reading left an indelible stain on the local community and exposed the terrifying vulnerabilities of the era's most defenceless residents.
\r\nTo fully understand the world in which Amelia Dwyer operated, we have to look at the social and economic pressures that drove desperate mothers to her doorstep. In Victorian England, unwed mothers faced catastrophic social ruin. An illegitimate pregnancy meant immediate dismissal from domestic service, ostracisation from family, and virtually no legal recourse for financial support from the father. Destitute and terrified of public shame, these young women found themselves with vanishingly few options. More common still in an era of no contraception were mothers who kept on having children their families simply could not afford. Backstreet abortions and child mortality were rife.
\r\nInto this vacuum stepped the 'baby farmers', preying upon the desperation of these women. People like Amelia Dwyer advertised their services discreetly through newspapers or word of mouth, presenting themselves as compassionate caretakers offering a fresh start for infants whose very existence threatened to destroy their mothers' lives. For a fee, which was often impossibly high for a working-class woman to raise, the baby farmer promised to provide food, lodging, and a loving adoptive home. In reality, the transaction was frequently an exchange for the child's life, as people like Dyer realized that dead babies consumed no resources and required no future care.
\r\nAt the time, Reading was a bustling commercial hub, growing rapidly during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Yet, like many industrializing towns, it housed significant pockets of deep poverty alongside its growing prosperity. Young people from the surrounding area were thrown together in the new factories, breweries, shops and offices of the burgeoning urban area and the result was many unwanted pregnancies.
\r\n\r\n
![\"amelia](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/08/a6590db6.webp\")
\r\n
It was against this backdrop that Amelia Dyer established her grim operations. Operating out of unassuming domestic dwellings, Dyer managed to project a veneer of normalcy that shielded her from immediate suspicion by neighbors and local authorities. The mechanics of her enterprise relied heavily on secrecy and the transient nature of the desperate mothers who utilised her services. Most clients were young, frightened, and eager to distance themselves from the circumstances of the birth, meaning they rarely returned to check on the welfare of their offspring once the initial payment was handed over. This lack of oversight created a dangerous vacuum, allowing Dyer to operate with virtual impunity for a troubling duration before the horrific truth of her practices finally came to light.
\r\nAmelia Elizabeth Hobley was born on November 27, 1837, in Pyle Marsh, a small village just east of Bristol. She was the fifth of six children born to Samuel Hobley, a skilled shoemaker, and Sarah Hobley. Unlike many of her peers, Amelia was reasonably well educated, developing a love for poetry and literature. However, her childhood was severely disrupted by domestic tragedy.
\r\nHer mother contracted typhus, which left her with severe mental illness and violent fits. Young Amelia was tasked with caring for her mother until Sarah's death in 1848. Some historians have often noted that witnessing her mother's mental decline taught Amelia how to recognize and simulate symptoms of mental illness - a skill she would later leverage to evade criminal prosecution.
\r\nAfter her mother died, Amelia lived with an aunt in Bristol and served an apprenticeship as a corsetmaker. Following her father's death in 1859, she became estranged from her family and, in 1861, married George Thomas, a much older 59-year-old man. To narrow their 32-year age gap on the official record, George deducted eleven years from his age while Amelia added six.
\r\nShortly after her marriage, Amelia trained as a nurse, a profession that introduced her to midwife Ellen Dane. It was from Dane that Amelia learned of a lucrative, low-risk business model based on her training: taking in unwed mothers and facilitating the \"adoption\" of their illegitimate children for a fee.
\r\nWhen George Thomas died in 1869, Amelia was left without an income to support herself and her daughter, Ellen (Polly). She turned to baby farming full-time, placing advertisements in local newspapers claiming to be a respectable, married woman eager to offer a loving home to a child.
\r\nInitially, Dyer allowed the infants in her care to die through deliberate neglect, starvation, and sedation. She routinely administered \"Godfrey’s Cordial\", a popular, unregulated syrup containing laudanum and alcohol known colloquially as \"Mother's Friend\" to quiet crying babies until they starved to death.
\r\nIn 1879, Dyer’s operations hit an obstacle. A suspicious physician noticed that an unusually high number of infants under Dyer's care were dying, and he refused to continue issuing death certificates without reporting his concerns.
\r\nDyer was arrested, but rather than being tried for murder or manslaughter, she was convicted only of child neglect. She was sentenced to six months of hard labor in Redisdale House. The experience broke her physically and mentally, prompting a change in the way she went about her 'business' upon release.
\r\nTo avoid future suspicion from medical professionals, Dyer decided to bypass doctors entirely. Instead of letting infants waste away over several weeks, she began directly strangling them immediately upon receipt, disposing of the corpses herself.
\r\nWhenever law enforcement or inquiring parents grew too close, Dyer would feign mental breakdowns and check herself into lunatic asylums. Having worked as an asylum nurse, she knew precisely how to behave to secure committal. Between periods of criminal activity, she spent time in several institutions, including the Somerset and Bath Lunatic Asylum. These stays served a dual purpose: they shielded her from police investigation and allowed her to reset her identity under a new alias.
\r\nBy 1895, Dyer had relocated to Reading under the alias \"Mrs. Harding,\" residing at 45 Kensington Road alongside her associate, Jane \"Granny\" Smith, her daughter Polly, and her son-in-law Arthur Palmer.
\r\n\r\n
![\"45-kensington-road-reading-rg30-2sz-1.webp\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/08/3255742a.webp\")
\r\n
In early 1896, a 25-year-old unmarried barmaid named Evelina Marmon gave birth to a daughter, Doris, in Cheltenham. Unable to care for the infant while working, Marmon placed an advertisement in the Bristol Times & Mirror: \"Wanted, respectable woman to take a young child.\"
\r\nDirectly adjacent to Marmon’s listing was an advertisement placed by Dyer:
\r\n\r\n\r\n\"Married couple with no family would adopt a healthy child, nice country home. Terms, £10... A child with me will have a good home and a mother's love.\"
\r\n
Marmon contacted \"Mrs. Harding.\" Although Marmon preferred a weekly boarding arrangement, Dyer insisted on a one-off payment of £10. Desperate, Marmon agreed. On March 31, 1896, Marmon met Dyer at a train station, handing over her daughter, a cardboard box of infant clothes, and the £10 fee.
\r\nInstead of taking Doris home to Reading, Dyer traveled straight to her daughter Polly’s lodgings at 76 Mayo Road in Willesden, London. There, using white cotton dressmaking tape, she wrapped the ribbon twice around the baby's neck and tied a knot, watching as the child suffocated. The following day, Dyer acquired another child, 13-month-old Harry Simmons. Running out of tape, she removed the ribbon from Doris's corpse and used it to strangle Simmons.
\r\nOn April 2, 1896, Dyer packed both corpses into a carpetbag, weighted it with heavy bricks, and traveled to Caversham Lock in Reading, where she threw the bag into the River Thames off The Clappers bridge.
\r\n\r\n
![\"clappers.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/fe81a93c.webp\")
\r\n
Dyer’s decades-long spree came to an end due to a single oversight. On March 30, 1896, days before Dyer dumped the carpetbag containing Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons, a bargeman discovered a brown paper package floating in the Thames near Reading.
\r\nInside was the body of a baby girl (later identified as Helena Fry). Detective Constable Anderson of the Reading Borough Police examined the wrapping paper under microscopic analysis. Faintly written on the paper was a Temple Meads railway station shipping label bearing an address and the name \"Mrs. Thomas.\"
\r\nPolice traced the address to 45 Kensington Road, but lacked definitive proof connecting \"Mrs. Thomas\" directly to the murder. Placing the house under surveillance, Constable Anderson and Sergeant James realized Dyer might flee if she grew suspicious. So, the officers devised a decoy operation, using a young woman to pose as an unwed mother seeking adoption services. When the decoy arranged a meeting at the house on April 3, 1896, detectives stepped through the door instead.
\r\nInside 45 Kensington Road they discovered evidence of dozens of adoptions, pawn tickets, and the stench of decay and Dyer was arrested. The police also dredged the Thames near Caversham Lock, recovering six additional infant bodies, including Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons, all strangled with white dressmaking tape.
\r\n\r\n
![\"dead](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/08/57d793f0.webp\")
\r\n
When shown the corpses strangled with cotton tape, Dyer confessed: \"You will know which are mine by the tape wrapped around their necks.\"
\r\nTo protect her daughter Polly and son-in-law Arthur Palmer from prosecution, Dyer authored a full confession in Reading Gaol, accepting sole responsibility for the horrific crimes which may have involved the murder or involuntary killing of up to four hundred infants.
\r\nAmelia Dyer’s trial took place at the Old Bailey on 21st and 22nd May, 1896. She was formally indicted for the murder of Doris Marmon.
\r\nThe defence argued that Dyer was insane, citing her frequent stays in lunatic asylums and her history of alcohol and laudanum abuse. However, the prosecution demonstrated that her asylum stays were calculated escapes timed precisely to coincide with police investigations, and that her strategic use of aliases proved her sanity and understanding of right from wrong.
\r\nIt took the jury just 45 minutes to return a guilty verdict. On June 10, 1896, at 9:00 AM, Amelia Dyer was hanged at Newgate Prison by executioner James Billington. Asked on the scaffold if she had any final words, she reportedly replied: \"I have nothing to say.\"
\r\nThe sheer scale of the suffering uncovered during the investigation highlighted a systemic failure across medical, legal, and social institutions.
\r\nThe public revelation of Amelia Dwyer's atrocities sent shockwaves through the community of Reading and resonated across Victorian Britain, which was already becoming increasingly aware of the dark realities of baby farming through other high-profile cases of the era, such as that of Margaret Waters and Amelia Sach. Newspapers of the day published lurid and detailed accounts of the proceedings, feeding a morbid public fascination while simultaneously stoking widespread outrage. Citizens and social reformers alike demanded to know how such systemic cruelty could have persisted unchecked within their neighbourhoods. The case forced local magistrates, police forces, and civic leaders to confront uncomfortable questions regarding the lack of regulatory oversight governing the boarding out of infants. The public outcry catalyzed a growing national movement for legislative reform, ultimately paving the way for stricter regulations on child care and adoption practices in the decades that followed, including Parliament passing the Infant Life Protection Act (1897), requiring local authorities to be notified of any adoption involving a child under five years old where a payment was made, giving inspectors the right to monitor care conditions.
\r\nIt also resulted in the expansion of the NSPCC, which had been founded in 1884, leading to increased public funding and investigative powers for child protection officers. Decades later, the legal frameworks governing adoption were completely overhauled, establishing formal court oversight and ending private, unmonitored financial transactions for children through the Adoption Act (1926).
\r\nDespite being convicted and hanged for only the death of Helena Fry, some estimate that Amanda Dyer may be the biggest serial killer in British history, responsible for up to 400 infant deaths.
\r\n\r\n
", "content_text": "The history of Victorian Britain is often romanticized through the lens of industrial progress, literary achievements, and sweeping imperial expansion. But beneath the veneer of Victorian respectability and societal advancement lay a dark and desperate underbelly, born from grinding poverty, a rigid moral code regarding illegitimacy and a glaring lack of social safety nets for the most vulnerable. \r\nAmong the most harrowing manifestations of this grim reality was the practice of 'baby farming' - a corrupt commercial enterprise where individuals took in unwanted infants in exchange for a lump-sum payment or meager weekly allowance, ostensibly to care for them or arrange for their adoption. In far too many instances, however, this practice served as a legalized death sentence for innocent children. The dark history of nineteenth-century child exploitation and institutional failure is epitomized by the chilling case of Amelia Dwyer, a woman whose horrific actions in Reading left an indelible stain on the local community and exposed the terrifying vulnerabilities of the era's most defenceless residents.\r\nTo fully understand the world in which Amelia Dwyer operated, we have to look at the social and economic pressures that drove desperate mothers to her doorstep. In Victorian England, unwed mothers faced catastrophic social ruin. An illegitimate pregnancy meant immediate dismissal from domestic service, ostracisation from family, and virtually no legal recourse for financial support from the father. Destitute and terrified of public shame, these young women found themselves with vanishingly few options. More common still in an era of no contraception were mothers who kept on having children their families simply could not afford. Backstreet abortions and child mortality were rife.\r\nInto this vacuum stepped the 'baby farmers', preying upon the desperation of these women. People like Amelia Dwyer advertised their services discreetly through newspapers or word of mouth, presenting themselves as compassionate caretakers offering a fresh start for infants whose very existence threatened to destroy their mothers' lives. For a fee, which was often impossibly high for a working-class woman to raise, the baby farmer promised to provide food, lodging, and a loving adoptive home. In reality, the transaction was frequently an exchange for the child's life, as people like Dyer realized that dead babies consumed no resources and required no future care.\r\nAt the time, Reading was a bustling commercial hub, growing rapidly during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Yet, like many industrializing towns, it housed significant pockets of deep poverty alongside its growing prosperity. Young people from the surrounding area were thrown together in the new factories, breweries, shops and offices of the burgeoning urban area and the result was many unwanted pregnancies.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nIt was against this backdrop that Amelia Dyer established her grim operations. Operating out of unassuming domestic dwellings, Dyer managed to project a veneer of normalcy that shielded her from immediate suspicion by neighbors and local authorities. The mechanics of her enterprise relied heavily on secrecy and the transient nature of the desperate mothers who utilised her services. Most clients were young, frightened, and eager to distance themselves from the circumstances of the birth, meaning they rarely returned to check on the welfare of their offspring once the initial payment was handed over. This lack of oversight created a dangerous vacuum, allowing Dyer to operate with virtual impunity for a troubling duration before the horrific truth of her practices finally came to light.\r\nAmelia Elizabeth Hobley was born on November 27, 1837, in Pyle Marsh, a small village just east of Bristol. She was the fifth of six children born to Samuel Hobley, a skilled shoemaker, and Sarah Hobley. Unlike many of her peers, Amelia was reasonably well educated, developing a love for poetry and literature. However, her childhood was severely disrupted by domestic tragedy.\r\nHer mother contracted typhus, which left her with severe mental illness and violent fits. Young Amelia was tasked with caring for her mother until Sarah's death in 1848. Some historians have often noted that witnessing her mother's mental decline taught Amelia how to recognize and simulate symptoms of mental illness - a skill she would later leverage to evade criminal prosecution.\r\nAfter her mother died, Amelia lived with an aunt in Bristol and served an apprenticeship as a corsetmaker. Following her father's death in 1859, she became estranged from her family and, in 1861, married George Thomas, a much older 59-year-old man. To narrow their 32-year age gap on the official record, George deducted eleven years from his age while Amelia added six.\r\nShortly after her marriage, Amelia trained as a nurse, a profession that introduced her to midwife Ellen Dane. It was from Dane that Amelia learned of a lucrative, low-risk business model based on her training: taking in unwed mothers and facilitating the \"adoption\" of their illegitimate children for a fee.\r\nWhen George Thomas died in 1869, Amelia was left without an income to support herself and her daughter, Ellen (Polly). She turned to baby farming full-time, placing advertisements in local newspapers claiming to be a respectable, married woman eager to offer a loving home to a child.\r\nInitially, Dyer allowed the infants in her care to die through deliberate neglect, starvation, and sedation. She routinely administered \"Godfrey’s Cordial\", a popular, unregulated syrup containing laudanum and alcohol known colloquially as \"Mother's Friend\" to quiet crying babies until they starved to death.\r\nIn 1879, Dyer’s operations hit an obstacle. A suspicious physician noticed that an unusually high number of infants under Dyer's care were dying, and he refused to continue issuing death certificates without reporting his concerns.\r\nDyer was arrested, but rather than being tried for murder or manslaughter, she was convicted only of child neglect. She was sentenced to six months of hard labor in Redisdale House. The experience broke her physically and mentally, prompting a change in the way she went about her 'business' upon release.\r\nTo avoid future suspicion from medical professionals, Dyer decided to bypass doctors entirely. Instead of letting infants waste away over several weeks, she began directly strangling them immediately upon receipt, disposing of the corpses herself.\r\nWhenever law enforcement or inquiring parents grew too close, Dyer would feign mental breakdowns and check herself into lunatic asylums. Having worked as an asylum nurse, she knew precisely how to behave to secure committal. Between periods of criminal activity, she spent time in several institutions, including the Somerset and Bath Lunatic Asylum. These stays served a dual purpose: they shielded her from police investigation and allowed her to reset her identity under a new alias.\r\nBy 1895, Dyer had relocated to Reading under the alias \"Mrs. Harding,\" residing at 45 Kensington Road alongside her associate, Jane \"Granny\" Smith, her daughter Polly, and her son-in-law Arthur Palmer.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nIn early 1896, a 25-year-old unmarried barmaid named Evelina Marmon gave birth to a daughter, Doris, in Cheltenham. Unable to care for the infant while working, Marmon placed an advertisement in the Bristol Times & Mirror: \"Wanted, respectable woman to take a young child.\"\r\nDirectly adjacent to Marmon’s listing was an advertisement placed by Dyer:\r\n\r\n\"Married couple with no family would adopt a healthy child, nice country home. Terms, £10... A child with me will have a good home and a mother's love.\"\r\n\r\nMarmon contacted \"Mrs. Harding.\" Although Marmon preferred a weekly boarding arrangement, Dyer insisted on a one-off payment of £10. Desperate, Marmon agreed. On March 31, 1896, Marmon met Dyer at a train station, handing over her daughter, a cardboard box of infant clothes, and the £10 fee.\r\nInstead of taking Doris home to Reading, Dyer traveled straight to her daughter Polly’s lodgings at 76 Mayo Road in Willesden, London. There, using white cotton dressmaking tape, she wrapped the ribbon twice around the baby's neck and tied a knot, watching as the child suffocated. The following day, Dyer acquired another child, 13-month-old Harry Simmons. Running out of tape, she removed the ribbon from Doris's corpse and used it to strangle Simmons.\r\nOn April 2, 1896, Dyer packed both corpses into a carpetbag, weighted it with heavy bricks, and traveled to Caversham Lock in Reading, where she threw the bag into the River Thames off The Clappers bridge.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nDyer’s decades-long spree came to an end due to a single oversight. On March 30, 1896, days before Dyer dumped the carpetbag containing Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons, a bargeman discovered a brown paper package floating in the Thames near Reading.\r\nInside was the body of a baby girl (later identified as Helena Fry). Detective Constable Anderson of the Reading Borough Police examined the wrapping paper under microscopic analysis. Faintly written on the paper was a Temple Meads railway station shipping label bearing an address and the name \"Mrs. Thomas.\"\r\nPolice traced the address to 45 Kensington Road, but lacked definitive proof connecting \"Mrs. Thomas\" directly to the murder. Placing the house under surveillance, Constable Anderson and Sergeant James realized Dyer might flee if she grew suspicious. So, the officers devised a decoy operation, using a young woman to pose as an unwed mother seeking adoption services. When the decoy arranged a meeting at the house on April 3, 1896, detectives stepped through the door instead.\r\nInside 45 Kensington Road they discovered evidence of dozens of adoptions, pawn tickets, and the stench of decay and Dyer was arrested. The police also dredged the Thames near Caversham Lock, recovering six additional infant bodies, including Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons, all strangled with white dressmaking tape.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nWhen shown the corpses strangled with cotton tape, Dyer confessed: \"You will know which are mine by the tape wrapped around their necks.\"\r\nTo protect her daughter Polly and son-in-law Arthur Palmer from prosecution, Dyer authored a full confession in Reading Gaol, accepting sole responsibility for the horrific crimes which may have involved the murder or involuntary killing of up to four hundred infants.\r\nAmelia Dyer’s trial took place at the Old Bailey on 21st and 22nd May, 1896. She was formally indicted for the murder of Doris Marmon.\r\nThe defence argued that Dyer was insane, citing her frequent stays in lunatic asylums and her history of alcohol and laudanum abuse. However, the prosecution demonstrated that her asylum stays were calculated escapes timed precisely to coincide with police investigations, and that her strategic use of aliases proved her sanity and understanding of right from wrong.\r\nIt took the jury just 45 minutes to return a guilty verdict. On June 10, 1896, at 9:00 AM, Amelia Dyer was hanged at Newgate Prison by executioner James Billington. Asked on the scaffold if she had any final words, she reportedly replied: \"I have nothing to say.\"\r\nThe sheer scale of the suffering uncovered during the investigation highlighted a systemic failure across medical, legal, and social institutions.\r\nThe public revelation of Amelia Dwyer's atrocities sent shockwaves through the community of Reading and resonated across Victorian Britain, which was already becoming increasingly aware of the dark realities of baby farming through other high-profile cases of the era, such as that of Margaret Waters and Amelia Sach. Newspapers of the day published lurid and detailed accounts of the proceedings, feeding a morbid public fascination while simultaneously stoking widespread outrage. Citizens and social reformers alike demanded to know how such systemic cruelty could have persisted unchecked within their neighbourhoods. The case forced local magistrates, police forces, and civic leaders to confront uncomfortable questions regarding the lack of regulatory oversight governing the boarding out of infants. The public outcry catalyzed a growing national movement for legislative reform, ultimately paving the way for stricter regulations on child care and adoption practices in the decades that followed, including Parliament passing the Infant Life Protection Act (1897), requiring local authorities to be notified of any adoption involving a child under five years old where a payment was made, giving inspectors the right to monitor care conditions.\r\nIt also resulted in the expansion of the NSPCC, which had been founded in 1884, leading to increased public funding and investigative powers for child protection officers. Decades later, the legal frameworks governing adoption were completely overhauled, establishing formal court oversight and ending private, unmonitored financial transactions for children through the Adoption Act (1926).\r\nDespite being convicted and hanged for only the death of Helena Fry, some estimate that Amanda Dyer may be the biggest serial killer in British history, responsible for up to 400 infant deaths.\r\n \r\n ", "summary": "The chilling history of 'baby farming' in the Victorian era and the notorious case of Amelia Dwyer, Reading's most infamous historical mass murderer.", "date_published": "2026-08-31T08:53:53.454809+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-08-31T08:53:53.457091+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Iolo Jones" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/4ee709dd.webp", "tags": [ "Local History", "Local History", "Reading", "True Crime", "Victorian History" ], "location": "Reading", "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/4ee709dd.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "Iolo Jones", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "The Dark Legacy of Amelia Dwyer: Uncovering Reading's Victorian Baby Farming Horror", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 2148, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
The history of Victorian Britain is often romanticized through the lens of industrial progress, literary achievements, and sweeping imperial expansion. But beneath the veneer of Victorian respectability and societal advancement lay a dark and desperate underbelly, born from grinding poverty, a rigid moral code regarding illegitimacy and a glaring lack of social safety nets for the most vulnerable.
\r\nAmong the most harrowing manifestations of this grim reality was the practice of 'baby farming' - a corrupt commercial enterprise where individuals took in unwanted infants in exchange for a lump-sum payment or meager weekly allowance, ostensibly to care for them or arrange for their adoption. In far too many instances, however, this practice served as a legalized death sentence for innocent children. The dark history of nineteenth-century child exploitation and institutional failure is epitomized by the chilling case of Amelia Dwyer, a woman whose horrific actions in Reading left an indelible stain on the local community and exposed the terrifying vulnerabilities of the era's most defenceless residents.
\r\nTo fully understand the world in which Amelia Dwyer operated, we have to look at the social and economic pressures that drove desperate mothers to her doorstep. In Victorian England, unwed mothers faced catastrophic social ruin. An illegitimate pregnancy meant immediate dismissal from domestic service, ostracisation from family, and virtually no legal recourse for financial support from the father. Destitute and terrified of public shame, these young women found themselves with vanishingly few options. More common still in an era of no contraception were mothers who kept on having children their families simply could not afford. Backstreet abortions and child mortality were rife.
\r\nInto this vacuum stepped the 'baby farmers', preying upon the desperation of these women. People like Amelia Dwyer advertised their services discreetly through newspapers or word of mouth, presenting themselves as compassionate caretakers offering a fresh start for infants whose very existence threatened to destroy their mothers' lives. For a fee, which was often impossibly high for a working-class woman to raise, the baby farmer promised to provide food, lodging, and a loving adoptive home. In reality, the transaction was frequently an exchange for the child's life, as people like Dyer realized that dead babies consumed no resources and required no future care.
\r\nAt the time, Reading was a bustling commercial hub, growing rapidly during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Yet, like many industrializing towns, it housed significant pockets of deep poverty alongside its growing prosperity. Young people from the surrounding area were thrown together in the new factories, breweries, shops and offices of the burgeoning urban area and the result was many unwanted pregnancies.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
It was against this backdrop that Amelia Dyer established her grim operations. Operating out of unassuming domestic dwellings, Dyer managed to project a veneer of normalcy that shielded her from immediate suspicion by neighbors and local authorities. The mechanics of her enterprise relied heavily on secrecy and the transient nature of the desperate mothers who utilised her services. Most clients were young, frightened, and eager to distance themselves from the circumstances of the birth, meaning they rarely returned to check on the welfare of their offspring once the initial payment was handed over. This lack of oversight created a dangerous vacuum, allowing Dyer to operate with virtual impunity for a troubling duration before the horrific truth of her practices finally came to light.
\r\nAmelia Elizabeth Hobley was born on November 27, 1837, in Pyle Marsh, a small village just east of Bristol. She was the fifth of six children born to Samuel Hobley, a skilled shoemaker, and Sarah Hobley. Unlike many of her peers, Amelia was reasonably well educated, developing a love for poetry and literature. However, her childhood was severely disrupted by domestic tragedy.
\r\nHer mother contracted typhus, which left her with severe mental illness and violent fits. Young Amelia was tasked with caring for her mother until Sarah's death in 1848. Some historians have often noted that witnessing her mother's mental decline taught Amelia how to recognize and simulate symptoms of mental illness - a skill she would later leverage to evade criminal prosecution.
\r\nAfter her mother died, Amelia lived with an aunt in Bristol and served an apprenticeship as a corsetmaker. Following her father's death in 1859, she became estranged from her family and, in 1861, married George Thomas, a much older 59-year-old man. To narrow their 32-year age gap on the official record, George deducted eleven years from his age while Amelia added six.
\r\nShortly after her marriage, Amelia trained as a nurse, a profession that introduced her to midwife Ellen Dane. It was from Dane that Amelia learned of a lucrative, low-risk business model based on her training: taking in unwed mothers and facilitating the \"adoption\" of their illegitimate children for a fee.
\r\nWhen George Thomas died in 1869, Amelia was left without an income to support herself and her daughter, Ellen (Polly). She turned to baby farming full-time, placing advertisements in local newspapers claiming to be a respectable, married woman eager to offer a loving home to a child.
\r\nInitially, Dyer allowed the infants in her care to die through deliberate neglect, starvation, and sedation. She routinely administered \"Godfrey’s Cordial\", a popular, unregulated syrup containing laudanum and alcohol known colloquially as \"Mother's Friend\" to quiet crying babies until they starved to death.
\r\nIn 1879, Dyer’s operations hit an obstacle. A suspicious physician noticed that an unusually high number of infants under Dyer's care were dying, and he refused to continue issuing death certificates without reporting his concerns.
\r\nDyer was arrested, but rather than being tried for murder or manslaughter, she was convicted only of child neglect. She was sentenced to six months of hard labor in Redisdale House. The experience broke her physically and mentally, prompting a change in the way she went about her 'business' upon release.
\r\nTo avoid future suspicion from medical professionals, Dyer decided to bypass doctors entirely. Instead of letting infants waste away over several weeks, she began directly strangling them immediately upon receipt, disposing of the corpses herself.
\r\nWhenever law enforcement or inquiring parents grew too close, Dyer would feign mental breakdowns and check herself into lunatic asylums. Having worked as an asylum nurse, she knew precisely how to behave to secure committal. Between periods of criminal activity, she spent time in several institutions, including the Somerset and Bath Lunatic Asylum. These stays served a dual purpose: they shielded her from police investigation and allowed her to reset her identity under a new alias.
\r\nBy 1895, Dyer had relocated to Reading under the alias \"Mrs. Harding,\" residing at 45 Kensington Road alongside her associate, Jane \"Granny\" Smith, her daughter Polly, and her son-in-law Arthur Palmer.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
In early 1896, a 25-year-old unmarried barmaid named Evelina Marmon gave birth to a daughter, Doris, in Cheltenham. Unable to care for the infant while working, Marmon placed an advertisement in the Bristol Times & Mirror: \"Wanted, respectable woman to take a young child.\"
\r\nDirectly adjacent to Marmon’s listing was an advertisement placed by Dyer:
\r\n\r\n\r\n\"Married couple with no family would adopt a healthy child, nice country home. Terms, £10... A child with me will have a good home and a mother's love.\"
\r\n
Marmon contacted \"Mrs. Harding.\" Although Marmon preferred a weekly boarding arrangement, Dyer insisted on a one-off payment of £10. Desperate, Marmon agreed. On March 31, 1896, Marmon met Dyer at a train station, handing over her daughter, a cardboard box of infant clothes, and the £10 fee.
\r\nInstead of taking Doris home to Reading, Dyer traveled straight to her daughter Polly’s lodgings at 76 Mayo Road in Willesden, London. There, using white cotton dressmaking tape, she wrapped the ribbon twice around the baby's neck and tied a knot, watching as the child suffocated. The following day, Dyer acquired another child, 13-month-old Harry Simmons. Running out of tape, she removed the ribbon from Doris's corpse and used it to strangle Simmons.
\r\nOn April 2, 1896, Dyer packed both corpses into a carpetbag, weighted it with heavy bricks, and traveled to Caversham Lock in Reading, where she threw the bag into the River Thames off The Clappers bridge.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
Dyer’s decades-long spree came to an end due to a single oversight. On March 30, 1896, days before Dyer dumped the carpetbag containing Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons, a bargeman discovered a brown paper package floating in the Thames near Reading.
\r\nInside was the body of a baby girl (later identified as Helena Fry). Detective Constable Anderson of the Reading Borough Police examined the wrapping paper under microscopic analysis. Faintly written on the paper was a Temple Meads railway station shipping label bearing an address and the name \"Mrs. Thomas.\"
\r\nPolice traced the address to 45 Kensington Road, but lacked definitive proof connecting \"Mrs. Thomas\" directly to the murder. Placing the house under surveillance, Constable Anderson and Sergeant James realized Dyer might flee if she grew suspicious. So, the officers devised a decoy operation, using a young woman to pose as an unwed mother seeking adoption services. When the decoy arranged a meeting at the house on April 3, 1896, detectives stepped through the door instead.
\r\nInside 45 Kensington Road they discovered evidence of dozens of adoptions, pawn tickets, and the stench of decay and Dyer was arrested. The police also dredged the Thames near Caversham Lock, recovering six additional infant bodies, including Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons, all strangled with white dressmaking tape.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
When shown the corpses strangled with cotton tape, Dyer confessed: \"You will know which are mine by the tape wrapped around their necks.\"
\r\nTo protect her daughter Polly and son-in-law Arthur Palmer from prosecution, Dyer authored a full confession in Reading Gaol, accepting sole responsibility for the horrific crimes which may have involved the murder or involuntary killing of up to four hundred infants.
\r\nAmelia Dyer’s trial took place at the Old Bailey on 21st and 22nd May, 1896. She was formally indicted for the murder of Doris Marmon.
\r\nThe defence argued that Dyer was insane, citing her frequent stays in lunatic asylums and her history of alcohol and laudanum abuse. However, the prosecution demonstrated that her asylum stays were calculated escapes timed precisely to coincide with police investigations, and that her strategic use of aliases proved her sanity and understanding of right from wrong.
\r\nIt took the jury just 45 minutes to return a guilty verdict. On June 10, 1896, at 9:00 AM, Amelia Dyer was hanged at Newgate Prison by executioner James Billington. Asked on the scaffold if she had any final words, she reportedly replied: \"I have nothing to say.\"
\r\nThe sheer scale of the suffering uncovered during the investigation highlighted a systemic failure across medical, legal, and social institutions.
\r\nThe public revelation of Amelia Dwyer's atrocities sent shockwaves through the community of Reading and resonated across Victorian Britain, which was already becoming increasingly aware of the dark realities of baby farming through other high-profile cases of the era, such as that of Margaret Waters and Amelia Sach. Newspapers of the day published lurid and detailed accounts of the proceedings, feeding a morbid public fascination while simultaneously stoking widespread outrage. Citizens and social reformers alike demanded to know how such systemic cruelty could have persisted unchecked within their neighbourhoods. The case forced local magistrates, police forces, and civic leaders to confront uncomfortable questions regarding the lack of regulatory oversight governing the boarding out of infants. The public outcry catalyzed a growing national movement for legislative reform, ultimately paving the way for stricter regulations on child care and adoption practices in the decades that followed, including Parliament passing the Infant Life Protection Act (1897), requiring local authorities to be notified of any adoption involving a child under five years old where a payment was made, giving inspectors the right to monitor care conditions.
\r\nIt also resulted in the expansion of the NSPCC, which had been founded in 1884, leading to increased public funding and investigative powers for child protection officers. Decades later, the legal frameworks governing adoption were completely overhauled, establishing formal court oversight and ending private, unmonitored financial transactions for children through the Adoption Act (1926).
\r\nDespite being convicted and hanged for only the death of Helena Fry, some estimate that Amanda Dyer may be the biggest serial killer in British history, responsible for up to 400 infant deaths.
\r\n\r\n
", "description": "The chilling history of 'baby farming' in the Victorian era and the notorious case of Amelia Dwyer, Reading's most infamous historical mass murderer.", "dateModified": "2026-08-31T08:53:53.457091+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-08-31T08:53:53.454809+00:00", "articleSection": "Local History", "contentLocation": { "name": "Reading", "@type": "Place" }, "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-dark-legacy-of-amelia-dwyer-uncovering-readings-victorian-baby-farming-horror/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "524", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/beyond-the-menu-understanding-the-true-hierarchy-of-italian-dining/", "title": "Cozze", "content_html": "
It was high time for a catch-up with fellow IR correspondent Phil Creighton, who has become something of a globe-trotting expert on Auracast, the technology that uses Bluetooth to provide audio assistance services everywhere from airports to banks.
\r\nSince tinnitus is beginning to affect me badly, I am always keen to, ahem, hear of the latest developments.
\r\nWhich brings me onto one of the worst things about restaurants - the auditory experience. Too loud, too quiet, bad music, good music. It is one of those crucial background elements that is key to a dining experience.
\r\nThe big restaurant chains even hire experts who focus on this and often make the wrong choice for us oldies.
\r\nIt was Phil's turn to stay local and regular readers will know how tempting an opportunity to visit the excellent Yaprak in Woodley is, but in the interest of our readers we decided on Cozze, where the acoustics were not set to be a problem since we were the first of few diners that lunchtime.
\r\nItalian restaurants are few and far between in Reading. They seem to come in pairs - Quattro and Papa Gees in Caversham, Carluccios and Vinto Vita, of course. Oh, and the other chains - Bella Pasta, Zizzi's and Presto. And no doubt Jamie's will make a reappearance once they have their beachhead in London sorted. But that is Americanised Italian food. Some pasta, some mains, some pizzas.
\r\nIt is a million miles away from almost any experience you will find in Italy. Angelo's has just opened in Station Hill (see review) and I hope he will bring some of the magic that made Ruschetta our go-to venue in the area for any special occasion over the past decade and more.
\r\nWhen you travel to Italy, you quickly realise that the word \"restaurant\" is just a vague blanket term. Italy has a highly specific hierarchy of eating establishments. Choosing where to eat isn't just about what you want to eat, but how long you want to sit, how much you want to spend, and how formal you want the vibe to be.
\r\nRistorante is what most foreigners picture when they think of a restaurant. A ristorante is a formal dining establishment, where it is traditional to take your time over a full, structured menu consisting of an antipasto (appetizer), primo (usually pasta or risotto), secondo (meat or fish with a side dish), and dolce (dessert). Which does make you wonder how all those elegant customers remain so skinny.
\r\nAt a cafe, breakfast for many Italians consists of an espresso and a pastry. What you drink when during the day is crucial. I once ordered a cappuccino in the afternoon and the sound of tutting by the waiter could be heard all the way back to the bar on the other side of the street.
\r\nIf you want authentic, local comfort food without the stiffness of formal dining, then look for a trattoria. Historically, these were family-run, casual neighbourhood spots serving regional specialties. The menu is often shorter, sometimes changing daily based on what’s fresh at the market. The service is warm and informal, and they're frequently family owned and run.
\r\nIn the past, an osteria was primarily a wine bar that served short, simple plates of food to accompany the drinking. Today, the line between a trattoria and an osteria has blurred significantly. However, a true osteria still leans into a highly rustic, relaxed atmosphere, often featuring communal tables and a heavy emphasis on local wines and regional finger foods or stews. I guess Vini Vita falls into this category.
\r\nIn Italy, a pizzeria is distinct because it usually centres entirely around a wood-fired oven. Often they only fire up their ovens for dinner, so don't be surprised if your favourite spot isn't open for lunch. Expect a short menu without the lavish choices that have become all dominofied in the UK and elsewhere and traditionally no pasta. Something like Knead Neapolitan in Wokingham.
\r\nIf you need a quick, budget-friendly lunch on the go, look for a tavola calda (literally \"hot table\") or a rosticceria, where spit-cooked food is the speciality. These are cafeteria-style spots where pre-prepared dishes—like lasagna, roasted meats, rice arancini, and cooked vegetables—are displayed behind a glass counter. You simply point to what you want, and they will heat it up for you to eat at a small counter or take away. These were traditionally working people's 'canteens' where they would have a hearty lunch.
\r\nAnd then you can create a matrix, if you are so inclined, with regional dishes - Ligurian, Sicilian, Tuscan, Tyrolean. They are all very different, ranging from the heavy cheese and ham of mountainous regions to the fresh veggie specialities of poorer and warmer regions with some Moorish influences like Sicily.
\r\nI used to have offices in Rome and Milan and it was interesting how the way of eating in the two cities was very different. In Rome we would go out after work and have whatever was the specials at the local ristorante - no menu, just one great dish after the other, whilst in Milan it was quicker lunches and later dinners. Or perhaps that was just how my colleagues liked things.
\r\nBut, back to Woodley and Cozze.
\r\nWe were the first to arrive and received an effusive welcome. It really was the nicest greeting I have experienced at a Reading restaurant and excellent service continued throughout even as the restaurant filled up a bit. By the time we left two hours later it was around a quarter full with a clientele who averaged around eighty years in age, I would guess. And the food, unfortunately, would be appropriate not to their auditory, but their dental abilities. Cozze is great if you have no teeth and are hard of hearing. Phil and I are both near our pension ages and we were the youngest customers by some distance I would gauge.
\r\nIt is a large room with utilitarian furniture and nice colourful prints on the wall. I find it strange that there are few outside tables in this pedestrian precinct - although Bosco Lounge was happily spilling over the pavements at the other end of the shopping area. Cozze had no outside tables (the picture is an old one), but did have aircon, an increasingly important feature of restaurants in our climate warming era.
\r\nInevitably they offer the usual lengthened menu with, wait for it: Starters, Something To Start (ie Nibbles), Enough To Share, Classic Pizzas, Classic Pastas, Filled Pastas, Toscana Pizzas, Risotto, Secondi, Calzone, Burgers, From The Oven, Salads, Sides and Desserts. That is four times more items than a menu in many local Italians I have eaten at and did not bode well.
\r\nBut thankfully there's a brief and enticing two course lunch menu for just £14.95, so the choice was easy.
\r\nThey had a greatest hits of Italian standard dishes, with Phil opting for the deep fried mozzarella for starters followed by the spaghetti carbonara whilst I selected the insalata caprese followed by polpette al forno.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260619_114944138.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/a19d7836.webp\")
And this is where things took a bad turn. My starter dish had a tasteless sliced tomato with rubbery and equally tasteless slices of mozzarella topped by good but salty pesto. It wasn't horrible, but it just tasted utilitarian - just about what you can get away with. The tomatoes could have been doused in brine if they were the utter tasteless hard red things that British supermarkets pass for one of the most delicious fruits. And you can't skimp on mozzarella. It didn't have to be burrata, but it had to be better than this industrial sponge.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260619_115016448.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/9a67fc1d.webp\")
I tasted a corner of the very generous four pieces of deep fried breaded mozzarella with a tomato dip and again found it tasteless and a bit pointless. It tasted industrial, not home-made.
\r\nThe main courses were even more disappointing. The carbonara looked like it had been bought in Tesco - gloopy cream with no eggy flavour and small bites of what I think was bacon not guanciale (but I stand to be corrected) and the cheese tasted like it had come out of one of those nasty cheese paste tubes. It did not taste like the egg, pecorino, parmesan and pasta water that it should have been. If I had been Phil I would not have eaten it, but he seemed to find it perfectly acceptable, so, as a foolish waiter once told my French mother-in-law 'it must be the taste in your mouth'. But, for a dish you can easily throw together at home in under fifteen minutes this was just unacceptable.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260619_120614420.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/9168073f.webp\")
But worst of all was my polpette al forno. The pasta was soggy, the sauce just about OK but I could not pick up on the leeks nor mushrooms and the meatballs tasted, looked and had the consistency of frozen meatballs from a supermarket that had been quickly thawed. The meat was soggy like the pasta and had no crunch or crust, which is what the oven is meant to add. Perhaps firing up the oven is just too expensive.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260619_120601554.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/78beb7eb.webp\")
The meal was considerably worse than buying the equivalent dishes from Waitrose round the corner and bunging them in the micro or oven. Which is a crying shame. I just hope and pray that this was a locum chef in the kitchen and that this was a total aberration, or that we made a total mistake in being cheapskates and going for the bargain menu. Italian food is all about ingredients, and good ingredients in the UK these days cost a lot of money.
\r\nAnd did I do what my wife does and tell them to their happy, concerned, welcoming faces that their food was awful? No, I cowarded and mumbled nice things and now I'm writing bad things. The young waitress was very concerned that I was leaving more than half my main course and insisted that I take it home. She lovingly wrapped it up for me. I felt really bad. These are the people I want to serve me in restaurants, but they deserve a better kitchen than this, even on an off day.
\r\nI wish Cozze all the luck in the world and with two branches (the other in Pangbourne), they have been around and enjoyed by people who are not me for decades.
\r\nI thought long and hard before publishing this review because I hate trashing the food at local independent restaurants, especially ones run by such a lovely, friendly team. But bad food is just bad food and lazy food is even more regrettable. Twenty years ago I was one of Trip Advisors' top 'contributors' (to the point that I got freebies everywhere) but when I realised that my family business back in Wales was suffering from being trashed unfairly I deleted my account and now I never rate on those awful algorithmic, monopolistic money grabbing platforms. Now I feel complicit.
\r\nBut, what did I expect for £14.95 in these difficult times I hear you scream? Less and better with more care is my answer. If the cooking matched the service, this would be one of the best restaurants in the region..
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
", "content_text": "It was high time for a catch-up with fellow IR correspondent Phil Creighton, who has become something of a globe-trotting expert on Auracast, the technology that uses Bluetooth to provide audio assistance services everywhere from airports to banks.\r\nSince tinnitus is beginning to affect me badly, I am always keen to, ahem, hear of the latest developments.\r\nWhich brings me onto one of the worst things about restaurants - the auditory experience. Too loud, too quiet, bad music, good music. It is one of those crucial background elements that is key to a dining experience.\r\nThe big restaurant chains even hire experts who focus on this and often make the wrong choice for us oldies.\r\nIt was Phil's turn to stay local and regular readers will know how tempting an opportunity to visit the excellent Yaprak in Woodley is, but in the interest of our readers we decided on Cozze, where the acoustics were not set to be a problem since we were the first of few diners that lunchtime.\r\nItalian restaurants are few and far between in Reading. They seem to come in pairs - Quattro and Papa Gees in Caversham, Carluccios and Vinto Vita, of course. Oh, and the other chains - Bella Pasta, Zizzi's and Presto. And no doubt Jamie's will make a reappearance once they have their beachhead in London sorted. But that is Americanised Italian food. Some pasta, some mains, some pizzas.\r\nIt is a million miles away from almost any experience you will find in Italy. Angelo's has just opened in Station Hill (see review) and I hope he will bring some of the magic that made Ruschetta our go-to venue in the area for any special occasion over the past decade and more.\r\nWhen you travel to Italy, you quickly realise that the word \"restaurant\" is just a vague blanket term. Italy has a highly specific hierarchy of eating establishments. Choosing where to eat isn't just about what you want to eat, but how long you want to sit, how much you want to spend, and how formal you want the vibe to be.\r\nRistorante is what most foreigners picture when they think of a restaurant. A ristorante is a formal dining establishment, where it is traditional to take your time over a full, structured menu consisting of an antipasto (appetizer), primo (usually pasta or risotto), secondo (meat or fish with a side dish), and dolce (dessert). Which does make you wonder how all those elegant customers remain so skinny.\r\nAt a cafe, breakfast for many Italians consists of an espresso and a pastry. What you drink when during the day is crucial. I once ordered a cappuccino in the afternoon and the sound of tutting by the waiter could be heard all the way back to the bar on the other side of the street.\r\nIf you want authentic, local comfort food without the stiffness of formal dining, then look for a trattoria. Historically, these were family-run, casual neighbourhood spots serving regional specialties. The menu is often shorter, sometimes changing daily based on what’s fresh at the market. The service is warm and informal, and they're frequently family owned and run.\r\nIn the past, an osteria was primarily a wine bar that served short, simple plates of food to accompany the drinking. Today, the line between a trattoria and an osteria has blurred significantly. However, a true osteria still leans into a highly rustic, relaxed atmosphere, often featuring communal tables and a heavy emphasis on local wines and regional finger foods or stews. I guess Vini Vita falls into this category.\r\nIn Italy, a pizzeria is distinct because it usually centres entirely around a wood-fired oven. Often they only fire up their ovens for dinner, so don't be surprised if your favourite spot isn't open for lunch. Expect a short menu without the lavish choices that have become all dominofied in the UK and elsewhere and traditionally no pasta. Something like Knead Neapolitan in Wokingham.\r\nIf you need a quick, budget-friendly lunch on the go, look for a tavola calda (literally \"hot table\") or a rosticceria, where spit-cooked food is the speciality. These are cafeteria-style spots where pre-prepared dishes—like lasagna, roasted meats, rice arancini, and cooked vegetables—are displayed behind a glass counter. You simply point to what you want, and they will heat it up for you to eat at a small counter or take away. These were traditionally working people's 'canteens' where they would have a hearty lunch.\r\nAnd then you can create a matrix, if you are so inclined, with regional dishes - Ligurian, Sicilian, Tuscan, Tyrolean. They are all very different, ranging from the heavy cheese and ham of mountainous regions to the fresh veggie specialities of poorer and warmer regions with some Moorish influences like Sicily.\r\nI used to have offices in Rome and Milan and it was interesting how the way of eating in the two cities was very different. In Rome we would go out after work and have whatever was the specials at the local ristorante - no menu, just one great dish after the other, whilst in Milan it was quicker lunches and later dinners. Or perhaps that was just how my colleagues liked things.\r\nBut, back to Woodley and Cozze. \r\nWe were the first to arrive and received an effusive welcome. It really was the nicest greeting I have experienced at a Reading restaurant and excellent service continued throughout even as the restaurant filled up a bit. By the time we left two hours later it was around a quarter full with a clientele who averaged around eighty years in age, I would guess. And the food, unfortunately, would be appropriate not to their auditory, but their dental abilities. Cozze is great if you have no teeth and are hard of hearing. Phil and I are both near our pension ages and we were the youngest customers by some distance I would gauge.\r\nIt is a large room with utilitarian furniture and nice colourful prints on the wall. I find it strange that there are few outside tables in this pedestrian precinct - although Bosco Lounge was happily spilling over the pavements at the other end of the shopping area. Cozze had no outside tables (the picture is an old one), but did have aircon, an increasingly important feature of restaurants in our climate warming era.\r\nInevitably they offer the usual lengthened menu with, wait for it: Starters, Something To Start (ie Nibbles), Enough To Share, Classic Pizzas, Classic Pastas, Filled Pastas, Toscana Pizzas, Risotto, Secondi, Calzone, Burgers, From The Oven, Salads, Sides and Desserts. That is four times more items than a menu in many local Italians I have eaten at and did not bode well.\r\nBut thankfully there's a brief and enticing two course lunch menu for just £14.95, so the choice was easy.\r\nThey had a greatest hits of Italian standard dishes, with Phil opting for the deep fried mozzarella for starters followed by the spaghetti carbonara whilst I selected the insalata caprese followed by polpette al forno.\r\n\r\nAnd this is where things took a bad turn. My starter dish had a tasteless sliced tomato with rubbery and equally tasteless slices of mozzarella topped by good but salty pesto. It wasn't horrible, but it just tasted utilitarian - just about what you can get away with. The tomatoes could have been doused in brine if they were the utter tasteless hard red things that British supermarkets pass for one of the most delicious fruits. And you can't skimp on mozzarella. It didn't have to be burrata, but it had to be better than this industrial sponge.\r\n\r\nI tasted a corner of the very generous four pieces of deep fried breaded mozzarella with a tomato dip and again found it tasteless and a bit pointless. It tasted industrial, not home-made.\r\nThe main courses were even more disappointing. The carbonara looked like it had been bought in Tesco - gloopy cream with no eggy flavour and small bites of what I think was bacon not guanciale (but I stand to be corrected) and the cheese tasted like it had come out of one of those nasty cheese paste tubes. It did not taste like the egg, pecorino, parmesan and pasta water that it should have been. If I had been Phil I would not have eaten it, but he seemed to find it perfectly acceptable, so, as a foolish waiter once told my French mother-in-law 'it must be the taste in your mouth'. But, for a dish you can easily throw together at home in under fifteen minutes this was just unacceptable.\r\n\r\nBut worst of all was my polpette al forno. The pasta was soggy, the sauce just about OK but I could not pick up on the leeks nor mushrooms and the meatballs tasted, looked and had the consistency of frozen meatballs from a supermarket that had been quickly thawed. The meat was soggy like the pasta and had no crunch or crust, which is what the oven is meant to add. Perhaps firing up the oven is just too expensive.\r\n\r\nThe meal was considerably worse than buying the equivalent dishes from Waitrose round the corner and bunging them in the micro or oven. Which is a crying shame. I just hope and pray that this was a locum chef in the kitchen and that this was a total aberration, or that we made a total mistake in being cheapskates and going for the bargain menu. Italian food is all about ingredients, and good ingredients in the UK these days cost a lot of money.\r\nAnd did I do what my wife does and tell them to their happy, concerned, welcoming faces that their food was awful? No, I cowarded and mumbled nice things and now I'm writing bad things. The young waitress was very concerned that I was leaving more than half my main course and insisted that I take it home. She lovingly wrapped it up for me. I felt really bad. These are the people I want to serve me in restaurants, but they deserve a better kitchen than this, even on an off day.\r\nI wish Cozze all the luck in the world and with two branches (the other in Pangbourne), they have been around and enjoyed by people who are not me for decades.\r\nI thought long and hard before publishing this review because I hate trashing the food at local independent restaurants, especially ones run by such a lovely, friendly team. But bad food is just bad food and lazy food is even more regrettable. Twenty years ago I was one of Trip Advisors' top 'contributors' (to the point that I got freebies everywhere) but when I realised that my family business back in Wales was suffering from being trashed unfairly I deleted my account and now I never rate on those awful algorithmic, monopolistic money grabbing platforms. Now I feel complicit.\r\nBut, what did I expect for £14.95 in these difficult times I hear you scream? Less and better with more care is my answer. If the cooking matched the service, this would be one of the best restaurants in the region..\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n ", "summary": "From the formal ristorante to the rustic osteria, discover the cultural nuances of Italian eating establishments and how they differ from the Italian-American chains we find in Reading.", "date_published": "2026-08-01T07:46:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-31T06:46:53.232533+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Iolo Jones" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/369c8df3.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/369c8df3.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "Iolo Jones", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Cozze", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1914, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
It was high time for a catch-up with fellow IR correspondent Phil Creighton, who has become something of a globe-trotting expert on Auracast, the technology that uses Bluetooth to provide audio assistance services everywhere from airports to banks.
\r\nSince tinnitus is beginning to affect me badly, I am always keen to, ahem, hear of the latest developments.
\r\nWhich brings me onto one of the worst things about restaurants - the auditory experience. Too loud, too quiet, bad music, good music. It is one of those crucial background elements that is key to a dining experience.
\r\nThe big restaurant chains even hire experts who focus on this and often make the wrong choice for us oldies.
\r\nIt was Phil's turn to stay local and regular readers will know how tempting an opportunity to visit the excellent Yaprak in Woodley is, but in the interest of our readers we decided on Cozze, where the acoustics were not set to be a problem since we were the first of few diners that lunchtime.
\r\nItalian restaurants are few and far between in Reading. They seem to come in pairs - Quattro and Papa Gees in Caversham, Carluccios and Vinto Vita, of course. Oh, and the other chains - Bella Pasta, Zizzi's and Presto. And no doubt Jamie's will make a reappearance once they have their beachhead in London sorted. But that is Americanised Italian food. Some pasta, some mains, some pizzas.
\r\nIt is a million miles away from almost any experience you will find in Italy. Angelo's has just opened in Station Hill (see review) and I hope he will bring some of the magic that made Ruschetta our go-to venue in the area for any special occasion over the past decade and more.
\r\nWhen you travel to Italy, you quickly realise that the word \"restaurant\" is just a vague blanket term. Italy has a highly specific hierarchy of eating establishments. Choosing where to eat isn't just about what you want to eat, but how long you want to sit, how much you want to spend, and how formal you want the vibe to be.
\r\nRistorante is what most foreigners picture when they think of a restaurant. A ristorante is a formal dining establishment, where it is traditional to take your time over a full, structured menu consisting of an antipasto (appetizer), primo (usually pasta or risotto), secondo (meat or fish with a side dish), and dolce (dessert). Which does make you wonder how all those elegant customers remain so skinny.
\r\nAt a cafe, breakfast for many Italians consists of an espresso and a pastry. What you drink when during the day is crucial. I once ordered a cappuccino in the afternoon and the sound of tutting by the waiter could be heard all the way back to the bar on the other side of the street.
\r\nIf you want authentic, local comfort food without the stiffness of formal dining, then look for a trattoria. Historically, these were family-run, casual neighbourhood spots serving regional specialties. The menu is often shorter, sometimes changing daily based on what’s fresh at the market. The service is warm and informal, and they're frequently family owned and run.
\r\nIn the past, an osteria was primarily a wine bar that served short, simple plates of food to accompany the drinking. Today, the line between a trattoria and an osteria has blurred significantly. However, a true osteria still leans into a highly rustic, relaxed atmosphere, often featuring communal tables and a heavy emphasis on local wines and regional finger foods or stews. I guess Vini Vita falls into this category.
\r\nIn Italy, a pizzeria is distinct because it usually centres entirely around a wood-fired oven. Often they only fire up their ovens for dinner, so don't be surprised if your favourite spot isn't open for lunch. Expect a short menu without the lavish choices that have become all dominofied in the UK and elsewhere and traditionally no pasta. Something like Knead Neapolitan in Wokingham.
\r\nIf you need a quick, budget-friendly lunch on the go, look for a tavola calda (literally \"hot table\") or a rosticceria, where spit-cooked food is the speciality. These are cafeteria-style spots where pre-prepared dishes—like lasagna, roasted meats, rice arancini, and cooked vegetables—are displayed behind a glass counter. You simply point to what you want, and they will heat it up for you to eat at a small counter or take away. These were traditionally working people's 'canteens' where they would have a hearty lunch.
\r\nAnd then you can create a matrix, if you are so inclined, with regional dishes - Ligurian, Sicilian, Tuscan, Tyrolean. They are all very different, ranging from the heavy cheese and ham of mountainous regions to the fresh veggie specialities of poorer and warmer regions with some Moorish influences like Sicily.
\r\nI used to have offices in Rome and Milan and it was interesting how the way of eating in the two cities was very different. In Rome we would go out after work and have whatever was the specials at the local ristorante - no menu, just one great dish after the other, whilst in Milan it was quicker lunches and later dinners. Or perhaps that was just how my colleagues liked things.
\r\nBut, back to Woodley and Cozze.
\r\nWe were the first to arrive and received an effusive welcome. It really was the nicest greeting I have experienced at a Reading restaurant and excellent service continued throughout even as the restaurant filled up a bit. By the time we left two hours later it was around a quarter full with a clientele who averaged around eighty years in age, I would guess. And the food, unfortunately, would be appropriate not to their auditory, but their dental abilities. Cozze is great if you have no teeth and are hard of hearing. Phil and I are both near our pension ages and we were the youngest customers by some distance I would gauge.
\r\nIt is a large room with utilitarian furniture and nice colourful prints on the wall. I find it strange that there are few outside tables in this pedestrian precinct - although Bosco Lounge was happily spilling over the pavements at the other end of the shopping area. Cozze had no outside tables (the picture is an old one), but did have aircon, an increasingly important feature of restaurants in our climate warming era.
\r\nInevitably they offer the usual lengthened menu with, wait for it: Starters, Something To Start (ie Nibbles), Enough To Share, Classic Pizzas, Classic Pastas, Filled Pastas, Toscana Pizzas, Risotto, Secondi, Calzone, Burgers, From The Oven, Salads, Sides and Desserts. That is four times more items than a menu in many local Italians I have eaten at and did not bode well.
\r\nBut thankfully there's a brief and enticing two course lunch menu for just £14.95, so the choice was easy.
\r\nThey had a greatest hits of Italian standard dishes, with Phil opting for the deep fried mozzarella for starters followed by the spaghetti carbonara whilst I selected the insalata caprese followed by polpette al forno.
\r\n
And this is where things took a bad turn. My starter dish had a tasteless sliced tomato with rubbery and equally tasteless slices of mozzarella topped by good but salty pesto. It wasn't horrible, but it just tasted utilitarian - just about what you can get away with. The tomatoes could have been doused in brine if they were the utter tasteless hard red things that British supermarkets pass for one of the most delicious fruits. And you can't skimp on mozzarella. It didn't have to be burrata, but it had to be better than this industrial sponge.
\r\n
I tasted a corner of the very generous four pieces of deep fried breaded mozzarella with a tomato dip and again found it tasteless and a bit pointless. It tasted industrial, not home-made.
\r\nThe main courses were even more disappointing. The carbonara looked like it had been bought in Tesco - gloopy cream with no eggy flavour and small bites of what I think was bacon not guanciale (but I stand to be corrected) and the cheese tasted like it had come out of one of those nasty cheese paste tubes. It did not taste like the egg, pecorino, parmesan and pasta water that it should have been. If I had been Phil I would not have eaten it, but he seemed to find it perfectly acceptable, so, as a foolish waiter once told my French mother-in-law 'it must be the taste in your mouth'. But, for a dish you can easily throw together at home in under fifteen minutes this was just unacceptable.
\r\n
But worst of all was my polpette al forno. The pasta was soggy, the sauce just about OK but I could not pick up on the leeks nor mushrooms and the meatballs tasted, looked and had the consistency of frozen meatballs from a supermarket that had been quickly thawed. The meat was soggy like the pasta and had no crunch or crust, which is what the oven is meant to add. Perhaps firing up the oven is just too expensive.
\r\n
The meal was considerably worse than buying the equivalent dishes from Waitrose round the corner and bunging them in the micro or oven. Which is a crying shame. I just hope and pray that this was a locum chef in the kitchen and that this was a total aberration, or that we made a total mistake in being cheapskates and going for the bargain menu. Italian food is all about ingredients, and good ingredients in the UK these days cost a lot of money.
\r\nAnd did I do what my wife does and tell them to their happy, concerned, welcoming faces that their food was awful? No, I cowarded and mumbled nice things and now I'm writing bad things. The young waitress was very concerned that I was leaving more than half my main course and insisted that I take it home. She lovingly wrapped it up for me. I felt really bad. These are the people I want to serve me in restaurants, but they deserve a better kitchen than this, even on an off day.
\r\nI wish Cozze all the luck in the world and with two branches (the other in Pangbourne), they have been around and enjoyed by people who are not me for decades.
\r\nI thought long and hard before publishing this review because I hate trashing the food at local independent restaurants, especially ones run by such a lovely, friendly team. But bad food is just bad food and lazy food is even more regrettable. Twenty years ago I was one of Trip Advisors' top 'contributors' (to the point that I got freebies everywhere) but when I realised that my family business back in Wales was suffering from being trashed unfairly I deleted my account and now I never rate on those awful algorithmic, monopolistic money grabbing platforms. Now I feel complicit.
\r\nBut, what did I expect for £14.95 in these difficult times I hear you scream? Less and better with more care is my answer. If the cooking matched the service, this would be one of the best restaurants in the region..
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
", "description": "From the formal ristorante to the rustic osteria, discover the cultural nuances of Italian eating establishments and how they differ from the Italian-American chains we find in Reading.", "dateModified": "2026-07-31T06:46:53.232533+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-08-01T07:46:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/beyond-the-menu-understanding-the-true-hierarchy-of-italian-dining/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "536", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/beyond-the-hype-the-hidden-bayeux-tapestry-replica-you-can-see-without-a-ticket/", "title": "See Bayeux Tapestry Without A Ticket", "content_html": "
The hottest event of this very hot summer seems to be the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry at The British Museum with record breaking ticket sales and feverish interest. It is the fastest selling and most popular exhibit in the museum's history.
\r\nIt has been marketed as the first, and perhaps only, chance for the British public to truly engage with the tapestry on British soil.
\r\nBut if you live in or near Reading there is a simple irony to this frenzy since the frieze telling the epic story of William the Conqueror and the ill-fated Harold Godwinson has not been inaccessible at all. In fact, an exquisite, full-scale replica of this medieval masterpiece has been residing in the Reading Museum for over a century, quietly telling the same tale of conquest, betrayal, and destiny to anyone who walks through its doors.
\r\nThe fascination with the Bayeux Tapestry is not surprising; the 230-foot-long work is the medieval equivalent of a blockbuster movie - a graphic depiction from the 11th century telling the story of the most seminal moment in the making of England. But how did a full copy end up in the Reading Museum ?
\r\nWell, this is the story of a remarkable woman who made it possible for us to study this global treasure without ever jumping on a train and queue, let alone cross the channel.
\r\nThe Origin Of The Bayeux Tapestry
\r\nTo understand why both the original in Bayeux and the replica in Reading carry such immense weight, you must first revisit the events of 1066. The original tapestry, a masterpiece of Romanesque art, was probably commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, the half-brother of William the Conqueror. It served as a brilliant piece of propaganda, designed to legitimize William’s claim to the English throne and tell the story of the Battle of Hastings from the Norman perspective. To the conqueror the spoils and in the middle ages this was the equivalent of a media or social influencer campaign.
\r\nBishop Odo needed to justify the invasion of England to the Pope and to his own Norman constituency. The scenes of Harold Godwinson’s oath-taking on holy relics are pivotal in this regard. By depicting Harold swearing fealty to William, the tapestry turns the English king into a perjurer, thereby framing William’s invasion not as an act of aggression, but as a righteous crusade to enforce an oath and restore order.
\r\nThe embroidery itself depicts the complex political web that led to the death of Edward the Confessor, the election of Harold Godwinson, and the subsequent invasion of England from the eyes of the conquerors.
\r\nTechnically, the tapestry is a set of embroidered linen strips, stitched with woollen threads in ten different colors. The artists - likely English needlewomen working under Norman supervision - used a variety of stitches, including stem stitch and laid-and-couched work, to create depth and movement. It is a work of immense ambition, documenting not just the violence of the battlefield, but the logistics of the invasion: the building of ships, the felling of trees, the preparation of a feast, and the crushing defeat of the English army. Every time one looks at the original, new details emerge - the expressions of the horses, the armor of the soldiers, and the subtle, often ignored borders filled with Aesop-like fables and mythical beasts that provide a commentary on the main event.
Frankly, like a good movie or book, it is a narrative you can return to time and again, learning something new on each occasion.
The Reading Replica
\r\nWhile the original has survived fires, threats of destruction by Napoleon, and the chaos of the French Revolution. Since 1983 it has been on display at a former seminary Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux (Centre Guillaume le Conquérant in the town of Bayeux in Normandy. The tapestry spent roughly the first seven centuries of its life primarily stored in the treasury of Bayeux Cathedral. Historically, it was taken out and hung inside the cathedral annually for a single week to celebrate the Feast of St. John the Baptist. During the French Revolution, it was seized as public property. It narrowly escaped being cut up to cover military wagons and was later taken to Paris in 1803 to be displayed at the Musée Napoléon as propaganda for Napoleon's planned invasion of Britain. After Napoleon abandoned his invasion plans, the tapestry was returned to Bayeux, where local officials eventually put it on display in a special room at the public library starting around 1842. During the Second World War, fearing wartime destruction and foreign confiscation during the German occupation of France, the tapestry was moved to multiple secret underground locations and bunkers for safekeeping. In the final days of the occupation in 1944, it was temporarily seized by Nazi authorities and taken to the Louvre in Paris. After Paris was liberated, it was briefly exhibited at the Louvre before being safely returned home to Bayeux in 1945.
\r\nThe 'Reading Copy'
\r\nIn 1885 Elizabeth Wardle, a talented embroiderer and the wife of a silk dyer from Leek in Staffordshire, decided that the people of Britain deserved to see the tapestry in England. She was an advocate for the art of needlework, believing that it was a serious craft that deserved preservation and study. Wardle did something truly audacious: she mobilized a group of thirty-five local women from the Leek Embroidery Society to recreate the tapestry in its entirety.
\r\nThis was not a task for the faint of heart. These women spent over a year meticulously copying every stitch, every color, and every nuance of the original. They visited Bayeux, they measured, they traced, and they stitched.
\r\nTo appreciate the magnitude of what the Leek Embroidery Society achieved, one must dive deeper into the technical demands of the tapestry. The original Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidery, not a woven tapestry in the modern sense. This distinction is crucial. It requires thousands of hours of work, with each section presenting unique challenges—from the intricate patterns of the chainmail to the expressive, often grotesque faces of the combatants. The needlewomen in Bayeux likely worked on eight separate panels of linen, which were later joined together. This modular approach is something that Elizabeth Wardle and her team had to replicate perfectly to maintain the scale and narrative integrity of the piece.
\r\nIn the Reading replica, the attention to detail is staggering. The team at Leek did not merely guess the patterns; they studied the original with a level of scrutiny that would satisfy a modern forensic historian. They replicated the 'outline stitch' that defines the figures and the 'laid-and-couched' work that provides the textured fill.
\r\nThe resulting replica is a testament to the Victorian dedication and craftwork. It's a fitting homage to the anonymous needlewomen who created the original work almost eight centuries prior. When the work was completed in 1886, it began touring the country. It was first shown at the Nicholson Institute in Leek in June 1886, then travelled around British towns and cities for roughly ten years, including trips to Germany and America. The point of the touring was commercial - the Leek Embroidery Society was trying to recoup what it had put into the project by charging admission. But takings never came close to matching the labour involved, and no permanent home turned up. However, somewhat ironically, at a time when the original was barely known outside Normandy, the Leek copy is what put the tapestry on the international map.
\r\nThe tour reached Reading Town Hall in June 1895, and Hill, by then an alderman, offered to buy it and give it to the borough. Elizabeth Wardle had reservations about it leaving Leek, but the Society voted to accept £300 for the embroidery, its viewing supports, and a stock of printed guides. It became one of the first exhibits in the museum’s new Art Gallery in 1897, and was taken to Windsor Castle so Queen Victoria could see it after Reading acquired it.
\r\nArthur Hill (1829–1909) was a banker’s son who worked as a railway constructor before moving to Reading and taking over a coal-dealing business. He became a councillor in 1879 and served as mayor from 1883 to 1887, paying for public concerts out of his own pocket. On retiring from public life in 1907 he was given the Freedom of the Borough. He also modernised the town’s public finances and sewerage, founded its first children’s library, and was an early backer of Reading University College. He was also half-brother to Octavia Hill, the social reformer and co-founder of the National Trust.
\r\nComparing The Embroideries
\r\nOne might assume that a copy is just a copy, but when comparing the Reading replica to the original in Bayeux, the nuances are fascinating. While the Reading version is famously accurate in scale and color, it bears the hallmarks of its Victorian creators. The materials used in 1885 differ slightly from the 11th-century originals, as you would expect. The wools have aged differently, and the linen, while high quality, possesses the texture of a late 19th-century weave rather than the medieval weave of the original. There are also subtle differences in the 'hand' of the work. The Leek embroiderers, while incredibly skilled, brought their own Victorian sensibilities to the execution of the faces and the flow of the garments.
\r\nHistorians often point out that the Reading replica acts as a time capsule not just of 1066, but of 1885. It captures the way in which the Victorians viewed the Middle Ages—with a mixture of reverence, romanticism, and intense scholarly precision. Interestingly, some details in the Reading copy are actually easier to see than in the original. Because it has not been subjected to the same centuries of environmental stress as the original, the colors in the Reading replica, while faded, maintain a consistent clarity that allows the narrative flow of the scenes to be traced easier than on the original. It still remains a primary reference point for researchers who wish to understand the physical construction of the tapestry without the protective casing that currently houses the original.
\r\nThe Narrative
\r\nBoth the original and the Reading copy follow the same epic progression. The story begins with Harold Godwinson’s fateful trip to Normandy, an event that sets the tragedy in motion. Through the scenes of the voyage, the oath-taking, and the return to England, the viewer is drawn into a narrative of inevitability. One of the most gripping aspects of both tapestries is the depiction of the English and Norman camps. You can see the preparations for war: the smithies working at full tilt, the mail coats being hauled onto ships, and the tense meetings between the men who would determine the fate of nations.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260722_111035913.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/3cf9ba6a.webp\")
Then, the focus shifts to the battle itself. The depiction of the Battle of Hastings is, for many, the highlight of the work. The chaos of combat, the archers letting fly their arrows, and the legendary moment of Harold’s death—whether by an arrow to the eye or the sword of a knight—are all rendered with a visceral intensity that transcends language. The border scenes, which continue throughout, include depictions of dead soldiers and horses, adding a grim sense of reality to the spectacle. These stories are not just about the victory of William; they are about the cost of power, the fragility of kingship, and the way in which history is ultimately a construct shaped by those who hold the needle.
\r\nReading Museum
\r\nOur local museum serves as a vital reminder that local institutions hold treasures of national significance. The replica is displayed in a way that allows the viewer to walk alongside it, matching the experience of the original’s intended display in a cathedral nave. There is no urgency of a ticketed time slot; there time to study, contemplate and understand that is not possible in the rather frenzied surroundings of the British Museum. The fact that the Reading Museum has been host to this replica for well over a century is a testament to the foresight of those who realised that local stewardship is as important as national curation.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260722_111127851.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/86b4279e.webp\")
Over the last thousand years, the original tapestry has led a life of adventure. It has been lost, stolen, and hidden during times of conflict. During the Second World War, it was stored in the cellars of the Louvre and later under the control of the SS, who were reportedly interested in its propaganda value. In contrast, the Reading replica has had a much quieter, yet equally significant journey. Its arrival in Reading in the late 19th century coincided with the rise of the Arts and Crafts movement, which championed traditional skills like embroidery. The tapestry became a centrepiece of local cultural pride.
There is a wonderful story about a visitor in the early 20th century who was so moved by the Reading replica that they insisted it was the 'true' original that had been smuggled out of France. While this is, of course, historically inaccurate, it speaks to the quality of the work created by Elizabeth Wardle and her team. They didn't just copy the stitches; they captured the spirit.
\r\nWardle's contribution to English heritage is often overlooked in favor of the 'great men' of history, but she was a pioneer. By organising the Leek Embroidery Society to undertake this project, she was making a statement about the capability of women and the importance of preserving historical narratives through craft. Her vision ensured that when the original was under threat or simply too distant for the average Briton to visit, the story of 1066 remained a part of the English identity.
\r\nToday, in our digital era, the physical presence of the tapestry serves as an anchor. It reminds us that once, everything was made by hand, slowly, and with great intention.
\r\n", "content_text": "The hottest event of this very hot summer seems to be the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry at The British Museum with record breaking ticket sales and feverish interest. It is the fastest selling and most popular exhibit in the museum's history.\r\nIt has been marketed as the first, and perhaps only, chance for the British public to truly engage with the tapestry on British soil.\r\nBut if you live in or near Reading there is a simple irony to this frenzy since the frieze telling the epic story of William the Conqueror and the ill-fated Harold Godwinson has not been inaccessible at all. In fact, an exquisite, full-scale replica of this medieval masterpiece has been residing in the Reading Museum for over a century, quietly telling the same tale of conquest, betrayal, and destiny to anyone who walks through its doors.\r\nThe fascination with the Bayeux Tapestry is not surprising; the 230-foot-long work is the medieval equivalent of a blockbuster movie - a graphic depiction from the 11th century telling the story of the most seminal moment in the making of England. But how did a full copy end up in the Reading Museum ?\r\nWell, this is the story of a remarkable woman who made it possible for us to study this global treasure without ever jumping on a train and queue, let alone cross the channel.\r\nThe Origin Of The Bayeux Tapestry\r\nTo understand why both the original in Bayeux and the replica in Reading carry such immense weight, you must first revisit the events of 1066. The original tapestry, a masterpiece of Romanesque art, was probably commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, the half-brother of William the Conqueror. It served as a brilliant piece of propaganda, designed to legitimize William’s claim to the English throne and tell the story of the Battle of Hastings from the Norman perspective. To the conqueror the spoils and in the middle ages this was the equivalent of a media or social influencer campaign.\r\nBishop Odo needed to justify the invasion of England to the Pope and to his own Norman constituency. The scenes of Harold Godwinson’s oath-taking on holy relics are pivotal in this regard. By depicting Harold swearing fealty to William, the tapestry turns the English king into a perjurer, thereby framing William’s invasion not as an act of aggression, but as a righteous crusade to enforce an oath and restore order.\r\nThe embroidery itself depicts the complex political web that led to the death of Edward the Confessor, the election of Harold Godwinson, and the subsequent invasion of England from the eyes of the conquerors.\r\nTechnically, the tapestry is a set of embroidered linen strips, stitched with woollen threads in ten different colors. The artists - likely English needlewomen working under Norman supervision - used a variety of stitches, including stem stitch and laid-and-couched work, to create depth and movement. It is a work of immense ambition, documenting not just the violence of the battlefield, but the logistics of the invasion: the building of ships, the felling of trees, the preparation of a feast, and the crushing defeat of the English army. Every time one looks at the original, new details emerge - the expressions of the horses, the armor of the soldiers, and the subtle, often ignored borders filled with Aesop-like fables and mythical beasts that provide a commentary on the main event.Frankly, like a good movie or book, it is a narrative you can return to time and again, learning something new on each occasion.\r\nThe Reading Replica\r\nWhile the original has survived fires, threats of destruction by Napoleon, and the chaos of the French Revolution. Since 1983 it has been on display at a former seminary Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux (Centre Guillaume le Conquérant in the town of Bayeux in Normandy. The tapestry spent roughly the first seven centuries of its life primarily stored in the treasury of Bayeux Cathedral. Historically, it was taken out and hung inside the cathedral annually for a single week to celebrate the Feast of St. John the Baptist. During the French Revolution, it was seized as public property. It narrowly escaped being cut up to cover military wagons and was later taken to Paris in 1803 to be displayed at the Musée Napoléon as propaganda for Napoleon's planned invasion of Britain. After Napoleon abandoned his invasion plans, the tapestry was returned to Bayeux, where local officials eventually put it on display in a special room at the public library starting around 1842. During the Second World War, fearing wartime destruction and foreign confiscation during the German occupation of France, the tapestry was moved to multiple secret underground locations and bunkers for safekeeping. In the final days of the occupation in 1944, it was temporarily seized by Nazi authorities and taken to the Louvre in Paris. After Paris was liberated, it was briefly exhibited at the Louvre before being safely returned home to Bayeux in 1945.\r\nThe 'Reading Copy'\r\nIn 1885 Elizabeth Wardle, a talented embroiderer and the wife of a silk dyer from Leek in Staffordshire, decided that the people of Britain deserved to see the tapestry in England. She was an advocate for the art of needlework, believing that it was a serious craft that deserved preservation and study. Wardle did something truly audacious: she mobilized a group of thirty-five local women from the Leek Embroidery Society to recreate the tapestry in its entirety.\r\nThis was not a task for the faint of heart. These women spent over a year meticulously copying every stitch, every color, and every nuance of the original. They visited Bayeux, they measured, they traced, and they stitched. \r\nTo appreciate the magnitude of what the Leek Embroidery Society achieved, one must dive deeper into the technical demands of the tapestry. The original Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidery, not a woven tapestry in the modern sense. This distinction is crucial. It requires thousands of hours of work, with each section presenting unique challenges—from the intricate patterns of the chainmail to the expressive, often grotesque faces of the combatants. The needlewomen in Bayeux likely worked on eight separate panels of linen, which were later joined together. This modular approach is something that Elizabeth Wardle and her team had to replicate perfectly to maintain the scale and narrative integrity of the piece.\r\nIn the Reading replica, the attention to detail is staggering. The team at Leek did not merely guess the patterns; they studied the original with a level of scrutiny that would satisfy a modern forensic historian. They replicated the 'outline stitch' that defines the figures and the 'laid-and-couched' work that provides the textured fill.\r\nThe resulting replica is a testament to the Victorian dedication and craftwork. It's a fitting homage to the anonymous needlewomen who created the original work almost eight centuries prior. When the work was completed in 1886, it began touring the country. It was first shown at the Nicholson Institute in Leek in June 1886, then travelled around British towns and cities for roughly ten years, including trips to Germany and America. The point of the touring was commercial - the Leek Embroidery Society was trying to recoup what it had put into the project by charging admission. But takings never came close to matching the labour involved, and no permanent home turned up. However, somewhat ironically, at a time when the original was barely known outside Normandy, the Leek copy is what put the tapestry on the international map.\r\nThe tour reached Reading Town Hall in June 1895, and Hill, by then an alderman, offered to buy it and give it to the borough. Elizabeth Wardle had reservations about it leaving Leek, but the Society voted to accept £300 for the embroidery, its viewing supports, and a stock of printed guides. It became one of the first exhibits in the museum’s new Art Gallery in 1897, and was taken to Windsor Castle so Queen Victoria could see it after Reading acquired it.\r\nArthur Hill (1829–1909) was a banker’s son who worked as a railway constructor before moving to Reading and taking over a coal-dealing business. He became a councillor in 1879 and served as mayor from 1883 to 1887, paying for public concerts out of his own pocket. On retiring from public life in 1907 he was given the Freedom of the Borough. He also modernised the town’s public finances and sewerage, founded its first children’s library, and was an early backer of Reading University College. He was also half-brother to Octavia Hill, the social reformer and co-founder of the National Trust.\r\nComparing The Embroideries\r\nOne might assume that a copy is just a copy, but when comparing the Reading replica to the original in Bayeux, the nuances are fascinating. While the Reading version is famously accurate in scale and color, it bears the hallmarks of its Victorian creators. The materials used in 1885 differ slightly from the 11th-century originals, as you would expect. The wools have aged differently, and the linen, while high quality, possesses the texture of a late 19th-century weave rather than the medieval weave of the original. There are also subtle differences in the 'hand' of the work. The Leek embroiderers, while incredibly skilled, brought their own Victorian sensibilities to the execution of the faces and the flow of the garments.\r\nHistorians often point out that the Reading replica acts as a time capsule not just of 1066, but of 1885. It captures the way in which the Victorians viewed the Middle Ages—with a mixture of reverence, romanticism, and intense scholarly precision. Interestingly, some details in the Reading copy are actually easier to see than in the original. Because it has not been subjected to the same centuries of environmental stress as the original, the colors in the Reading replica, while faded, maintain a consistent clarity that allows the narrative flow of the scenes to be traced easier than on the original. It still remains a primary reference point for researchers who wish to understand the physical construction of the tapestry without the protective casing that currently houses the original.\r\nThe Narrative\r\nBoth the original and the Reading copy follow the same epic progression. The story begins with Harold Godwinson’s fateful trip to Normandy, an event that sets the tragedy in motion. Through the scenes of the voyage, the oath-taking, and the return to England, the viewer is drawn into a narrative of inevitability. One of the most gripping aspects of both tapestries is the depiction of the English and Norman camps. You can see the preparations for war: the smithies working at full tilt, the mail coats being hauled onto ships, and the tense meetings between the men who would determine the fate of nations.\r\n\r\nThen, the focus shifts to the battle itself. The depiction of the Battle of Hastings is, for many, the highlight of the work. The chaos of combat, the archers letting fly their arrows, and the legendary moment of Harold’s death—whether by an arrow to the eye or the sword of a knight—are all rendered with a visceral intensity that transcends language. The border scenes, which continue throughout, include depictions of dead soldiers and horses, adding a grim sense of reality to the spectacle. These stories are not just about the victory of William; they are about the cost of power, the fragility of kingship, and the way in which history is ultimately a construct shaped by those who hold the needle.\r\nReading Museum\r\nOur local museum serves as a vital reminder that local institutions hold treasures of national significance. The replica is displayed in a way that allows the viewer to walk alongside it, matching the experience of the original’s intended display in a cathedral nave. There is no urgency of a ticketed time slot; there time to study, contemplate and understand that is not possible in the rather frenzied surroundings of the British Museum. The fact that the Reading Museum has been host to this replica for well over a century is a testament to the foresight of those who realised that local stewardship is as important as national curation.\r\n\r\nOver the last thousand years, the original tapestry has led a life of adventure. It has been lost, stolen, and hidden during times of conflict. During the Second World War, it was stored in the cellars of the Louvre and later under the control of the SS, who were reportedly interested in its propaganda value. In contrast, the Reading replica has had a much quieter, yet equally significant journey. Its arrival in Reading in the late 19th century coincided with the rise of the Arts and Crafts movement, which championed traditional skills like embroidery. The tapestry became a centrepiece of local cultural pride.\r\nThere is a wonderful story about a visitor in the early 20th century who was so moved by the Reading replica that they insisted it was the 'true' original that had been smuggled out of France. While this is, of course, historically inaccurate, it speaks to the quality of the work created by Elizabeth Wardle and her team. They didn't just copy the stitches; they captured the spirit. \r\nWardle's contribution to English heritage is often overlooked in favor of the 'great men' of history, but she was a pioneer. By organising the Leek Embroidery Society to undertake this project, she was making a statement about the capability of women and the importance of preserving historical narratives through craft. Her vision ensured that when the original was under threat or simply too distant for the average Briton to visit, the story of 1066 remained a part of the English identity.\r\nToday, in our digital era, the physical presence of the tapestry serves as an anchor. It reminds us that once, everything was made by hand, slowly, and with great intention. \r\n ", "summary": "While the world fights for British Museum tickets, a stunning, century-old replica of the Bayeux Tapestry awaits discovery in Reading. Learn the story of the extraordinary women who recreated history.", "date_published": "2026-08-01T07:46:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-08-05T09:02:59.467185+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Iolo Jones" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/083d25b0.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/083d25b0.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "Iolo Jones", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "See Bayeux Tapestry Without A Ticket", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 2348, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
The hottest event of this very hot summer seems to be the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry at The British Museum with record breaking ticket sales and feverish interest. It is the fastest selling and most popular exhibit in the museum's history.
\r\nIt has been marketed as the first, and perhaps only, chance for the British public to truly engage with the tapestry on British soil.
\r\nBut if you live in or near Reading there is a simple irony to this frenzy since the frieze telling the epic story of William the Conqueror and the ill-fated Harold Godwinson has not been inaccessible at all. In fact, an exquisite, full-scale replica of this medieval masterpiece has been residing in the Reading Museum for over a century, quietly telling the same tale of conquest, betrayal, and destiny to anyone who walks through its doors.
\r\nThe fascination with the Bayeux Tapestry is not surprising; the 230-foot-long work is the medieval equivalent of a blockbuster movie - a graphic depiction from the 11th century telling the story of the most seminal moment in the making of England. But how did a full copy end up in the Reading Museum ?
\r\nWell, this is the story of a remarkable woman who made it possible for us to study this global treasure without ever jumping on a train and queue, let alone cross the channel.
\r\nThe Origin Of The Bayeux Tapestry
\r\nTo understand why both the original in Bayeux and the replica in Reading carry such immense weight, you must first revisit the events of 1066. The original tapestry, a masterpiece of Romanesque art, was probably commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, the half-brother of William the Conqueror. It served as a brilliant piece of propaganda, designed to legitimize William’s claim to the English throne and tell the story of the Battle of Hastings from the Norman perspective. To the conqueror the spoils and in the middle ages this was the equivalent of a media or social influencer campaign.
\r\nBishop Odo needed to justify the invasion of England to the Pope and to his own Norman constituency. The scenes of Harold Godwinson’s oath-taking on holy relics are pivotal in this regard. By depicting Harold swearing fealty to William, the tapestry turns the English king into a perjurer, thereby framing William’s invasion not as an act of aggression, but as a righteous crusade to enforce an oath and restore order.
\r\nThe embroidery itself depicts the complex political web that led to the death of Edward the Confessor, the election of Harold Godwinson, and the subsequent invasion of England from the eyes of the conquerors.
\r\nTechnically, the tapestry is a set of embroidered linen strips, stitched with woollen threads in ten different colors. The artists - likely English needlewomen working under Norman supervision - used a variety of stitches, including stem stitch and laid-and-couched work, to create depth and movement. It is a work of immense ambition, documenting not just the violence of the battlefield, but the logistics of the invasion: the building of ships, the felling of trees, the preparation of a feast, and the crushing defeat of the English army. Every time one looks at the original, new details emerge - the expressions of the horses, the armor of the soldiers, and the subtle, often ignored borders filled with Aesop-like fables and mythical beasts that provide a commentary on the main event.
Frankly, like a good movie or book, it is a narrative you can return to time and again, learning something new on each occasion.
The Reading Replica
\r\nWhile the original has survived fires, threats of destruction by Napoleon, and the chaos of the French Revolution. Since 1983 it has been on display at a former seminary Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux (Centre Guillaume le Conquérant in the town of Bayeux in Normandy. The tapestry spent roughly the first seven centuries of its life primarily stored in the treasury of Bayeux Cathedral. Historically, it was taken out and hung inside the cathedral annually for a single week to celebrate the Feast of St. John the Baptist. During the French Revolution, it was seized as public property. It narrowly escaped being cut up to cover military wagons and was later taken to Paris in 1803 to be displayed at the Musée Napoléon as propaganda for Napoleon's planned invasion of Britain. After Napoleon abandoned his invasion plans, the tapestry was returned to Bayeux, where local officials eventually put it on display in a special room at the public library starting around 1842. During the Second World War, fearing wartime destruction and foreign confiscation during the German occupation of France, the tapestry was moved to multiple secret underground locations and bunkers for safekeeping. In the final days of the occupation in 1944, it was temporarily seized by Nazi authorities and taken to the Louvre in Paris. After Paris was liberated, it was briefly exhibited at the Louvre before being safely returned home to Bayeux in 1945.
\r\nThe 'Reading Copy'
\r\nIn 1885 Elizabeth Wardle, a talented embroiderer and the wife of a silk dyer from Leek in Staffordshire, decided that the people of Britain deserved to see the tapestry in England. She was an advocate for the art of needlework, believing that it was a serious craft that deserved preservation and study. Wardle did something truly audacious: she mobilized a group of thirty-five local women from the Leek Embroidery Society to recreate the tapestry in its entirety.
\r\nThis was not a task for the faint of heart. These women spent over a year meticulously copying every stitch, every color, and every nuance of the original. They visited Bayeux, they measured, they traced, and they stitched.
\r\nTo appreciate the magnitude of what the Leek Embroidery Society achieved, one must dive deeper into the technical demands of the tapestry. The original Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidery, not a woven tapestry in the modern sense. This distinction is crucial. It requires thousands of hours of work, with each section presenting unique challenges—from the intricate patterns of the chainmail to the expressive, often grotesque faces of the combatants. The needlewomen in Bayeux likely worked on eight separate panels of linen, which were later joined together. This modular approach is something that Elizabeth Wardle and her team had to replicate perfectly to maintain the scale and narrative integrity of the piece.
\r\nIn the Reading replica, the attention to detail is staggering. The team at Leek did not merely guess the patterns; they studied the original with a level of scrutiny that would satisfy a modern forensic historian. They replicated the 'outline stitch' that defines the figures and the 'laid-and-couched' work that provides the textured fill.
\r\nThe resulting replica is a testament to the Victorian dedication and craftwork. It's a fitting homage to the anonymous needlewomen who created the original work almost eight centuries prior. When the work was completed in 1886, it began touring the country. It was first shown at the Nicholson Institute in Leek in June 1886, then travelled around British towns and cities for roughly ten years, including trips to Germany and America. The point of the touring was commercial - the Leek Embroidery Society was trying to recoup what it had put into the project by charging admission. But takings never came close to matching the labour involved, and no permanent home turned up. However, somewhat ironically, at a time when the original was barely known outside Normandy, the Leek copy is what put the tapestry on the international map.
\r\nThe tour reached Reading Town Hall in June 1895, and Hill, by then an alderman, offered to buy it and give it to the borough. Elizabeth Wardle had reservations about it leaving Leek, but the Society voted to accept £300 for the embroidery, its viewing supports, and a stock of printed guides. It became one of the first exhibits in the museum’s new Art Gallery in 1897, and was taken to Windsor Castle so Queen Victoria could see it after Reading acquired it.
\r\nArthur Hill (1829–1909) was a banker’s son who worked as a railway constructor before moving to Reading and taking over a coal-dealing business. He became a councillor in 1879 and served as mayor from 1883 to 1887, paying for public concerts out of his own pocket. On retiring from public life in 1907 he was given the Freedom of the Borough. He also modernised the town’s public finances and sewerage, founded its first children’s library, and was an early backer of Reading University College. He was also half-brother to Octavia Hill, the social reformer and co-founder of the National Trust.
\r\nComparing The Embroideries
\r\nOne might assume that a copy is just a copy, but when comparing the Reading replica to the original in Bayeux, the nuances are fascinating. While the Reading version is famously accurate in scale and color, it bears the hallmarks of its Victorian creators. The materials used in 1885 differ slightly from the 11th-century originals, as you would expect. The wools have aged differently, and the linen, while high quality, possesses the texture of a late 19th-century weave rather than the medieval weave of the original. There are also subtle differences in the 'hand' of the work. The Leek embroiderers, while incredibly skilled, brought their own Victorian sensibilities to the execution of the faces and the flow of the garments.
\r\nHistorians often point out that the Reading replica acts as a time capsule not just of 1066, but of 1885. It captures the way in which the Victorians viewed the Middle Ages—with a mixture of reverence, romanticism, and intense scholarly precision. Interestingly, some details in the Reading copy are actually easier to see than in the original. Because it has not been subjected to the same centuries of environmental stress as the original, the colors in the Reading replica, while faded, maintain a consistent clarity that allows the narrative flow of the scenes to be traced easier than on the original. It still remains a primary reference point for researchers who wish to understand the physical construction of the tapestry without the protective casing that currently houses the original.
\r\nThe Narrative
\r\nBoth the original and the Reading copy follow the same epic progression. The story begins with Harold Godwinson’s fateful trip to Normandy, an event that sets the tragedy in motion. Through the scenes of the voyage, the oath-taking, and the return to England, the viewer is drawn into a narrative of inevitability. One of the most gripping aspects of both tapestries is the depiction of the English and Norman camps. You can see the preparations for war: the smithies working at full tilt, the mail coats being hauled onto ships, and the tense meetings between the men who would determine the fate of nations.
\r\n
Then, the focus shifts to the battle itself. The depiction of the Battle of Hastings is, for many, the highlight of the work. The chaos of combat, the archers letting fly their arrows, and the legendary moment of Harold’s death—whether by an arrow to the eye or the sword of a knight—are all rendered with a visceral intensity that transcends language. The border scenes, which continue throughout, include depictions of dead soldiers and horses, adding a grim sense of reality to the spectacle. These stories are not just about the victory of William; they are about the cost of power, the fragility of kingship, and the way in which history is ultimately a construct shaped by those who hold the needle.
\r\nReading Museum
\r\nOur local museum serves as a vital reminder that local institutions hold treasures of national significance. The replica is displayed in a way that allows the viewer to walk alongside it, matching the experience of the original’s intended display in a cathedral nave. There is no urgency of a ticketed time slot; there time to study, contemplate and understand that is not possible in the rather frenzied surroundings of the British Museum. The fact that the Reading Museum has been host to this replica for well over a century is a testament to the foresight of those who realised that local stewardship is as important as national curation.
\r\n
Over the last thousand years, the original tapestry has led a life of adventure. It has been lost, stolen, and hidden during times of conflict. During the Second World War, it was stored in the cellars of the Louvre and later under the control of the SS, who were reportedly interested in its propaganda value. In contrast, the Reading replica has had a much quieter, yet equally significant journey. Its arrival in Reading in the late 19th century coincided with the rise of the Arts and Crafts movement, which championed traditional skills like embroidery. The tapestry became a centrepiece of local cultural pride.
There is a wonderful story about a visitor in the early 20th century who was so moved by the Reading replica that they insisted it was the 'true' original that had been smuggled out of France. While this is, of course, historically inaccurate, it speaks to the quality of the work created by Elizabeth Wardle and her team. They didn't just copy the stitches; they captured the spirit.
\r\nWardle's contribution to English heritage is often overlooked in favor of the 'great men' of history, but she was a pioneer. By organising the Leek Embroidery Society to undertake this project, she was making a statement about the capability of women and the importance of preserving historical narratives through craft. Her vision ensured that when the original was under threat or simply too distant for the average Briton to visit, the story of 1066 remained a part of the English identity.
\r\nToday, in our digital era, the physical presence of the tapestry serves as an anchor. It reminds us that once, everything was made by hand, slowly, and with great intention.
\r\n", "description": "While the world fights for British Museum tickets, a stunning, century-old replica of the Bayeux Tapestry awaits discovery in Reading. Learn the story of the extraordinary women who recreated history.", "dateModified": "2026-08-05T09:02:59.467185+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-08-01T07:46:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/beyond-the-hype-the-hidden-bayeux-tapestry-replica-you-can-see-without-a-ticket/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "540", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/twyford-beer-festival-how-ian-wisdom-and-his-team-have-raised-over-150000-for-charity/", "title": "How Beer Drinking Helps Men\u2019s Health", "content_html": "
For over 15 years, people have flocked to a village just outside Reading in early June for a weekend of beer, food and music … even in the pouring rain. The annual Twyford Beer Festival is now a staple of the calendar, attracting thousands and is soon to boast an Oktoborfest.
The bar at each event is full of local, interesting, different and quirky brews, with ciders, perries, Pimm’s and other drinks also on tap – more than 140 different items. Everything has been served by volunteers who gave up their time to ensure that each event ran smoothly.
The formula has been so successful that the team will be helping out at Twyford Summer Fete in mid-August, and Wokingham Festival over the August bank holiday weekend, while an Oktoberfest-style event is to be held for the first time this autumn in Twyford.
Every event has raised thousands for the charity Orchid, which specialises in supporting men with penile, testicular, or prostate cancers. These are quiet killers with nearly 60,000 men diagnosed with one of these cancers in the UK each year.
![\"IMG_20181125_110023.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/5f27bc8b.webp\")
Ian settled on supporting Orchid after hearing someone speak about their treatment for prostate cancer and the support that the charity had given them.
His first event, held in Twyford’s Scout Hut in 2010, was a hit and raised £2,000. The event has grown in popularity ever since, and now has made Stanlake Meadow Recreation Ground its home, just a short walk from Twyford’s railway station with its Elizabeth Line connections.
The money donated by the Twyford Beer Festival team helps fund Orchid’s counselling service, information hub, and awareness-generating activities. Last month, the team went to Orchid’s offices in Farringdon to hand over a cheque for £1,500 – the profit from this year’s event. It might be smaller than usual, but three days of heavy and persistent rain meant attendance was down.
For organiser Ian Wisdom, he is delighted that a donation was still possible as there are more events planned over the rest of the year. He hopes that the total will be closer to £10,000 by the end of the year.
“We have been supporting Orchid for over 15 years. Collectively, over the years, we have raised more than £150,000,” he says of his keenness to keep adding to the charity’s coffers.
No wonder he was awarded Twyford Parish Council’s Citizen of the Year honour in 2023.
He is quick to thank the team who help him out and those who come along to enjoy the festivals: they turn out, buy and drink beer, have a good time and raise funds too.
“It’s something we’ve worked hard to achieve, and that vibe happens at Twyford. People are walking round with a lovely smile on their face. The same thing happens in Wokingham Festival. People are enjoying being there and helping us raise a few pounds for charity.”
\r\n
![\"IMG_20190209_223918_2.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/5d5158bd.webp\")
This year’s Twyford Beer Festival donation will be supplemented by money the volunteers raise throughout the year, including the humorous Willy Waddles, as witnessed by visitors to Marvellous Festival in Dinton Pastures last month. It was an opportunity for selfies, videos, and photos from attendees of the tribute band festival as they spotted a man in a comedy inflatable suit.
“My lovely friend Colin was walking around Marvellous in a penis suit,” Ian explained. “It’s marvellous, people seemed to be very receptive, and it gave us an opportunity to talk about Orchid and its work.”
Wokingham Festival, which runs from Saturday, 29 August to Monday, 31 August, will be a similar opportunity: a real ale bar and occasional waddles through the Cantley Park arena.
“We will be there providing the full-on bar and hopefully the Willy Walkers will be out there shaking a can or two, while the rest of the festival is enjoying some lovely music. We try to put on different ales that you wouldn’t get in your local pub – stuff that tastes nice as well; it’s similar to Twyford Beer Festival.”
Earlier this summer, Ian received the Gerry Aggett award from Wokingham Lions. This is awarded to a person who has provided outstanding service to the community. In addition to the honour, he received a £2,500 donation, which goes straight to Orchid.
“I was completely gobsmacked,” he said. “I was told they wanted to see me at an event and then they surprised me with a lovely cheque for the charity of my choice, which obviously had to be Orchid.
“It was amazing – absolutely amazing. I’m so very pleased that I have so many good friends around me that rally round to help raise money for the Orchid Male Cancer Charity.”
What is happening at Wokingham Festival?
Wokingham Festival runs from 11am on Saturday, 29 August through to 8pm on Monday, 31 August.
There are two stages featuring a mix of local, national, and international artists performing original music, along with tribute and cover artists, with a special focus on grassroots artists.
Headlining on Saturday night are the Country Chicks UK, who perform classic and contemporary Country hits with their own twist.
On Sunday, the headliners will be The Ogretones, the UK’s biggest musical tribute to the Shrek soundtrack. The nine-piece band will feature hits by Led Zeppelin, Buzzcocks, Wolfmother, Heart, The Monkees, The Proclaimers, and Bonnie Tyler, among others.
The festival’s finale on Monday night comes from The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. If the name is familiar, he had a hit with Fire back in 1968. Known for his flamboyant theatrical performances, this is a chance to see one of the most influential artists of the prog rock scene.
In addition to the bar, street food stalls will be available offering everything from ice cream and light refreshments to burgers, pizzas and Tex-Mex specials.
The event is held at Cantley Event Field with limited parking available. It is a walk of around 20 minutes from the town centre or Wokingham railway station.
When is Twyford Octoberfest taking place?
Twyford Octoberfest will take place on Friday, 9 October, and Saturday, 10 October.
The venue is the Twyford District Youth and Community Centre, off Loddon Hall Road, RG10 9JA. Limited parking is available.
![\"Oktoberfest.jpeg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/08/9945d0cd.webp\")
More details will be made available closer to the event.
How do I find out more about Orchid or make a donation?
Orchid’s website is https://orchid-cancer.org.uk/
It runs a free helpline for anyone who has been affected by testicular, penile or prostate cancer.
Open on Wednesdays from 9am to 5.30pm, nurses are available to offer information and support. Its number is 0808 802 0010.
The charity also offers an email service: nurse@orchid-cancer.org.uk
For over 15 years, people have flocked to a village just outside Reading in early June for a weekend of beer, food and music … even in the pouring rain. The annual Twyford Beer Festival is now a staple of the calendar, attracting thousands and is soon to boast an Oktoborfest.
The bar at each event is full of local, interesting, different and quirky brews, with ciders, perries, Pimm’s and other drinks also on tap – more than 140 different items. Everything has been served by volunteers who gave up their time to ensure that each event ran smoothly.
The formula has been so successful that the team will be helping out at Twyford Summer Fete in mid-August, and Wokingham Festival over the August bank holiday weekend, while an Oktoberfest-style event is to be held for the first time this autumn in Twyford.
Every event has raised thousands for the charity Orchid, which specialises in supporting men with penile, testicular, or prostate cancers. These are quiet killers with nearly 60,000 men diagnosed with one of these cancers in the UK each year.
Ian settled on supporting Orchid after hearing someone speak about their treatment for prostate cancer and the support that the charity had given them.
His first event, held in Twyford’s Scout Hut in 2010, was a hit and raised £2,000. The event has grown in popularity ever since, and now has made Stanlake Meadow Recreation Ground its home, just a short walk from Twyford’s railway station with its Elizabeth Line connections.
The money donated by the Twyford Beer Festival team helps fund Orchid’s counselling service, information hub, and awareness-generating activities. Last month, the team went to Orchid’s offices in Farringdon to hand over a cheque for £1,500 – the profit from this year’s event. It might be smaller than usual, but three days of heavy and persistent rain meant attendance was down.
For organiser Ian Wisdom, he is delighted that a donation was still possible as there are more events planned over the rest of the year. He hopes that the total will be closer to £10,000 by the end of the year.
“We have been supporting Orchid for over 15 years. Collectively, over the years, we have raised more than £150,000,” he says of his keenness to keep adding to the charity’s coffers.
No wonder he was awarded Twyford Parish Council’s Citizen of the Year honour in 2023.
He is quick to thank the team who help him out and those who come along to enjoy the festivals: they turn out, buy and drink beer, have a good time and raise funds too.
“It’s something we’ve worked hard to achieve, and that vibe happens at Twyford. People are walking round with a lovely smile on their face. The same thing happens in Wokingham Festival. People are enjoying being there and helping us raise a few pounds for charity.”
\r\n
This year’s Twyford Beer Festival donation will be supplemented by money the volunteers raise throughout the year, including the humorous Willy Waddles, as witnessed by visitors to Marvellous Festival in Dinton Pastures last month. It was an opportunity for selfies, videos, and photos from attendees of the tribute band festival as they spotted a man in a comedy inflatable suit.
“My lovely friend Colin was walking around Marvellous in a penis suit,” Ian explained. “It’s marvellous, people seemed to be very receptive, and it gave us an opportunity to talk about Orchid and its work.”
Wokingham Festival, which runs from Saturday, 29 August to Monday, 31 August, will be a similar opportunity: a real ale bar and occasional waddles through the Cantley Park arena.
“We will be there providing the full-on bar and hopefully the Willy Walkers will be out there shaking a can or two, while the rest of the festival is enjoying some lovely music. We try to put on different ales that you wouldn’t get in your local pub – stuff that tastes nice as well; it’s similar to Twyford Beer Festival.”
Earlier this summer, Ian received the Gerry Aggett award from Wokingham Lions. This is awarded to a person who has provided outstanding service to the community. In addition to the honour, he received a £2,500 donation, which goes straight to Orchid.
“I was completely gobsmacked,” he said. “I was told they wanted to see me at an event and then they surprised me with a lovely cheque for the charity of my choice, which obviously had to be Orchid.
“It was amazing – absolutely amazing. I’m so very pleased that I have so many good friends around me that rally round to help raise money for the Orchid Male Cancer Charity.”
What is happening at Wokingham Festival?
Wokingham Festival runs from 11am on Saturday, 29 August through to 8pm on Monday, 31 August.
There are two stages featuring a mix of local, national, and international artists performing original music, along with tribute and cover artists, with a special focus on grassroots artists.
Headlining on Saturday night are the Country Chicks UK, who perform classic and contemporary Country hits with their own twist.
On Sunday, the headliners will be The Ogretones, the UK’s biggest musical tribute to the Shrek soundtrack. The nine-piece band will feature hits by Led Zeppelin, Buzzcocks, Wolfmother, Heart, The Monkees, The Proclaimers, and Bonnie Tyler, among others.
The festival’s finale on Monday night comes from The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. If the name is familiar, he had a hit with Fire back in 1968. Known for his flamboyant theatrical performances, this is a chance to see one of the most influential artists of the prog rock scene.
In addition to the bar, street food stalls will be available offering everything from ice cream and light refreshments to burgers, pizzas and Tex-Mex specials.
The event is held at Cantley Event Field with limited parking available. It is a walk of around 20 minutes from the town centre or Wokingham railway station.
When is Twyford Octoberfest taking place?
Twyford Octoberfest will take place on Friday, 9 October, and Saturday, 10 October.
The venue is the Twyford District Youth and Community Centre, off Loddon Hall Road, RG10 9JA. Limited parking is available.
More details will be made available closer to the event.
How do I find out more about Orchid or make a donation?
Orchid’s website is https://orchid-cancer.org.uk/
It runs a free helpline for anyone who has been affected by testicular, penile or prostate cancer.
Open on Wednesdays from 9am to 5.30pm, nurses are available to offer information and support. Its number is 0808 802 0010.
The charity also offers an email service: nurse@orchid-cancer.org.uk
When the hosepipe ban came into force across the Thames Valley at one minute past midnight on Thursday 23 July it was an increasingly familiar event - Reading was under restriction last summer too, though only the postcodes north of the river were caught then. This time Thames Water applied the ban across its entire water-supply area, some ten million customers from Gloucestershire to west Kent, after weeks in which demand ran roughly a tenth above normal in the Thames Valley and the Home Counties.
\r\nThere is a particular irony in Reading going thirsty and sweltering in yet another heatwave. Few towns anywhere in the world are better equipped to explain why it is happening. Within a few miles of Reading station sit a century-old climate record, the only dedicated university meteorology department in the United Kingdom, the headquarters of Europe's medium-range forecasting centre, and the offices of a meteorological society founded in 1850. When the national conversation reaches for a scientist to explain the drought, the voice on the radio is very often speaking from Whiteknights or Shinfield Park.
\r\n![\"20200621_panorama.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/0ad62ae1.webp\")
180 Years Of Records
\r\nThe foundation of all of it is a patch of mown grass near the Earley Gate entrance to the University's Whiteknights campus, 66 metres above sea level.
\r\nWeather observations began at what was then University College, Reading in 1901, initially as a rainfall station on the London Road campus. Records from the earliest years have been lost, but an almost complete daily series of temperature, pressure and rainfall can be assembled from January 1908 onwards — sunshine duration was added in 1956, when a Campbell–Stokes recorder was mounted on the parapet of the Agricultural Botany building. The station stayed at London Road until 1967, moved to Whiteknights in January 1968, and settled on its present site on 1 January 1970. The Department of Meteorology took the site over in 1987 and, from 2008, it has been known formally as the Reading University Atmospheric Observatory.
\r\nWhat makes the series unusually trustworthy is its continuity of hands. Since 1918 the observations have been the responsibility of just five principal observers. The first, James Burgess, a Physics Department technician, kept the record for forty-two years and received a Meteorological Office long-service award in 1955. Arthur Moon took over in 1960 and served until 1977; George Goodhind followed until 1985, then Ken Spiers; today the daily readings are largely the work of Mike Stroud. Manual observations are still made at 0900, 365 days a year, alongside automatic sensors logging every second.
\r\nThe numbers that series produces are the raw material of any honest account of Reading's climate. Over the standard 1991–2020 averaging period the mean annual temperature at the observatory was 10.9°C, with January the coldest month at 5.1°C and July the warmest at 17.8°C. Average annual precipitation is 655 millimetres, falling on 157 days. March is typically the driest month, October the wettest. The extremes of the whole record are 37.6°C, set on 19 July 2022, and −14.5°C on 14 January 1982.
\r\nThe Science Of Weather
\r\nThe Department of Meteorology was established in 1965 and remains the only one of its kind in the country. It is ranked first among UK universities and tenth in the world for atmospheric science in the ShanghaiRanking subject tables, it won a Queen's Anniversary Prize in 2021, and six lead authors of the most recent IPCC assessment came from Reading. The department hosts a Regius Professorship in Meteorology and Climate Science, created in 2013 and held today by Professor Hannah Cloke, and houses major parts of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the National Centre for Earth Observation, along with Met Office staff embedded on campus.
\r\nIt is also, quietly, responsible for one of the most widely reproduced images in modern science. The climate stripes - the bar-code of blue-to-red bands showing warming since the nineteenth century - were designed by Reading's Professor Ed Hawkins and have since been printed on everything from face masks to the side of Glastonbury Tor.
\r\n![\"European-Centre-for-Medium-range-Weather-Forecasts-External.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/ff1081a4.webp\")
Two miles south, at Shinfield Park, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has been in Reading since the 1970s and recently redeveloped its campus. ECMWF was established by convention in 1975 to pool European meteorological resources; the UK won the bid to host it partly because the proposed site sat close to both the Met Office, then at Bracknell, and the University of Reading. The first supercomputer arrived at Shinfield Park in October 1978, and operational medium-range forecasts have been issued since 1 August 1979. The Centre now runs as a three-site organisation — the data centre moved to Bologna in 2021–22 and a Copernicus operation opened in Bonn — but Reading remains the headquarters, with most scientific and forecasting work, and a new building is being developed on the university campus itself. ECMWF holds the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data and its forecasts are, by common consent, the best global product available.
\r\nThe third institution is the least visible and the oldest. The Royal Meteorological Society, founded by ten gentlemen in the library of Hartwell House in April 1850, has occupied 104 Oxford Road since April 1990. Mannson House is a Grade II listed building of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, sitting in an ordinary Reading streetscape; from it the Society publishes the journals of record for the discipline, including the monthly magazine *Weather*, launched in 1946. It moved to Reading from Bracknell, following the gravitational pull of the Met Office, which had its headquarters there from 1961 until the 2003 relocation to Exeter. Reading was one of the towns on the ballot paper when staff were asked where they wanted to go. Had that vote gone differently, the Berkshire cluster would be even denser than it is.
\r\nExtremes Down The Years
\r\nThe Reading record is long enough to contain some genuinely violent weather.
\r\nThe town's worst single meteorological event predates the university series. On 24 March 1840 a tornado struck the Great Western Railway station. Henry West, twenty-four, was working on the station roof attending to the lantern; he was blown off, carried some sixty metres and found in a trench. He died of his injuries. A brass plaque beside platform 7 commemorates him.
\r\nThe winter of 1946–47 remains the benchmark for cold and its consequences. Reading's coldest March night on record, −11.3°C, fell on 7 March 1947; days later the snowmelt sent the Thames and the Kennet over their banks in the most widespread flooding of the twentieth century. A severe gale on 16 March that year killed two people in the town. Then, extraordinarily, the same year delivered a heatwave: from 11 August 1947, Reading recorded twenty-six consecutive days at 25°C or above. In February 1929 the Thames had frozen from bank to bank. The winters of 1963 and 2010 brought their own prolonged snow; the floods of 2000, the exceptionally wet winter of 2014 and the Great Storm of October 1987 are all in the logbooks.
\r\nDrought is equally well represented. April 1912 was the driest April in the record with 0.8 millimetres of rain, and a thirty-day rainless spell began on 10 April 1942, although this may be rivalled this year. The searing summers of 1911, 1976, 2003 and 2006 are recorded in the same pages. For thirty years the town's hottest day was 10 August 2003, when the observatory reached 36.4°C during the European heatwave. That stood until 19 July 2022, the day Britain first passed 40°C and Reading reached 37.6°C.
\r\nWarm nights tell the story of a changing climate more starkly than hot days. It took over forty years from the start of the record for Reading to register its first tropical night — an overnight minimum staying above 20°C — in September 1949. The second did not arrive until 2 August 1995. Since then they have come in 2020, twice in 2022, once in 2025, and twice more in a single week last month.
\r\nRecord Breaking 2026
\r\nThis year has rewritten large parts of that ledger, and it began by rewriting the opposite extreme. January 2026 was Reading's fourth-wettest in almost 120 years, with 121 millimetres of precipitation, and rain fell on 31 consecutive days — one of the longest unbroken wet spells in the entire series. That followed 2025, which was one of the warmest and sunniest years on record here and the driest in two decades.
\r\nThen the taps turned off. March delivered 70 per cent of average rainfall, April just 12 per cent — six millimetres for the whole month — and May 45 per cent, with sunshine running well above normal throughout. On 25 May the observatory recorded its hottest May day since records began, beating a mark set on 29 May 1944; the month peaked at 33.0°C.
\r\nJune was worse, and more remarkable. The 1976 June record of 34.0°C was passed on the 23rd and passed again on the 24th, when Reading reached 34.9°C. Four consecutive days at or above 33°C is something the record has never previously contained: the old benchmark was two days, achieved in 1923, 2003, 2020 and 2022. Seven successive nights failed to drop below 17°C, against a previous record of four. On 26 June the minimum did not fall below 21.3°C, Reading's hottest night ever measured. The month's mean temperature, 18.75°C, made it the warmest June in the series.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260728_091618608.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/ee3ed797.webp\")
July has continued the pattern rather than breaking it. The 9th reached 34.2°C, the ninth-hottest July day on record. By 12 July, Reading had logged fifteen days at 30°C or above in 2026, overtaking the fourteen recorded in 1976 and the thirteen in 1911 — with six weeks of summer still to run. Set against the longer record the shift is unambiguous: the 2020s have so far produced 47 days above 30°C at the observatory, compared with 27 in the 2010s and 18 in the whole of the 1970s.
\r\nFeeling Hot, Hot, Hot
\r\nNationally, 2026 has already delivered three heatwaves, a record eight days above 34°C — beating both 1976 and 2020 — and the first year on record in which 35°C has been reached in May, June and July alike.
\r\nBut as Dr Stephen Burt of the Department of Meteorology has pointed out, the heat is only half the story. Reading has had less than half its average rainfall since early March, and at one point in mid-July just two millimetres had fallen in four weeks. Across England, rainfall for July to the 21st stood at 3 per cent of the long-term average, with parts of the south and east recording nothing at all — the longest rainless spell since the mid-1990s. Soil moisture deficits reached record levels for the time of year across much of the country, river flows fell with only a sixth of monitoring sites classed as normal, and the Environment Agency moved the Thames and London catchment to \"prolonged dry weather\" status. No English region has yet been formally declared in drought, but eight temporary use bans are now in force between them covering more than twenty million people.
\r\nThe wet winter bought the region some time. It has now been spent.
\r\nThere is something fitting, and slightly uncomfortable, about the fact that the town supplying the world with its most-shared image of global warming is also watching its own gardens brown under a ban. The Reading record exists because a technician in the Physics Department decided, in 1918, that somebody ought to write the numbers down every morning. A hundred and eight summers later, those numbers are the reason we can say with confidence that this one is not simply a hot spell but a shift — and that the phrase \"the summer of 1976\", the benchmark for half a century, may finally have been retired.
\r\n\r\n
", "content_text": "When the hosepipe ban came into force across the Thames Valley at one minute past midnight on Thursday 23 July it was an increasingly familiar event - Reading was under restriction last summer too, though only the postcodes north of the river were caught then. This time Thames Water applied the ban across its entire water-supply area, some ten million customers from Gloucestershire to west Kent, after weeks in which demand ran roughly a tenth above normal in the Thames Valley and the Home Counties.\r\nThere is a particular irony in Reading going thirsty and sweltering in yet another heatwave. Few towns anywhere in the world are better equipped to explain why it is happening. Within a few miles of Reading station sit a century-old climate record, the only dedicated university meteorology department in the United Kingdom, the headquarters of Europe's medium-range forecasting centre, and the offices of a meteorological society founded in 1850. When the national conversation reaches for a scientist to explain the drought, the voice on the radio is very often speaking from Whiteknights or Shinfield Park.\r\n\r\n180 Years Of Records\r\nThe foundation of all of it is a patch of mown grass near the Earley Gate entrance to the University's Whiteknights campus, 66 metres above sea level.\r\nWeather observations began at what was then University College, Reading in 1901, initially as a rainfall station on the London Road campus. Records from the earliest years have been lost, but an almost complete daily series of temperature, pressure and rainfall can be assembled from January 1908 onwards — sunshine duration was added in 1956, when a Campbell–Stokes recorder was mounted on the parapet of the Agricultural Botany building. The station stayed at London Road until 1967, moved to Whiteknights in January 1968, and settled on its present site on 1 January 1970. The Department of Meteorology took the site over in 1987 and, from 2008, it has been known formally as the Reading University Atmospheric Observatory.\r\nWhat makes the series unusually trustworthy is its continuity of hands. Since 1918 the observations have been the responsibility of just five principal observers. The first, James Burgess, a Physics Department technician, kept the record for forty-two years and received a Meteorological Office long-service award in 1955. Arthur Moon took over in 1960 and served until 1977; George Goodhind followed until 1985, then Ken Spiers; today the daily readings are largely the work of Mike Stroud. Manual observations are still made at 0900, 365 days a year, alongside automatic sensors logging every second.\r\nThe numbers that series produces are the raw material of any honest account of Reading's climate. Over the standard 1991–2020 averaging period the mean annual temperature at the observatory was 10.9°C, with January the coldest month at 5.1°C and July the warmest at 17.8°C. Average annual precipitation is 655 millimetres, falling on 157 days. March is typically the driest month, October the wettest. The extremes of the whole record are 37.6°C, set on 19 July 2022, and −14.5°C on 14 January 1982.\r\nThe Science Of Weather\r\nThe Department of Meteorology was established in 1965 and remains the only one of its kind in the country. It is ranked first among UK universities and tenth in the world for atmospheric science in the ShanghaiRanking subject tables, it won a Queen's Anniversary Prize in 2021, and six lead authors of the most recent IPCC assessment came from Reading. The department hosts a Regius Professorship in Meteorology and Climate Science, created in 2013 and held today by Professor Hannah Cloke, and houses major parts of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the National Centre for Earth Observation, along with Met Office staff embedded on campus.\r\nIt is also, quietly, responsible for one of the most widely reproduced images in modern science. The climate stripes - the bar-code of blue-to-red bands showing warming since the nineteenth century - were designed by Reading's Professor Ed Hawkins and have since been printed on everything from face masks to the side of Glastonbury Tor.\r\n\r\nTwo miles south, at Shinfield Park, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has been in Reading since the 1970s and recently redeveloped its campus. ECMWF was established by convention in 1975 to pool European meteorological resources; the UK won the bid to host it partly because the proposed site sat close to both the Met Office, then at Bracknell, and the University of Reading. The first supercomputer arrived at Shinfield Park in October 1978, and operational medium-range forecasts have been issued since 1 August 1979. The Centre now runs as a three-site organisation — the data centre moved to Bologna in 2021–22 and a Copernicus operation opened in Bonn — but Reading remains the headquarters, with most scientific and forecasting work, and a new building is being developed on the university campus itself. ECMWF holds the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data and its forecasts are, by common consent, the best global product available.\r\nThe third institution is the least visible and the oldest. The Royal Meteorological Society, founded by ten gentlemen in the library of Hartwell House in April 1850, has occupied 104 Oxford Road since April 1990. Mannson House is a Grade II listed building of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, sitting in an ordinary Reading streetscape; from it the Society publishes the journals of record for the discipline, including the monthly magazine *Weather*, launched in 1946. It moved to Reading from Bracknell, following the gravitational pull of the Met Office, which had its headquarters there from 1961 until the 2003 relocation to Exeter. Reading was one of the towns on the ballot paper when staff were asked where they wanted to go. Had that vote gone differently, the Berkshire cluster would be even denser than it is.\r\nExtremes Down The Years\r\nThe Reading record is long enough to contain some genuinely violent weather.\r\nThe town's worst single meteorological event predates the university series. On 24 March 1840 a tornado struck the Great Western Railway station. Henry West, twenty-four, was working on the station roof attending to the lantern; he was blown off, carried some sixty metres and found in a trench. He died of his injuries. A brass plaque beside platform 7 commemorates him.\r\nThe winter of 1946–47 remains the benchmark for cold and its consequences. Reading's coldest March night on record, −11.3°C, fell on 7 March 1947; days later the snowmelt sent the Thames and the Kennet over their banks in the most widespread flooding of the twentieth century. A severe gale on 16 March that year killed two people in the town. Then, extraordinarily, the same year delivered a heatwave: from 11 August 1947, Reading recorded twenty-six consecutive days at 25°C or above. In February 1929 the Thames had frozen from bank to bank. The winters of 1963 and 2010 brought their own prolonged snow; the floods of 2000, the exceptionally wet winter of 2014 and the Great Storm of October 1987 are all in the logbooks.\r\nDrought is equally well represented. April 1912 was the driest April in the record with 0.8 millimetres of rain, and a thirty-day rainless spell began on 10 April 1942, although this may be rivalled this year. The searing summers of 1911, 1976, 2003 and 2006 are recorded in the same pages. For thirty years the town's hottest day was 10 August 2003, when the observatory reached 36.4°C during the European heatwave. That stood until 19 July 2022, the day Britain first passed 40°C and Reading reached 37.6°C.\r\nWarm nights tell the story of a changing climate more starkly than hot days. It took over forty years from the start of the record for Reading to register its first tropical night — an overnight minimum staying above 20°C — in September 1949. The second did not arrive until 2 August 1995. Since then they have come in 2020, twice in 2022, once in 2025, and twice more in a single week last month.\r\nRecord Breaking 2026\r\nThis year has rewritten large parts of that ledger, and it began by rewriting the opposite extreme. January 2026 was Reading's fourth-wettest in almost 120 years, with 121 millimetres of precipitation, and rain fell on 31 consecutive days — one of the longest unbroken wet spells in the entire series. That followed 2025, which was one of the warmest and sunniest years on record here and the driest in two decades. \r\nThen the taps turned off. March delivered 70 per cent of average rainfall, April just 12 per cent — six millimetres for the whole month — and May 45 per cent, with sunshine running well above normal throughout. On 25 May the observatory recorded its hottest May day since records began, beating a mark set on 29 May 1944; the month peaked at 33.0°C.\r\nJune was worse, and more remarkable. The 1976 June record of 34.0°C was passed on the 23rd and passed again on the 24th, when Reading reached 34.9°C. Four consecutive days at or above 33°C is something the record has never previously contained: the old benchmark was two days, achieved in 1923, 2003, 2020 and 2022. Seven successive nights failed to drop below 17°C, against a previous record of four. On 26 June the minimum did not fall below 21.3°C, Reading's hottest night ever measured. The month's mean temperature, 18.75°C, made it the warmest June in the series.\r\n\r\nJuly has continued the pattern rather than breaking it. The 9th reached 34.2°C, the ninth-hottest July day on record. By 12 July, Reading had logged fifteen days at 30°C or above in 2026, overtaking the fourteen recorded in 1976 and the thirteen in 1911 — with six weeks of summer still to run. Set against the longer record the shift is unambiguous: the 2020s have so far produced 47 days above 30°C at the observatory, compared with 27 in the 2010s and 18 in the whole of the 1970s.\r\nFeeling Hot, Hot, Hot\r\nNationally, 2026 has already delivered three heatwaves, a record eight days above 34°C — beating both 1976 and 2020 — and the first year on record in which 35°C has been reached in May, June and July alike.\r\nBut as Dr Stephen Burt of the Department of Meteorology has pointed out, the heat is only half the story. Reading has had less than half its average rainfall since early March, and at one point in mid-July just two millimetres had fallen in four weeks. Across England, rainfall for July to the 21st stood at 3 per cent of the long-term average, with parts of the south and east recording nothing at all — the longest rainless spell since the mid-1990s. Soil moisture deficits reached record levels for the time of year across much of the country, river flows fell with only a sixth of monitoring sites classed as normal, and the Environment Agency moved the Thames and London catchment to \"prolonged dry weather\" status. No English region has yet been formally declared in drought, but eight temporary use bans are now in force between them covering more than twenty million people.\r\nThe wet winter bought the region some time. It has now been spent.\r\nThere is something fitting, and slightly uncomfortable, about the fact that the town supplying the world with its most-shared image of global warming is also watching its own gardens brown under a ban. The Reading record exists because a technician in the Physics Department decided, in 1918, that somebody ought to write the numbers down every morning. A hundred and eight summers later, those numbers are the reason we can say with confidence that this one is not simply a hot spell but a shift — and that the phrase \"the summer of 1976\", the benchmark for half a century, may finally have been retired.\r\n \r\n ", "summary": "As hosepipe bans sweep the Thames Valley during another brutal heatwave, discover how Reading became the beating heart of British climate science and weather tracking.", "date_published": "2026-08-01T07:45:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-31T06:45:59.426357+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Iolo Jones" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/72ba4e1d.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/72ba4e1d.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "Iolo Jones", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "The Town That Measures The Weather", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1996, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
When the hosepipe ban came into force across the Thames Valley at one minute past midnight on Thursday 23 July it was an increasingly familiar event - Reading was under restriction last summer too, though only the postcodes north of the river were caught then. This time Thames Water applied the ban across its entire water-supply area, some ten million customers from Gloucestershire to west Kent, after weeks in which demand ran roughly a tenth above normal in the Thames Valley and the Home Counties.
\r\nThere is a particular irony in Reading going thirsty and sweltering in yet another heatwave. Few towns anywhere in the world are better equipped to explain why it is happening. Within a few miles of Reading station sit a century-old climate record, the only dedicated university meteorology department in the United Kingdom, the headquarters of Europe's medium-range forecasting centre, and the offices of a meteorological society founded in 1850. When the national conversation reaches for a scientist to explain the drought, the voice on the radio is very often speaking from Whiteknights or Shinfield Park.
\r\n
180 Years Of Records
\r\nThe foundation of all of it is a patch of mown grass near the Earley Gate entrance to the University's Whiteknights campus, 66 metres above sea level.
\r\nWeather observations began at what was then University College, Reading in 1901, initially as a rainfall station on the London Road campus. Records from the earliest years have been lost, but an almost complete daily series of temperature, pressure and rainfall can be assembled from January 1908 onwards — sunshine duration was added in 1956, when a Campbell–Stokes recorder was mounted on the parapet of the Agricultural Botany building. The station stayed at London Road until 1967, moved to Whiteknights in January 1968, and settled on its present site on 1 January 1970. The Department of Meteorology took the site over in 1987 and, from 2008, it has been known formally as the Reading University Atmospheric Observatory.
\r\nWhat makes the series unusually trustworthy is its continuity of hands. Since 1918 the observations have been the responsibility of just five principal observers. The first, James Burgess, a Physics Department technician, kept the record for forty-two years and received a Meteorological Office long-service award in 1955. Arthur Moon took over in 1960 and served until 1977; George Goodhind followed until 1985, then Ken Spiers; today the daily readings are largely the work of Mike Stroud. Manual observations are still made at 0900, 365 days a year, alongside automatic sensors logging every second.
\r\nThe numbers that series produces are the raw material of any honest account of Reading's climate. Over the standard 1991–2020 averaging period the mean annual temperature at the observatory was 10.9°C, with January the coldest month at 5.1°C and July the warmest at 17.8°C. Average annual precipitation is 655 millimetres, falling on 157 days. March is typically the driest month, October the wettest. The extremes of the whole record are 37.6°C, set on 19 July 2022, and −14.5°C on 14 January 1982.
\r\nThe Science Of Weather
\r\nThe Department of Meteorology was established in 1965 and remains the only one of its kind in the country. It is ranked first among UK universities and tenth in the world for atmospheric science in the ShanghaiRanking subject tables, it won a Queen's Anniversary Prize in 2021, and six lead authors of the most recent IPCC assessment came from Reading. The department hosts a Regius Professorship in Meteorology and Climate Science, created in 2013 and held today by Professor Hannah Cloke, and houses major parts of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the National Centre for Earth Observation, along with Met Office staff embedded on campus.
\r\nIt is also, quietly, responsible for one of the most widely reproduced images in modern science. The climate stripes - the bar-code of blue-to-red bands showing warming since the nineteenth century - were designed by Reading's Professor Ed Hawkins and have since been printed on everything from face masks to the side of Glastonbury Tor.
\r\n
Two miles south, at Shinfield Park, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has been in Reading since the 1970s and recently redeveloped its campus. ECMWF was established by convention in 1975 to pool European meteorological resources; the UK won the bid to host it partly because the proposed site sat close to both the Met Office, then at Bracknell, and the University of Reading. The first supercomputer arrived at Shinfield Park in October 1978, and operational medium-range forecasts have been issued since 1 August 1979. The Centre now runs as a three-site organisation — the data centre moved to Bologna in 2021–22 and a Copernicus operation opened in Bonn — but Reading remains the headquarters, with most scientific and forecasting work, and a new building is being developed on the university campus itself. ECMWF holds the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data and its forecasts are, by common consent, the best global product available.
\r\nThe third institution is the least visible and the oldest. The Royal Meteorological Society, founded by ten gentlemen in the library of Hartwell House in April 1850, has occupied 104 Oxford Road since April 1990. Mannson House is a Grade II listed building of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, sitting in an ordinary Reading streetscape; from it the Society publishes the journals of record for the discipline, including the monthly magazine *Weather*, launched in 1946. It moved to Reading from Bracknell, following the gravitational pull of the Met Office, which had its headquarters there from 1961 until the 2003 relocation to Exeter. Reading was one of the towns on the ballot paper when staff were asked where they wanted to go. Had that vote gone differently, the Berkshire cluster would be even denser than it is.
\r\nExtremes Down The Years
\r\nThe Reading record is long enough to contain some genuinely violent weather.
\r\nThe town's worst single meteorological event predates the university series. On 24 March 1840 a tornado struck the Great Western Railway station. Henry West, twenty-four, was working on the station roof attending to the lantern; he was blown off, carried some sixty metres and found in a trench. He died of his injuries. A brass plaque beside platform 7 commemorates him.
\r\nThe winter of 1946–47 remains the benchmark for cold and its consequences. Reading's coldest March night on record, −11.3°C, fell on 7 March 1947; days later the snowmelt sent the Thames and the Kennet over their banks in the most widespread flooding of the twentieth century. A severe gale on 16 March that year killed two people in the town. Then, extraordinarily, the same year delivered a heatwave: from 11 August 1947, Reading recorded twenty-six consecutive days at 25°C or above. In February 1929 the Thames had frozen from bank to bank. The winters of 1963 and 2010 brought their own prolonged snow; the floods of 2000, the exceptionally wet winter of 2014 and the Great Storm of October 1987 are all in the logbooks.
\r\nDrought is equally well represented. April 1912 was the driest April in the record with 0.8 millimetres of rain, and a thirty-day rainless spell began on 10 April 1942, although this may be rivalled this year. The searing summers of 1911, 1976, 2003 and 2006 are recorded in the same pages. For thirty years the town's hottest day was 10 August 2003, when the observatory reached 36.4°C during the European heatwave. That stood until 19 July 2022, the day Britain first passed 40°C and Reading reached 37.6°C.
\r\nWarm nights tell the story of a changing climate more starkly than hot days. It took over forty years from the start of the record for Reading to register its first tropical night — an overnight minimum staying above 20°C — in September 1949. The second did not arrive until 2 August 1995. Since then they have come in 2020, twice in 2022, once in 2025, and twice more in a single week last month.
\r\nRecord Breaking 2026
\r\nThis year has rewritten large parts of that ledger, and it began by rewriting the opposite extreme. January 2026 was Reading's fourth-wettest in almost 120 years, with 121 millimetres of precipitation, and rain fell on 31 consecutive days — one of the longest unbroken wet spells in the entire series. That followed 2025, which was one of the warmest and sunniest years on record here and the driest in two decades.
\r\nThen the taps turned off. March delivered 70 per cent of average rainfall, April just 12 per cent — six millimetres for the whole month — and May 45 per cent, with sunshine running well above normal throughout. On 25 May the observatory recorded its hottest May day since records began, beating a mark set on 29 May 1944; the month peaked at 33.0°C.
\r\nJune was worse, and more remarkable. The 1976 June record of 34.0°C was passed on the 23rd and passed again on the 24th, when Reading reached 34.9°C. Four consecutive days at or above 33°C is something the record has never previously contained: the old benchmark was two days, achieved in 1923, 2003, 2020 and 2022. Seven successive nights failed to drop below 17°C, against a previous record of four. On 26 June the minimum did not fall below 21.3°C, Reading's hottest night ever measured. The month's mean temperature, 18.75°C, made it the warmest June in the series.
\r\n
July has continued the pattern rather than breaking it. The 9th reached 34.2°C, the ninth-hottest July day on record. By 12 July, Reading had logged fifteen days at 30°C or above in 2026, overtaking the fourteen recorded in 1976 and the thirteen in 1911 — with six weeks of summer still to run. Set against the longer record the shift is unambiguous: the 2020s have so far produced 47 days above 30°C at the observatory, compared with 27 in the 2010s and 18 in the whole of the 1970s.
\r\nFeeling Hot, Hot, Hot
\r\nNationally, 2026 has already delivered three heatwaves, a record eight days above 34°C — beating both 1976 and 2020 — and the first year on record in which 35°C has been reached in May, June and July alike.
\r\nBut as Dr Stephen Burt of the Department of Meteorology has pointed out, the heat is only half the story. Reading has had less than half its average rainfall since early March, and at one point in mid-July just two millimetres had fallen in four weeks. Across England, rainfall for July to the 21st stood at 3 per cent of the long-term average, with parts of the south and east recording nothing at all — the longest rainless spell since the mid-1990s. Soil moisture deficits reached record levels for the time of year across much of the country, river flows fell with only a sixth of monitoring sites classed as normal, and the Environment Agency moved the Thames and London catchment to \"prolonged dry weather\" status. No English region has yet been formally declared in drought, but eight temporary use bans are now in force between them covering more than twenty million people.
\r\nThe wet winter bought the region some time. It has now been spent.
\r\nThere is something fitting, and slightly uncomfortable, about the fact that the town supplying the world with its most-shared image of global warming is also watching its own gardens brown under a ban. The Reading record exists because a technician in the Physics Department decided, in 1918, that somebody ought to write the numbers down every morning. A hundred and eight summers later, those numbers are the reason we can say with confidence that this one is not simply a hot spell but a shift — and that the phrase \"the summer of 1976\", the benchmark for half a century, may finally have been retired.
\r\n\r\n
", "description": "As hosepipe bans sweep the Thames Valley during another brutal heatwave, discover how Reading became the beating heart of British climate science and weather tracking.", "dateModified": "2026-07-31T06:45:59.426357+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-08-01T07:45:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/readings-weather-legacy-how-the-town-became-the-global-heart-of-meteorology/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "541", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/angelos-on-station-hill/", "title": "Angelo\u2019s On Station Hill", "content_html": "
Finally, a reason to be happy about our town's dining scene with the opening of Angelo's at Station Hill.
\r\nAngelo Colao is a fixture in the local restaurant trade having run many Italian restaurants in Reading and Wokingham, the most prominent being Ruschetta on Rose St which recently rebranded as Angelo's.
\r\nNow a new branch of the eponymous eatery has finally opened in Reading after many months of planning and preparation.
\r\nOn a Friday lunchtime I met my wife off the London train and decided to pop in for lunch at the new Station Hill site. I already had a lunch date set here with another Ruschetta fan, G, but I couldn't help jumping the gun.
\r\nThe owner greeted us like old friends at the front door - which, indeed we are, having spent every important birthday, Christmas Eve and celebrations at Ruschetta.
\r\nThe room is small and a bit awkward with a traditional seating area containing around twenty covers at the back and a bar stool area at the front.
\r\nThere are also plenty of seats outside, but the location is hot on a summer day and can be very windy at other times of the year. Reading really needs more al fresco dining and with some work this may become a good spot, facing south east so shaded in the afternoon and evenings. It was warm but windy so we decided to sit indoors. On my return visit, with temperatures hitting 34C and the sun beating down, we also opted for the inside.
\r\nThe outside is certainly work in progress and needs some thinking through. Planters and umbrellas at the very least. Our town needs more outside dining spaces like those found at Carluccio's and Vini Vita.
\r\nI'm also not sure whether this zoning doesn't demand different menus, although I guess you can make this work however you want as a punter by selecting from the carefully curated menu.
\r\nWe were recently turned away from a Zizzi's in London because we just asked for drinks at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon, but popping in for a drink and a plate of zucchini fritti should be a decent option for an after work drink (if that's still a thing at all these days).
\r\nBut let's get onto the important stuff.
\r\nThe menu is thankfully short, and does not feature pizzas or burgers you will be glad to hear.
\r\nInstead there are all the best Italian classics, some with a twist.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260703_115951577.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/f553a65e.webp\")
My wife had the deep fried zucchini or courgettes. Unusually they were cut in the round and lightly battered with perfect seasoning and a mayo dip. As it turns out this is a better idea than matchsticked courgettes providing more flavour from the vegetable and less batter, which was tempura light. I may just have helped her clear her plate in ultra quick time.
\r\nMy carpaccio was also spot on - just the right thickness with rocket and excellent parmesan shaved on top. I couldn't fault it, apart from perhaps the lack of a slice of lemon, but that might be my personal quirk.
\r\nOn my return visit G and I shared the zucchini again (an immediate local classic) and the goat's cheese which could have done with a tad more fig jam and perhaps more bread. The portion of cheese was very generous.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260710_123047568.MP.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/91710502.webp\")
For mains I had the hake, pearlescent and flaky with a light breadcrumb on top on a bed of cooked spinach surrounded by the sweetest baby tomatoes.
\r\nThe fries I ordered on the side were fat and crunchy and could not be faulted.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260703_121740256.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/dd3b539a.webp\")
When I went back with G he had the cacio e pepe risotto - a dish usually served with pasta, but the reinvention is a touch of genius with parmesan and truffles enhancing the flavour.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260710_130113877.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/4e9ca13f.webp\")
I had the black fettuccine with seafood which was just perfect. I have a weakness for black squid pasta since spending a lot of time in Croatia in the 90s where it is considered a national dish. The tomato sauce was deep and clung to the pasta strands and the seafood was very generous - prawn, calamari and scallops.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260710_130122167.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/5c608a3b.webp\")
On both visits the pasta dishes were so large that they provided me with an additional meal via a doggie bag.
\r\nHowever G finished his risotto and had to fend for himself over supper I suspect.
\r\nAt Angelo's you will find great ingredients, simply cooked. It is what Italian food is all about.
\r\nMy wife tried the measure of any Italian restaurant - spaghetti carbonara. This was almost literally chalk and cheese in comparison to the dreadful dish my colleague Phil had in Cozze the previous week.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260703_121722504.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/4da3e4cb.webp\")
Perfectly cooked pasta, just al dente, wrapped in eggy sauce with the hint of cheese and fatty guanciale. The portion was generous. Even after I had stolen a a few wrapped forkfuls there was enough to take home for dinner.
\r\nWe were too full for dessert. With a bottle of San Pellegrino and a large glass of Gavi di Gavi - my father-in-law's favourite wine and fifteen years to the day since he passed away. He and my mother-in-law would have loved Angelo's.
\r\nStarters are around a tenner, pasta dishes under twenty and my hake was £24. Not cheap, but keenly priced against the chain restaurants.
\r\nThe bill with my wife totalled £87 without service. On my revisit we worked our way through a bottle of excellent rosé and paid sixty quid a head by the time we added service, which extrordinarily is not charged by default.
\r\nNot cheap, but you could just have a pasta and a coffee and get away with a very reasonable bill. These days that counts as value for money. But I do think they will need to offer a prix fixe lunchtime menu to attract those no longer allowed to WFH, who will then return of an evening with their partner or friends.
\r\nI should add that all main wines are offered by the small glass, large glass, carafe and bottle. So, drink what you can afford or just blow out! Clever.
\r\nThe staff, some of whom we recognised from the Wokingham restaurant, were charming, friendly and efficient on both visits.
\r\nThere is a reason why Angelo is one of the area's most successful restauranteurs and I, for one, am delighted that he has opened in Reading and he deserves all the support you can give him.
\r\nA few weeks after opening, Angelo's is already one of the best restaurants in town and I hope it will go from strength to strength.
", "content_text": "Finally, a reason to be happy about our town's dining scene with the opening of Angelo's at Station Hill.\r\nAngelo Colao is a fixture in the local restaurant trade having run many Italian restaurants in Reading and Wokingham, the most prominent being Ruschetta on Rose St which recently rebranded as Angelo's.\r\nNow a new branch of the eponymous eatery has finally opened in Reading after many months of planning and preparation.\r\nOn a Friday lunchtime I met my wife off the London train and decided to pop in for lunch at the new Station Hill site. I already had a lunch date set here with another Ruschetta fan, G, but I couldn't help jumping the gun.\r\nThe owner greeted us like old friends at the front door - which, indeed we are, having spent every important birthday, Christmas Eve and celebrations at Ruschetta. \r\nThe room is small and a bit awkward with a traditional seating area containing around twenty covers at the back and a bar stool area at the front.\r\nThere are also plenty of seats outside, but the location is hot on a summer day and can be very windy at other times of the year. Reading really needs more al fresco dining and with some work this may become a good spot, facing south east so shaded in the afternoon and evenings. It was warm but windy so we decided to sit indoors. On my return visit, with temperatures hitting 34C and the sun beating down, we also opted for the inside. \r\nThe outside is certainly work in progress and needs some thinking through. Planters and umbrellas at the very least. Our town needs more outside dining spaces like those found at Carluccio's and Vini Vita.\r\nI'm also not sure whether this zoning doesn't demand different menus, although I guess you can make this work however you want as a punter by selecting from the carefully curated menu.\r\nWe were recently turned away from a Zizzi's in London because we just asked for drinks at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon, but popping in for a drink and a plate of zucchini fritti should be a decent option for an after work drink (if that's still a thing at all these days).\r\nBut let's get onto the important stuff.\r\nThe menu is thankfully short, and does not feature pizzas or burgers you will be glad to hear.\r\nInstead there are all the best Italian classics, some with a twist.\r\n\r\nMy wife had the deep fried zucchini or courgettes. Unusually they were cut in the round and lightly battered with perfect seasoning and a mayo dip. As it turns out this is a better idea than matchsticked courgettes providing more flavour from the vegetable and less batter, which was tempura light. I may just have helped her clear her plate in ultra quick time.\r\nMy carpaccio was also spot on - just the right thickness with rocket and excellent parmesan shaved on top. I couldn't fault it, apart from perhaps the lack of a slice of lemon, but that might be my personal quirk.\r\nOn my return visit G and I shared the zucchini again (an immediate local classic) and the goat's cheese which could have done with a tad more fig jam and perhaps more bread. The portion of cheese was very generous.\r\n\r\nFor mains I had the hake, pearlescent and flaky with a light breadcrumb on top on a bed of cooked spinach surrounded by the sweetest baby tomatoes. \r\nThe fries I ordered on the side were fat and crunchy and could not be faulted.\r\n\r\nWhen I went back with G he had the cacio e pepe risotto - a dish usually served with pasta, but the reinvention is a touch of genius with parmesan and truffles enhancing the flavour.\r\n\r\nI had the black fettuccine with seafood which was just perfect. I have a weakness for black squid pasta since spending a lot of time in Croatia in the 90s where it is considered a national dish. The tomato sauce was deep and clung to the pasta strands and the seafood was very generous - prawn, calamari and scallops.\r\n\r\nOn both visits the pasta dishes were so large that they provided me with an additional meal via a doggie bag. \r\nHowever G finished his risotto and had to fend for himself over supper I suspect.\r\nAt Angelo's you will find great ingredients, simply cooked. It is what Italian food is all about.\r\nMy wife tried the measure of any Italian restaurant - spaghetti carbonara. This was almost literally chalk and cheese in comparison to the dreadful dish my colleague Phil had in Cozze the previous week.\r\n\r\nPerfectly cooked pasta, just al dente, wrapped in eggy sauce with the hint of cheese and fatty guanciale. The portion was generous. Even after I had stolen a a few wrapped forkfuls there was enough to take home for dinner.\r\nWe were too full for dessert. With a bottle of San Pellegrino and a large glass of Gavi di Gavi - my father-in-law's favourite wine and fifteen years to the day since he passed away. He and my mother-in-law would have loved Angelo's. \r\nStarters are around a tenner, pasta dishes under twenty and my hake was £24. Not cheap, but keenly priced against the chain restaurants.\r\nThe bill with my wife totalled £87 without service. On my revisit we worked our way through a bottle of excellent rosé and paid sixty quid a head by the time we added service, which extrordinarily is not charged by default.\r\nNot cheap, but you could just have a pasta and a coffee and get away with a very reasonable bill. These days that counts as value for money. But I do think they will need to offer a prix fixe lunchtime menu to attract those no longer allowed to WFH, who will then return of an evening with their partner or friends.\r\nI should add that all main wines are offered by the small glass, large glass, carafe and bottle. So, drink what you can afford or just blow out! Clever.\r\nThe staff, some of whom we recognised from the Wokingham restaurant, were charming, friendly and efficient on both visits.\r\nThere is a reason why Angelo is one of the area's most successful restauranteurs and I, for one, am delighted that he has opened in Reading and he deserves all the support you can give him. \r\nA few weeks after opening, Angelo's is already one of the best restaurants in town and I hope it will go from strength to strength. ", "summary": "Renowned restaurateur Angelo Colao brings his culinary expertise to Reading's Station Hill. We review the authentic Italian menu, signature pasta dishes, and the atmosphere of this exciting new addition to the local dining scene.", "date_published": "2026-08-01T07:44:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-08-06T08:37:10.794532+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Iolo Jones" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/2f508a7d.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/07/2f508a7d.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "Iolo Jones", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Angelo\u2019s On Station Hill", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1204, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "Finally, a reason to be happy about our town's dining scene with the opening of Angelo's at Station Hill.
\r\nAngelo Colao is a fixture in the local restaurant trade having run many Italian restaurants in Reading and Wokingham, the most prominent being Ruschetta on Rose St which recently rebranded as Angelo's.
\r\nNow a new branch of the eponymous eatery has finally opened in Reading after many months of planning and preparation.
\r\nOn a Friday lunchtime I met my wife off the London train and decided to pop in for lunch at the new Station Hill site. I already had a lunch date set here with another Ruschetta fan, G, but I couldn't help jumping the gun.
\r\nThe owner greeted us like old friends at the front door - which, indeed we are, having spent every important birthday, Christmas Eve and celebrations at Ruschetta.
\r\nThe room is small and a bit awkward with a traditional seating area containing around twenty covers at the back and a bar stool area at the front.
\r\nThere are also plenty of seats outside, but the location is hot on a summer day and can be very windy at other times of the year. Reading really needs more al fresco dining and with some work this may become a good spot, facing south east so shaded in the afternoon and evenings. It was warm but windy so we decided to sit indoors. On my return visit, with temperatures hitting 34C and the sun beating down, we also opted for the inside.
\r\nThe outside is certainly work in progress and needs some thinking through. Planters and umbrellas at the very least. Our town needs more outside dining spaces like those found at Carluccio's and Vini Vita.
\r\nI'm also not sure whether this zoning doesn't demand different menus, although I guess you can make this work however you want as a punter by selecting from the carefully curated menu.
\r\nWe were recently turned away from a Zizzi's in London because we just asked for drinks at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon, but popping in for a drink and a plate of zucchini fritti should be a decent option for an after work drink (if that's still a thing at all these days).
\r\nBut let's get onto the important stuff.
\r\nThe menu is thankfully short, and does not feature pizzas or burgers you will be glad to hear.
\r\nInstead there are all the best Italian classics, some with a twist.
\r\n
My wife had the deep fried zucchini or courgettes. Unusually they were cut in the round and lightly battered with perfect seasoning and a mayo dip. As it turns out this is a better idea than matchsticked courgettes providing more flavour from the vegetable and less batter, which was tempura light. I may just have helped her clear her plate in ultra quick time.
\r\nMy carpaccio was also spot on - just the right thickness with rocket and excellent parmesan shaved on top. I couldn't fault it, apart from perhaps the lack of a slice of lemon, but that might be my personal quirk.
\r\nOn my return visit G and I shared the zucchini again (an immediate local classic) and the goat's cheese which could have done with a tad more fig jam and perhaps more bread. The portion of cheese was very generous.
\r\n
For mains I had the hake, pearlescent and flaky with a light breadcrumb on top on a bed of cooked spinach surrounded by the sweetest baby tomatoes.
\r\nThe fries I ordered on the side were fat and crunchy and could not be faulted.
\r\n
When I went back with G he had the cacio e pepe risotto - a dish usually served with pasta, but the reinvention is a touch of genius with parmesan and truffles enhancing the flavour.
\r\n
I had the black fettuccine with seafood which was just perfect. I have a weakness for black squid pasta since spending a lot of time in Croatia in the 90s where it is considered a national dish. The tomato sauce was deep and clung to the pasta strands and the seafood was very generous - prawn, calamari and scallops.
\r\n
On both visits the pasta dishes were so large that they provided me with an additional meal via a doggie bag.
\r\nHowever G finished his risotto and had to fend for himself over supper I suspect.
\r\nAt Angelo's you will find great ingredients, simply cooked. It is what Italian food is all about.
\r\nMy wife tried the measure of any Italian restaurant - spaghetti carbonara. This was almost literally chalk and cheese in comparison to the dreadful dish my colleague Phil had in Cozze the previous week.
\r\n
Perfectly cooked pasta, just al dente, wrapped in eggy sauce with the hint of cheese and fatty guanciale. The portion was generous. Even after I had stolen a a few wrapped forkfuls there was enough to take home for dinner.
\r\nWe were too full for dessert. With a bottle of San Pellegrino and a large glass of Gavi di Gavi - my father-in-law's favourite wine and fifteen years to the day since he passed away. He and my mother-in-law would have loved Angelo's.
\r\nStarters are around a tenner, pasta dishes under twenty and my hake was £24. Not cheap, but keenly priced against the chain restaurants.
\r\nThe bill with my wife totalled £87 without service. On my revisit we worked our way through a bottle of excellent rosé and paid sixty quid a head by the time we added service, which extrordinarily is not charged by default.
\r\nNot cheap, but you could just have a pasta and a coffee and get away with a very reasonable bill. These days that counts as value for money. But I do think they will need to offer a prix fixe lunchtime menu to attract those no longer allowed to WFH, who will then return of an evening with their partner or friends.
\r\nI should add that all main wines are offered by the small glass, large glass, carafe and bottle. So, drink what you can afford or just blow out! Clever.
\r\nThe staff, some of whom we recognised from the Wokingham restaurant, were charming, friendly and efficient on both visits.
\r\nThere is a reason why Angelo is one of the area's most successful restauranteurs and I, for one, am delighted that he has opened in Reading and he deserves all the support you can give him.
\r\nA few weeks after opening, Angelo's is already one of the best restaurants in town and I hope it will go from strength to strength.
", "description": "Renowned restaurateur Angelo Colao brings his culinary expertise to Reading's Station Hill. We review the authentic Italian menu, signature pasta dishes, and the atmosphere of this exciting new addition to the local dining scene.", "dateModified": "2026-08-06T08:37:10.794532+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-08-01T07:44:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/angelos-on-station-hill/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "523", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/dining-by-spreadsheet-why-i-will-never-return-to-the-botanist/", "title": "The Botanist", "content_html": "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
\r\nI am thinking of giving up on the inReading food blog. The food in our town is so dire that it beggars belief. Four out of five reviews are negative and I need counselling
\r\nInstead I cook at home where I can achieve far better things. That's sad. I am a media guy not a cook, so cooks should do so much better even if they are controlled by venture capitalists. Which brings us to the latest victim of my reviews.
\r\nThis time it was a well-known national chain that has resulted in my holding my head in my hands in utter despair. She had been travelling a lot and I had barely seen her for a month, so she offered a lunch out on a warm Saturday as we returned from errands in town.
\r\nShe offered LSB and I foolishly said that I would like to try somewhere 'new'.
\r\nThe Botanist isn't new, and I had once been here for drinks. Considering that it's a short walk from home I was hoping that I could set aside prejudices and find a new watering hole and dining place that doesn't focus on biryani or Singapore noodles (as fine as those foodstuffs are).
\r\nBut knowing that this twenty or so branch chain is owned by New World Trading Company, which in turn is majority owned by a VC called Graphite Capital should have been a warning. Those boys and girls are only in the game for your pound of flesh.
\r\nOn a hot sultry Saturday in June as soon as we walked in this immediately struck me as really not the place to be - it's a dark and hollow old Barclays bank. We asked to sit in the lighter front area, but the sunlight was oppressive through the narrow windows with no air conditioning.
\r\nThey sort of position themselves between being a restaurant and a bar and really should focus on the latter, with a nice collection of spritzers for summer and a decent drinks list.
\r\nThe food is the usual greatest hits of halloumi sticks, fish and chips and burgers with 'hanging kebabs' as the signature quirk.
\r\nWe had a limoncello spritz and a lager as we dallied over the short, albeit expansive menu.
\r\nMy wife decided on the salmon and I went for the spicy chicken and chorizo kebab.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260620_125336013.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/7e1f96ce.webp\")
We could not resist the expensive bottle of Whispering Angel rosé on such a spring day. It is a drink with a tradition for us that involves staff hiding bottles on a cruise ship for us and a famous theft from the Bel of a magnum that I will not go into further here.
\r\nThe service was attentive and kind but the delivery was slow. And it seemed that all of that time had been used to send the salmon and chicken to a crematorium.
\r\nOK to be fair, it wasn't burned. There was a good crust on the salmon skin, however, this unfortunately extended some way through the flesh.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260620_125401750.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/ed161a2a.webp\")
The chicken came with those outside peelings of onion that are tough and inedible and should be thrown away. The chicken was badly over-cooked and horribly dry. The chillies added a punch and there was some kind of horrid oil on the side. WTAF? The dish cried out for something creamy or tomatoey or wet to dampen the utter desert-dry dreariness of the mulled meat.
\r\nThe side of skin-on skinny chips were quite nice but a bit soggy and undercooked in this instance. Keeping that deep fat fryer hot enough is a perennial kitchen problem.
\r\nAnd to think the waitress had been instructed to upsell a garlic flatbread by the VCs on top if all this driness...
\r\nThis isn't dining, it's eating by spreadsheet.
\r\nMy wife does not let these things slide. Being a senior HR in a global corp she feels obliged to give feedback. Indeed, it's quite a sideshow - she has a wonderful way of delivering criticism whilst appearing fair. She passed on the criticism kindly to the poor manageress who seemed to be dealing with other complaints from other tables (of what kind I am unsure).
\r\nI would have told her that their food was crap. Really, really bad for these prices at £20 -30 per dish.
\r\nEvery high street chain has to have what marketers call a 'formula' and The Botanist's seems to ensure that you are drunk enough not to notice how bad the food is.
If I could be bothered I would ask an AI to figure out how many of Reading's central eateries are run by VCs or investment funds, but I already know the answer. Too many. Wagamamas, Carluccio's, Wingstop, Honest Burger, Gordon Ramsay Street Burger are all in the hands of VCs. Some VCs own multiple branches, like TowerBrook - Zizzi and Wagamama, Epiris with Las Iguanas and Bella Italia. In straitened times we are eating formulas, not in the good French meaning of the word, but in the cold financial sense.
All businesses are a risk and they need risk equity, especially these days. And some get the formula right - I have given great reviews to some of the restaurant chains I list above. These guys work on the basis of knowing better than the businesses they back. I have spent a career, albeit in another industry, dealing with them and I know that it's a game of sometimes getting the formula right and sometimes getting it wrong. For me The Botanist formula would do a lot better to focus on drinks
The Botanist is a dire space with dire food, nice staff and decent drinks but I cannot see myself ever visiting any of its locations again.
\r\n", "content_text": "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.\r\nI am thinking of giving up on the inReading food blog. The food in our town is so dire that it beggars belief. Four out of five reviews are negative and I need counselling \r\nInstead I cook at home where I can achieve far better things. That's sad. I am a media guy not a cook, so cooks should do so much better even if they are controlled by venture capitalists. Which brings us to the latest victim of my reviews.\r\nThis time it was a well-known national chain that has resulted in my holding my head in my hands in utter despair. She had been travelling a lot and I had barely seen her for a month, so she offered a lunch out on a warm Saturday as we returned from errands in town.\r\nShe offered LSB and I foolishly said that I would like to try somewhere 'new'.\r\nThe Botanist isn't new, and I had once been here for drinks. Considering that it's a short walk from home I was hoping that I could set aside prejudices and find a new watering hole and dining place that doesn't focus on biryani or Singapore noodles (as fine as those foodstuffs are).\r\nBut knowing that this twenty or so branch chain is owned by New World Trading Company, which in turn is majority owned by a VC called Graphite Capital should have been a warning. Those boys and girls are only in the game for your pound of flesh.\r\nOn a hot sultry Saturday in June as soon as we walked in this immediately struck me as really not the place to be - it's a dark and hollow old Barclays bank. We asked to sit in the lighter front area, but the sunlight was oppressive through the narrow windows with no air conditioning.\r\nThey sort of position themselves between being a restaurant and a bar and really should focus on the latter, with a nice collection of spritzers for summer and a decent drinks list.\r\nThe food is the usual greatest hits of halloumi sticks, fish and chips and burgers with 'hanging kebabs' as the signature quirk.\r\nWe had a limoncello spritz and a lager as we dallied over the short, albeit expansive menu.\r\nMy wife decided on the salmon and I went for the spicy chicken and chorizo kebab.\r\n\r\nWe could not resist the expensive bottle of Whispering Angel rosé on such a spring day. It is a drink with a tradition for us that involves staff hiding bottles on a cruise ship for us and a famous theft from the Bel of a magnum that I will not go into further here.\r\nThe service was attentive and kind but the delivery was slow. And it seemed that all of that time had been used to send the salmon and chicken to a crematorium.\r\nOK to be fair, it wasn't burned. There was a good crust on the salmon skin, however, this unfortunately extended some way through the flesh.\r\n\r\nThe chicken came with those outside peelings of onion that are tough and inedible and should be thrown away. The chicken was badly over-cooked and horribly dry. The chillies added a punch and there was some kind of horrid oil on the side. WTAF? The dish cried out for something creamy or tomatoey or wet to dampen the utter desert-dry dreariness of the mulled meat.\r\nThe side of skin-on skinny chips were quite nice but a bit soggy and undercooked in this instance. Keeping that deep fat fryer hot enough is a perennial kitchen problem.\r\nAnd to think the waitress had been instructed to upsell a garlic flatbread by the VCs on top if all this driness...\r\nThis isn't dining, it's eating by spreadsheet.\r\nMy wife does not let these things slide. Being a senior HR in a global corp she feels obliged to give feedback. Indeed, it's quite a sideshow - she has a wonderful way of delivering criticism whilst appearing fair. She passed on the criticism kindly to the poor manageress who seemed to be dealing with other complaints from other tables (of what kind I am unsure).\r\nI would have told her that their food was crap. Really, really bad for these prices at £20 -30 per dish.\r\nEvery high street chain has to have what marketers call a 'formula' and The Botanist's seems to ensure that you are drunk enough not to notice how bad the food is.If I could be bothered I would ask an AI to figure out how many of Reading's central eateries are run by VCs or investment funds, but I already know the answer. Too many. Wagamamas, Carluccio's, Wingstop, Honest Burger, Gordon Ramsay Street Burger are all in the hands of VCs. Some VCs own multiple branches, like TowerBrook - Zizzi and Wagamama, Epiris with Las Iguanas and Bella Italia. In straitened times we are eating formulas, not in the good French meaning of the word, but in the cold financial sense. All businesses are a risk and they need risk equity, especially these days. And some get the formula right - I have given great reviews to some of the restaurant chains I list above. These guys work on the basis of knowing better than the businesses they back. I have spent a career, albeit in another industry, dealing with them and I know that it's a game of sometimes getting the formula right and sometimes getting it wrong. For me The Botanist formula would do a lot better to focus on drinks\r\nThe Botanist is a dire space with dire food, nice staff and decent drinks but I cannot see myself ever visiting any of its locations again.\r\n ", "summary": "Is local dining becoming a soulless experience dominated by corporate formulas? We review The Botanist to see if their food matches the price tag or if it's just another chain prioritizing profit over quality.", "date_published": "2026-07-01T11:03:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-30T10:08:21.100828+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Iolo Jones" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/ed161a2a.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/ed161a2a.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "Iolo Jones", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "The Botanist", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 977, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
\r\nI am thinking of giving up on the inReading food blog. The food in our town is so dire that it beggars belief. Four out of five reviews are negative and I need counselling
\r\nInstead I cook at home where I can achieve far better things. That's sad. I am a media guy not a cook, so cooks should do so much better even if they are controlled by venture capitalists. Which brings us to the latest victim of my reviews.
\r\nThis time it was a well-known national chain that has resulted in my holding my head in my hands in utter despair. She had been travelling a lot and I had barely seen her for a month, so she offered a lunch out on a warm Saturday as we returned from errands in town.
\r\nShe offered LSB and I foolishly said that I would like to try somewhere 'new'.
\r\nThe Botanist isn't new, and I had once been here for drinks. Considering that it's a short walk from home I was hoping that I could set aside prejudices and find a new watering hole and dining place that doesn't focus on biryani or Singapore noodles (as fine as those foodstuffs are).
\r\nBut knowing that this twenty or so branch chain is owned by New World Trading Company, which in turn is majority owned by a VC called Graphite Capital should have been a warning. Those boys and girls are only in the game for your pound of flesh.
\r\nOn a hot sultry Saturday in June as soon as we walked in this immediately struck me as really not the place to be - it's a dark and hollow old Barclays bank. We asked to sit in the lighter front area, but the sunlight was oppressive through the narrow windows with no air conditioning.
\r\nThey sort of position themselves between being a restaurant and a bar and really should focus on the latter, with a nice collection of spritzers for summer and a decent drinks list.
\r\nThe food is the usual greatest hits of halloumi sticks, fish and chips and burgers with 'hanging kebabs' as the signature quirk.
\r\nWe had a limoncello spritz and a lager as we dallied over the short, albeit expansive menu.
\r\nMy wife decided on the salmon and I went for the spicy chicken and chorizo kebab.
\r\n
We could not resist the expensive bottle of Whispering Angel rosé on such a spring day. It is a drink with a tradition for us that involves staff hiding bottles on a cruise ship for us and a famous theft from the Bel of a magnum that I will not go into further here.
\r\nThe service was attentive and kind but the delivery was slow. And it seemed that all of that time had been used to send the salmon and chicken to a crematorium.
\r\nOK to be fair, it wasn't burned. There was a good crust on the salmon skin, however, this unfortunately extended some way through the flesh.
\r\n
The chicken came with those outside peelings of onion that are tough and inedible and should be thrown away. The chicken was badly over-cooked and horribly dry. The chillies added a punch and there was some kind of horrid oil on the side. WTAF? The dish cried out for something creamy or tomatoey or wet to dampen the utter desert-dry dreariness of the mulled meat.
\r\nThe side of skin-on skinny chips were quite nice but a bit soggy and undercooked in this instance. Keeping that deep fat fryer hot enough is a perennial kitchen problem.
\r\nAnd to think the waitress had been instructed to upsell a garlic flatbread by the VCs on top if all this driness...
\r\nThis isn't dining, it's eating by spreadsheet.
\r\nMy wife does not let these things slide. Being a senior HR in a global corp she feels obliged to give feedback. Indeed, it's quite a sideshow - she has a wonderful way of delivering criticism whilst appearing fair. She passed on the criticism kindly to the poor manageress who seemed to be dealing with other complaints from other tables (of what kind I am unsure).
\r\nI would have told her that their food was crap. Really, really bad for these prices at £20 -30 per dish.
\r\nEvery high street chain has to have what marketers call a 'formula' and The Botanist's seems to ensure that you are drunk enough not to notice how bad the food is.
If I could be bothered I would ask an AI to figure out how many of Reading's central eateries are run by VCs or investment funds, but I already know the answer. Too many. Wagamamas, Carluccio's, Wingstop, Honest Burger, Gordon Ramsay Street Burger are all in the hands of VCs. Some VCs own multiple branches, like TowerBrook - Zizzi and Wagamama, Epiris with Las Iguanas and Bella Italia. In straitened times we are eating formulas, not in the good French meaning of the word, but in the cold financial sense.
All businesses are a risk and they need risk equity, especially these days. And some get the formula right - I have given great reviews to some of the restaurant chains I list above. These guys work on the basis of knowing better than the businesses they back. I have spent a career, albeit in another industry, dealing with them and I know that it's a game of sometimes getting the formula right and sometimes getting it wrong. For me The Botanist formula would do a lot better to focus on drinks
The Botanist is a dire space with dire food, nice staff and decent drinks but I cannot see myself ever visiting any of its locations again.
\r\n", "description": "Is local dining becoming a soulless experience dominated by corporate formulas? We review The Botanist to see if their food matches the price tag or if it's just another chain prioritizing profit over quality.", "dateModified": "2026-06-30T10:08:21.100828+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-07-01T11:03:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/dining-by-spreadsheet-why-i-will-never-return-to-the-botanist/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "529", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/beyond-chips-and-beige-tackling-the-global-crisis-of-picky-eaters/", "title": "Happy Panda", "content_html": "
Children, as we know, can be picky eaters, but my half-French wife has always been confounded by the British way of letting kids choose their own food, so that they inevitably end up with chips. In France, from an early age, kids eat what grown-ups eat. As indeed they do in many other cultures.
\r\nIn Japan, picky eating is much less common due to a formalised cultural focus on shokubiku (food and nutrition education). Children typically eat the same smaller portions of adult meals, and communal eating in structured environments - like preschools - discourages individual food refusals or requests for alternatives.
\r\nMy twelve-year-old niece is not only fussy but also vegetarian. She eats bread, chips, most fruit, broccoli, sweetcorn, peas and raw carrots. My nephew will add chicken or fish goujons to that list. But once he did mention to me that he liked chicken chow mein at school and it was not an opportunity I could let pass.
\r\nHe was on one of those teacher training days at the tail end of half term and his mum asked if I'd like to take him out since she was working from home and they were just back from Eurodisney, a trip we had missed due to my wife's work commitments.
\r\nHe is a mature and kind boy who looks and acts older than his seven and a bit years and I adore spending time with him, so I jumped at the opportunity and decided to use it as an excuse to expand his culinary experiences.
\r\nInstead of being restricted to places that do chips and margherita pizzas, here was a chance for rice and noodles. But where to go on a Monday lunchtime? Kei's over in Earley was shut and none of the central Reading Chinese could be depended on for traditional Cantonese-style chicken chow mein - that foodstuff of the traditional Anglo-Chinese takeaway of our youth.
\r\nI asked Google (or rather Gemini these days) and it directed me to the university, where with term time over there was parking space and we had a choice between Happy Panda and Kungfu Kitchen, the mini empire built by the inimitable Joanna Hu since arriving In Reading over a decade ago.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260601_113126194.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/8604bf0a.webp\")
A lot has been written about Kungfu Kitchen and its Shandong food. It has even had positive write-ups in the national press.
\r\nBut I decided that it was probably a step too far and that the more bland Cantonese-orientated Happy Panda would be a better choice. It occupies the space once occupied by Kungfu Kitchen which moved several doors up the parade on Christchurch Road.
\r\nBy the door there is a water and smoke-spewing shrine, which was immediately exciting for a seven-year-old.
\r\nI remember when my gran first took me to the Chinese in Bangor, North Wales and at the same age I was fascinated by the waterfall, pool and giant goldfish indoors!
\r\nThe menu will be familiar to anyone who has frequented UK Chinese restaurants since they first arrived in the UK in the late 19th and early 20th century. Britain’s thriving maritime trade brought thousands of Chinese merchant seamen to major port districts like London’s Limehouse, Liverpool’s Pitt Street, and Cardiff’s Tiger Bay. Tucked away in these industrial hubs, the very first eating houses were modest boarding-house cafes and tea shops catering for the immigrant and transient populations. The British link with Hong Kong inevitably meant that they featured Cantonese food from Guangdong province, adapted to local ingredients where necessary. It is not very spicy and uses ginger, scallions, garlic, soy sauce, rice wine, and oyster sauce for flavourings. Dim sum, roasted meats (siu mei) and fresh seafood are core to the cuisine, often combined with fresh vegetables in a wok.
\r\nThe transition of UK Chinese food from isolated dockland enclaves to a mainstream high street culinary institution was accelerated by the devastation of World War II. Heavy wartime bombing decimated the original riverside Chinatowns of Limehouse and Liverpool, forcing these communities to migrate inland. This relocation coincided with a massive post-war wave of Cantonese immigrants from Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s. Settling into areas like Soho in London, Nelson Street in Liverpool, and across the South Wales valleys, these resilient families brilliantly adapted their business models to survive.
\r\nTo capture the British public’s imagination, early restaurateurs cleverly adjusted their menus, introducing sweet, savoury, and accessible Cantonese classics. In regions like Wales, many took over traditional fish-and-chip shops, blending English chippy staples with adapted Chinese dishes and the now-legendary curry sauce. This evolution from survivalist dockside kitchens to the ubiquitous high-street takeaway fundamentally reshaped the UK's culinary fabric, paving the way for the rich, authentic, and diverse dining experiences we enjoy today.
In Reading we have the traditional Wing's Fish Bar around the corner from the recent Cantonese sensation, Good Old Days on George St and even on Broad St you will soon be able to mix and match largely Cantonese flavours in Chopstix as it extends its operating licence until the wee hours.
So the menu at Happy Panda will be familiar to most Brits - from Lemon Chicken to Chicken Chow Mein, and also appeal to the growing Hong Kong community in our town. Jop has even finally succumbed to the big delivery firms and you can now Deliveroo a Happy Panda!
\r\n![\"PXL_20260601_115404037.MP.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/fe651c85.webp\")
The menu has a good list of dim sum and I couldn't resist the mixed starter, which had chicken and beef shu mai, prawn pad gao and three pork dumplings with the requisite side dish of vinegar for dunking. It was more than a meal in itself and my nephew demurred, seeing the little packets of deliciousness as a step too far from familiar territory. I was a bit disappointed but wasn't going to do the Chinese persuasion thing and he definitely wasn't going to be looking at his screen for this meal.
\r\nThey were chunky and perfectly steamed; I particularly liked the chicken siu mai with its bits of mushroom rather than the more familiar prawn and pork filling (often with water chestnuts for bite).
\r\nOf course I dunked them in chilli oil rather than the vinegar and kept most for lunch the following day.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260601_115714326.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/079ce774.webp\")
My Malaysian Curry was a bit of an off-piste choice but I was interested to see what it would be like. As it happens it was the child of a Massaman Curry and one of those Chinese Chip Shop curries of youth.
\r\nIt was very potato heavy and the potatoes were not pleasant - they had either been over-chilled or even frozen. It was a bad choice and was not similar to anything I had eaten that purported to be a curry from Malaysia.
\r\nThe side of fried rice was so-so - slightly tasteless, lacking egg, oyster sauce and sesame oil.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260601_115735929.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/8e42ebd3.webp\")
But forget me, onto the important review. My nephew loved his salt and pepper chicken, which were small and crispy, firm and very salty, albeit not quite peppery enough for my taste. I picked away at the finely chopped onion, chilli and peppers that they sat on and lifted the flavours. My nephew studiously avoided them and seemed very content.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260601_120301318.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/0ad4203a.webp\")
Even more so, he thought that the chicken chow mein, a simple dish of thin egg noodles, some onion and chicken in a soy-heavy sauce was delicious, exclaiming so loudly to the delight of our lovely waitress, who was not overly taxed by the three or four tables occupied on a Monday lunchtime?
\r\nCornflour, MSG, salt and soy were present, as they should be, they are staples of the Cantonese kitchen cupboard. I regretted not ordering some broccoli, which my nephew also loves, or something fresher. The tendency with Cantonese (if you're me, at least, is to go for the not-so-healthy options).
\r\nI had my usual pot of jasmine tea which came in a funky plastic teapot and plastic microcup. At least the pouring worked - most tea in traditional china seems to end up on the table in my experience.
\r\nDuring the meal I started to teach my nephew how to use chopsticks - he had some success, but I think that we are going to have to make some more return visits to get him fully dexterous with them.
\r\nIf this visit was anything to go by then his culinary horizons have expanded some and we did leave as Happy Pandas! All we need to do now is to find a Chinese that offers chips and margherita pizzas for the young fellow's sister....
", "content_text": "Children, as we know, can be picky eaters, but my half-French wife has always been confounded by the British way of letting kids choose their own food, so that they inevitably end up with chips. In France, from an early age, kids eat what grown-ups eat. As indeed they do in many other cultures.\r\n\r\nApparently, the modern concept of the 'picky eater' largely emerged in the United States in the 20th century: paediatricians began advocating for bland, plain, and simplified diets for children. This shift coincided with the rise of the food industry, which began aggressively marketing heavily processed, sugary, and \"kid-friendly\" pre-packaged meals, shifting children’s preferences away from basic, strong-flavoured, or fresh foods.In the US and UK this has resulted in a total change from the tradition where everyone ate the same, which existed for millennia. The move towards 'child-centred' education and child-rearing reinforced this and now kids seem to live on chips and anything beige.\r\n\r\n\r\nIn Japan, picky eating is much less common due to a formalised cultural focus on shokubiku (food and nutrition education). Children typically eat the same smaller portions of adult meals, and communal eating in structured environments - like preschools - discourages individual food refusals or requests for alternatives.\r\n\r\nIn Chinese communities, kids' picky eating has become a modern phenomenon too. It often turns into a family tug-of-war, especially since grandparents usually run the kitchen with both parents out at work. Having lived through leaner times, grandparents love to spoil kids with treats, which accidentally ruins their appetite for healthier foods. Because families eat communally, caregivers typically handle a fussy eater by picking out the softest, sweetest bits of shared dishes and piling them straight onto the child's rice bowl.\r\n \r\nTo get kids to eat food, caregivers often resort to spoon-feeding older kids, using screens as a distraction, or applying gentle pressure. This intense focus on finishing every bite can backfire, making kids even more stubborn about textures like cooked vegetables. For families living abroad, the stress doubles as parents try to serve traditional, nourishing broths while their kids beg for the Western snacks they see at school.\r\nSince we eat out most regularly with her sister and family, this is an issue which still has my wife in despair, but the mould has been set and you can only hope that time will bring a change.\r\n\r\nMy twelve-year-old niece is not only fussy but also vegetarian. She eats bread, chips, most fruit, broccoli, sweetcorn, peas and raw carrots. My nephew will add chicken or fish goujons to that list. But once he did mention to me that he liked chicken chow mein at school and it was not an opportunity I could let pass.\r\nHe was on one of those teacher training days at the tail end of half term and his mum asked if I'd like to take him out since she was working from home and they were just back from Eurodisney, a trip we had missed due to my wife's work commitments.\r\nHe is a mature and kind boy who looks and acts older than his seven and a bit years and I adore spending time with him, so I jumped at the opportunity and decided to use it as an excuse to expand his culinary experiences.\r\nInstead of being restricted to places that do chips and margherita pizzas, here was a chance for rice and noodles. But where to go on a Monday lunchtime? Kei's over in Earley was shut and none of the central Reading Chinese could be depended on for traditional Cantonese-style chicken chow mein - that foodstuff of the traditional Anglo-Chinese takeaway of our youth.\r\nI asked Google (or rather Gemini these days) and it directed me to the university, where with term time over there was parking space and we had a choice between Happy Panda and Kungfu Kitchen, the mini empire built by the inimitable Joanna Hu since arriving In Reading over a decade ago.\r\n\r\nA lot has been written about Kungfu Kitchen and its Shandong food. It has even had positive write-ups in the national press.\r\nBut I decided that it was probably a step too far and that the more bland Cantonese-orientated Happy Panda would be a better choice. It occupies the space once occupied by Kungfu Kitchen which moved several doors up the parade on Christchurch Road.\r\nBy the door there is a water and smoke-spewing shrine, which was immediately exciting for a seven-year-old.\r\nI remember when my gran first took me to the Chinese in Bangor, North Wales and at the same age I was fascinated by the waterfall, pool and giant goldfish indoors!\r\nThe menu will be familiar to anyone who has frequented UK Chinese restaurants since they first arrived in the UK in the late 19th and early 20th century. Britain’s thriving maritime trade brought thousands of Chinese merchant seamen to major port districts like London’s Limehouse, Liverpool’s Pitt Street, and Cardiff’s Tiger Bay. Tucked away in these industrial hubs, the very first eating houses were modest boarding-house cafes and tea shops catering for the immigrant and transient populations. The British link with Hong Kong inevitably meant that they featured Cantonese food from Guangdong province, adapted to local ingredients where necessary. It is not very spicy and uses ginger, scallions, garlic, soy sauce, rice wine, and oyster sauce for flavourings. Dim sum, roasted meats (siu mei) and fresh seafood are core to the cuisine, often combined with fresh vegetables in a wok.\r\nThe transition of UK Chinese food from isolated dockland enclaves to a mainstream high street culinary institution was accelerated by the devastation of World War II. Heavy wartime bombing decimated the original riverside Chinatowns of Limehouse and Liverpool, forcing these communities to migrate inland. This relocation coincided with a massive post-war wave of Cantonese immigrants from Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s. Settling into areas like Soho in London, Nelson Street in Liverpool, and across the South Wales valleys, these resilient families brilliantly adapted their business models to survive.\r\nTo capture the British public’s imagination, early restaurateurs cleverly adjusted their menus, introducing sweet, savoury, and accessible Cantonese classics. In regions like Wales, many took over traditional fish-and-chip shops, blending English chippy staples with adapted Chinese dishes and the now-legendary curry sauce. This evolution from survivalist dockside kitchens to the ubiquitous high-street takeaway fundamentally reshaped the UK's culinary fabric, paving the way for the rich, authentic, and diverse dining experiences we enjoy today.In Reading we have the traditional Wing's Fish Bar around the corner from the recent Cantonese sensation, Good Old Days on George St and even on Broad St you will soon be able to mix and match largely Cantonese flavours in Chopstix as it extends its operating licence until the wee hours.\r\nSo the menu at Happy Panda will be familiar to most Brits - from Lemon Chicken to Chicken Chow Mein, and also appeal to the growing Hong Kong community in our town. Jop has even finally succumbed to the big delivery firms and you can now Deliveroo a Happy Panda!\r\n\r\nThe menu has a good list of dim sum and I couldn't resist the mixed starter, which had chicken and beef shu mai, prawn pad gao and three pork dumplings with the requisite side dish of vinegar for dunking. It was more than a meal in itself and my nephew demurred, seeing the little packets of deliciousness as a step too far from familiar territory. I was a bit disappointed but wasn't going to do the Chinese persuasion thing and he definitely wasn't going to be looking at his screen for this meal.\r\nThey were chunky and perfectly steamed; I particularly liked the chicken siu mai with its bits of mushroom rather than the more familiar prawn and pork filling (often with water chestnuts for bite).\r\nOf course I dunked them in chilli oil rather than the vinegar and kept most for lunch the following day.\r\n\r\nMy Malaysian Curry was a bit of an off-piste choice but I was interested to see what it would be like. As it happens it was the child of a Massaman Curry and one of those Chinese Chip Shop curries of youth.\r\nIt was very potato heavy and the potatoes were not pleasant - they had either been over-chilled or even frozen. It was a bad choice and was not similar to anything I had eaten that purported to be a curry from Malaysia.\r\nThe side of fried rice was so-so - slightly tasteless, lacking egg, oyster sauce and sesame oil.\r\n\r\nBut forget me, onto the important review. My nephew loved his salt and pepper chicken, which were small and crispy, firm and very salty, albeit not quite peppery enough for my taste. I picked away at the finely chopped onion, chilli and peppers that they sat on and lifted the flavours. My nephew studiously avoided them and seemed very content.\r\n\r\nEven more so, he thought that the chicken chow mein, a simple dish of thin egg noodles, some onion and chicken in a soy-heavy sauce was delicious, exclaiming so loudly to the delight of our lovely waitress, who was not overly taxed by the three or four tables occupied on a Monday lunchtime?\r\nCornflour, MSG, salt and soy were present, as they should be, they are staples of the Cantonese kitchen cupboard. I regretted not ordering some broccoli, which my nephew also loves, or something fresher. The tendency with Cantonese (if you're me, at least, is to go for the not-so-healthy options).\r\nI had my usual pot of jasmine tea which came in a funky plastic teapot and plastic microcup. At least the pouring worked - most tea in traditional china seems to end up on the table in my experience.\r\nDuring the meal I started to teach my nephew how to use chopsticks - he had some success, but I think that we are going to have to make some more return visits to get him fully dexterous with them.\r\nIf this visit was anything to go by then his culinary horizons have expanded some and we did leave as Happy Pandas! All we need to do now is to find a Chinese that offers chips and margherita pizzas for the young fellow's sister....", "summary": "Why are children becoming increasingly selective with food? From historical shifts in Western parenting to cultural dining practices in Japan and China, we explore the roots of picky eating and one uncle's attempt to expand his nephew's culinary horizons in Reading.", "date_published": "2026-07-01T11:02:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-30T10:02:09.664341+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/6662fab6.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/6662fab6.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Happy Panda", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 2059, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "Children, as we know, can be picky eaters, but my half-French wife has always been confounded by the British way of letting kids choose their own food, so that they inevitably end up with chips. In France, from an early age, kids eat what grown-ups eat. As indeed they do in many other cultures.
\r\nIn Japan, picky eating is much less common due to a formalised cultural focus on shokubiku (food and nutrition education). Children typically eat the same smaller portions of adult meals, and communal eating in structured environments - like preschools - discourages individual food refusals or requests for alternatives.
\r\nMy twelve-year-old niece is not only fussy but also vegetarian. She eats bread, chips, most fruit, broccoli, sweetcorn, peas and raw carrots. My nephew will add chicken or fish goujons to that list. But once he did mention to me that he liked chicken chow mein at school and it was not an opportunity I could let pass.
\r\nHe was on one of those teacher training days at the tail end of half term and his mum asked if I'd like to take him out since she was working from home and they were just back from Eurodisney, a trip we had missed due to my wife's work commitments.
\r\nHe is a mature and kind boy who looks and acts older than his seven and a bit years and I adore spending time with him, so I jumped at the opportunity and decided to use it as an excuse to expand his culinary experiences.
\r\nInstead of being restricted to places that do chips and margherita pizzas, here was a chance for rice and noodles. But where to go on a Monday lunchtime? Kei's over in Earley was shut and none of the central Reading Chinese could be depended on for traditional Cantonese-style chicken chow mein - that foodstuff of the traditional Anglo-Chinese takeaway of our youth.
\r\nI asked Google (or rather Gemini these days) and it directed me to the university, where with term time over there was parking space and we had a choice between Happy Panda and Kungfu Kitchen, the mini empire built by the inimitable Joanna Hu since arriving In Reading over a decade ago.
\r\n
A lot has been written about Kungfu Kitchen and its Shandong food. It has even had positive write-ups in the national press.
\r\nBut I decided that it was probably a step too far and that the more bland Cantonese-orientated Happy Panda would be a better choice. It occupies the space once occupied by Kungfu Kitchen which moved several doors up the parade on Christchurch Road.
\r\nBy the door there is a water and smoke-spewing shrine, which was immediately exciting for a seven-year-old.
\r\nI remember when my gran first took me to the Chinese in Bangor, North Wales and at the same age I was fascinated by the waterfall, pool and giant goldfish indoors!
\r\nThe menu will be familiar to anyone who has frequented UK Chinese restaurants since they first arrived in the UK in the late 19th and early 20th century. Britain’s thriving maritime trade brought thousands of Chinese merchant seamen to major port districts like London’s Limehouse, Liverpool’s Pitt Street, and Cardiff’s Tiger Bay. Tucked away in these industrial hubs, the very first eating houses were modest boarding-house cafes and tea shops catering for the immigrant and transient populations. The British link with Hong Kong inevitably meant that they featured Cantonese food from Guangdong province, adapted to local ingredients where necessary. It is not very spicy and uses ginger, scallions, garlic, soy sauce, rice wine, and oyster sauce for flavourings. Dim sum, roasted meats (siu mei) and fresh seafood are core to the cuisine, often combined with fresh vegetables in a wok.
\r\nThe transition of UK Chinese food from isolated dockland enclaves to a mainstream high street culinary institution was accelerated by the devastation of World War II. Heavy wartime bombing decimated the original riverside Chinatowns of Limehouse and Liverpool, forcing these communities to migrate inland. This relocation coincided with a massive post-war wave of Cantonese immigrants from Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s. Settling into areas like Soho in London, Nelson Street in Liverpool, and across the South Wales valleys, these resilient families brilliantly adapted their business models to survive.
\r\nTo capture the British public’s imagination, early restaurateurs cleverly adjusted their menus, introducing sweet, savoury, and accessible Cantonese classics. In regions like Wales, many took over traditional fish-and-chip shops, blending English chippy staples with adapted Chinese dishes and the now-legendary curry sauce. This evolution from survivalist dockside kitchens to the ubiquitous high-street takeaway fundamentally reshaped the UK's culinary fabric, paving the way for the rich, authentic, and diverse dining experiences we enjoy today.
In Reading we have the traditional Wing's Fish Bar around the corner from the recent Cantonese sensation, Good Old Days on George St and even on Broad St you will soon be able to mix and match largely Cantonese flavours in Chopstix as it extends its operating licence until the wee hours.
So the menu at Happy Panda will be familiar to most Brits - from Lemon Chicken to Chicken Chow Mein, and also appeal to the growing Hong Kong community in our town. Jop has even finally succumbed to the big delivery firms and you can now Deliveroo a Happy Panda!
\r\n
The menu has a good list of dim sum and I couldn't resist the mixed starter, which had chicken and beef shu mai, prawn pad gao and three pork dumplings with the requisite side dish of vinegar for dunking. It was more than a meal in itself and my nephew demurred, seeing the little packets of deliciousness as a step too far from familiar territory. I was a bit disappointed but wasn't going to do the Chinese persuasion thing and he definitely wasn't going to be looking at his screen for this meal.
\r\nThey were chunky and perfectly steamed; I particularly liked the chicken siu mai with its bits of mushroom rather than the more familiar prawn and pork filling (often with water chestnuts for bite).
\r\nOf course I dunked them in chilli oil rather than the vinegar and kept most for lunch the following day.
\r\n
My Malaysian Curry was a bit of an off-piste choice but I was interested to see what it would be like. As it happens it was the child of a Massaman Curry and one of those Chinese Chip Shop curries of youth.
\r\nIt was very potato heavy and the potatoes were not pleasant - they had either been over-chilled or even frozen. It was a bad choice and was not similar to anything I had eaten that purported to be a curry from Malaysia.
\r\nThe side of fried rice was so-so - slightly tasteless, lacking egg, oyster sauce and sesame oil.
\r\n
But forget me, onto the important review. My nephew loved his salt and pepper chicken, which were small and crispy, firm and very salty, albeit not quite peppery enough for my taste. I picked away at the finely chopped onion, chilli and peppers that they sat on and lifted the flavours. My nephew studiously avoided them and seemed very content.
\r\n
Even more so, he thought that the chicken chow mein, a simple dish of thin egg noodles, some onion and chicken in a soy-heavy sauce was delicious, exclaiming so loudly to the delight of our lovely waitress, who was not overly taxed by the three or four tables occupied on a Monday lunchtime?
\r\nCornflour, MSG, salt and soy were present, as they should be, they are staples of the Cantonese kitchen cupboard. I regretted not ordering some broccoli, which my nephew also loves, or something fresher. The tendency with Cantonese (if you're me, at least, is to go for the not-so-healthy options).
\r\nI had my usual pot of jasmine tea which came in a funky plastic teapot and plastic microcup. At least the pouring worked - most tea in traditional china seems to end up on the table in my experience.
\r\nDuring the meal I started to teach my nephew how to use chopsticks - he had some success, but I think that we are going to have to make some more return visits to get him fully dexterous with them.
\r\nIf this visit was anything to go by then his culinary horizons have expanded some and we did leave as Happy Pandas! All we need to do now is to find a Chinese that offers chips and margherita pizzas for the young fellow's sister....
", "description": "Why are children becoming increasingly selective with food? From historical shifts in Western parenting to cultural dining practices in Japan and China, we explore the roots of picky eating and one uncle's attempt to expand his nephew's culinary horizons in Reading.", "dateModified": "2026-06-30T10:02:09.664341+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-07-01T11:02:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/beyond-chips-and-beige-tackling-the-global-crisis-of-picky-eaters/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "525", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/cathedrals-of-commerce/", "title": "Cathedrals Of Commerce", "content_html": "Reading has always been a town for commerce. Today it is one of the biggest retail centres of its size in the UK with most leading high street stores represented.
In the past retail in the town was defined by the presence of its great department stores. These were often more than just shops; they were urban landmarks and destinations. With John Lewis the last one left, this month we're taking a look back at Reading's retail past.
From the bustling corners of Broad Street to the elegant facades that lined the town centre, stores such as Heelas, Jackson’s, AH Bull and McIlroys became synonymous with the identity of the town. To trace the history of these institutions is to trace the history of Reading’s transformation from a Victorian market town into a modern regional retail powerhouse. These stores provided the essential infrastructure for a growing population, offering everything from haberdashery and fine linens to furniture, exotic groceries, and early electrical appliances.
\r\nAs the economic landscape shifted through the post-war boom, the advent of car culture and out-of-town shopping, and the rise of the digital age with its online shopping, these grand palaces of consumption faced inevitable challenges. So let's turn back the clock and look at the golden age of Reading's department stores and the impact they left upon the local landscape.
\r\n\r\n
The Emergence of the Giants
\r\nThe development of Reading’s department stores mirrors the broader Victorian expansion of the British retail sector, which saw the transition from specialised small-scale tradespeople to large, consolidated businesses. During the mid-19th century, Reading was a burgeoning hub, fuelled by the Great Western Railway and the success of local industries such as Huntley & Palmers biscuits and the Simmonds brewery. As wealth increased among the middle classes, the demand for a centralised shopping experience grew. Small drapery businesses began to expand their floor space, taking on adjacent properties and diversifying their stock to meet the aspirations of a town in flux. It was during this period that foundational names began to cement their reputations. These early entrepreneurs recognised that by bringing multiple departments under one roof, they could offer a level of convenience and sophistication that was previously unattainable. The architecture of these early stores often featured large, ornate glass frontages intended to draw the eye, a significant departure from the narrow, darkened shops of the past. This era established the department store as a 'third space,' a location between home and work where citizens could browse, socialise, and experience the emerging culture of modern consumerism, laying the groundwork for the retail giants of the next century.
\r\n\r\n
![\"Heelas___exterior_1865_1874_ref_2342__300dpi.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/11fd8be9.webp\")
Heelas - The Jewel In The Crown
\r\nPerhaps no name is as inextricably linked to Reading’s retail heritage as Heelas. The store's origins were as a modest drapery business opened by William Heelas on Market Place in Wokingham. John Heelas trained in his father’s business before purchasing Albion House at 33 Minster Street in Reading with his sons. (The Wokingham store continued to operate until 1966.) They opened for business on 1st May 1854, as 'linen drapers, silk mercers, and outfitters'. They gradually expanded into adjacent properties: 32 Minster Street, 24 to 27 Minster Street and 110 to 112 Broad Street, with staff growing from 3 to 150. In 1897 the business became a Limited Company.
\r\nWhat distinguished Heelas was its commitment to quality and service, a reputation that solidified its status as the 'go-to' destination for the genteel and the aspirational of Reading alike. The store’s reputation for quality grew rapidly, and in 1858 the family was awarded a Royal Warrant. Later, in 1890, they were appointed Linen Drapers and House Furnishers to the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII).
\r\nThe rather higgledy-piggledy site was redeveloped in the early 1960s to give the store that you can currently visit.
\r\n![\"Heelas_rebuilding_stage_2.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/596b9273.webp\")
The store was renowned for its staff training, its extensive array of departments, and its elegant tea rooms, which served as social hubs for the ladies of Reading. By the turn of the 20th century, the Heelas name was synonymous with luxury and reliability. The architectural presence of the store, with its refined displays and imposing yet welcoming entrance, reflected the town’s growing confidence.
\r\n![\"Heelas___Clearance_and_crowds_1966_ref_359e.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/fdf8bc3d.webp\")
Generations of Reading families marked milestones—weddings, births, and christenings—with gifts and outfits sourced from the hallowed halls of Heelas. Its eventual acquisition by the John Lewis Partnership in the 1950s marked a pivotal moment, transitioning from a family-run local institution into a key branch of a national entity, though it retained its local character and affection for decades to come. For some time it was the only John Lewis branch with a florist. Today it is the last department store remaining in Reading and seems to have a bright future as John Lewis recently opened a new restaurant and committed to a multi-million pound investment in their Reading store.
\r\n![\"Jacksons_Corner_in_Reading,_December_2013.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/41651272.webp\")
Jackson’s Corner – The People’s Store
\r\nWhile Heelas catered to the more affluent, Jackson’s, situated at the prominent junction of King’s Road and High Street, became famously known as 'the people’s store.' Founded by Henry Jackson in 1875, the store earned its place in the hearts of Reading residents through a philosophy of practicality, affordability, and deep-rooted community loyalty. Jackson’s was iconic for its slightly chaotic, treasure-trove atmosphere, an antithesis to sterile, modern retail environments. Generations of school children in Reading remember the store for its uniform department, while adults relied on its extensive range of hardware, household goods, and clothing that promised longevity over fashion trends. The famous 'Jackson’s Corner' sign was a landmark used by virtually everyone in town as a meeting point. The store's endurance was a testament to the fact that it was family-run for over a century, with a hands-on approach that prioritised the customer experience over corporate efficiency.
\r\nIts closure in 2013 signalled the end of an era, marking the final departure of the traditional, independent department store from our town's central shopping district
\r\n![\"oxford-road-reading-c-1920-5a9068.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/f5601a5d.webp\")
McIlroys – Style and Substance
\r\nMcIlroys was another titan of the Reading high street, occupying a massive site that spanned several buildings and offered a vast array of goods. If Heelas was the refined aristocrat, McIlroys was the bustling, energetic workhorse of the retail scene. Located prominently on Broad Street (opposite where the Broad St Mall now sits), the store was famous for its expansive window displays that changed with the seasons, often becoming a spectacle for townspeople to congregate around during the holiday periods.
\r\nMcIlroys prided itself on being a 'universal provider,' ensuring that residents of Reading and the surrounding Berkshire countryside did not need to travel to London to find the latest fashions or homeware items. The store’s interior was a maze of wooden escalators, high ceilings, and distinct sections, each overseen by floor managers who ensured the highest standards of service in the best traditions of 'Are You Being Served?'. Many recall the experience of shopping at McIlroys as sensory; the smell of the perfume counters, the sound of the busy floor, and the tactile nature of the fabrics created a lasting impression. Like its contemporaries, McIlroys faced the pressures of the late 20th-century retail shift, eventually consolidating and reformatting, but its influence on the retail culture of Reading remains a vital chapter in the town's commercial development.
\r\n![\"Coop](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/1ae5e808.webp\")
The Co-Op - The People's Store
\r\nThe Co-operative Retail Services department store in West St was part not of what we think of today as the Co-op, but rather a rival mutual retailer. The store was rebranded 'Living' in the 1960s and was closed in 1999 when CRS was dissolved.
\r\nIt was enormous. On Cheapside there was an impressive entrance with stairs and lifts to the upper floors. On the second floor of the corner section was the ladies' hairdressing dept, the Salon Bleu et D'Or and on the ground floor was the homewares dept which included some very fine china and glass.
\r\nOn West St there was a food department - a Polish supermarket now sits on this site.
\r\nA former customer told inReading: \"They used to give you coupons of various values making up the total of what you bought.
\r\n\"Once a year members obtained envelopes in which to put their coupons for redemption.
\r\n\"They had to be sorted into similar values to make up a total for each envelope. They were then deposited at the banking dept where they were analysed and a proportion of the value (The \"Divi\") would be credited to members' savings accounts.
\r\n\"What a job - no computers in those days!\"
\r\n\r\n
AH Bull - Too Small To Survive
\r\nA.H. Bull was another prominent, historic department store located on Broad Street and was part of the Selfridges Provincial Group Stores. It was smaller than some of the other department stores it competed with and was also acquired by the John Lewis Partnership in 1940. It was considered a friendly, welcoming store. In October 1942, The Gazette reported on a welcome wartime distraction for the Partners of AH Bull who threw a dance for American forces in the area, recreating their “national dish” of apple pie for them to remind them of home.
\r\n![\"Shoppers_in_'Bull's',_a_large_draper's_store_in_Reading,_Berkshire_during_1945._D25280.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/96ab5fcf.webp\")
The store was ultimately closed and merged with rival Reading retailer Heelas, which stood nearly opposite it on Broad St, in May 1953 when John Lewis bought the larger store. The original site later sold and became a Littlewoods branch.
\r\n![\"AH_Bull_leaving_party-658x318.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/77477224.webp\")
The closing party at AH Bull
\r\n\r\n
The Post-War Boom and the Modernisation of Broad Street
\r\nThe period following the Second World War brought significant changes to Reading’s retail infrastructure. The town underwent extensive urban planning initiatives, leading to the pedestrianisation of Broad Street and the modernisation of store fronts. The department stores of Reading found themselves at the centre of this transformation. This era saw the introduction of more efficient sales floors, the modernisation of lighting, and the integration of new technologies like telephone orders and delivery fleets. As Reading grew, the competition increased with the rise of out-of-town retail parks and large-scale shopping centres. However, throughout the 1960s and 70s, the department stores remained the anchors of the town centre, drawing thousands of shoppers from miles around. This was the golden age of the Reading high street, where the department stores acted as the town’s social pulse. They hosted events, held seasonal sales that brought the town to a standstill, and provided employment for a large percentage of the local workforce. This era also highlights the shifting demographics of the town, as the stores adapted to cater to a more diverse and youthful consumer base, moving away from the Victorian-era exclusivity of the early shops.
\r\n[Section 6: Challenges and the Shift in Consumption Habits]
\r\nBy the late 1980s and 1990s, the landscape began to change rapidly. The proliferation of supermarkets, the advent of large-scale, out-of-town retail parks like those in Calcot, and the eventual rise of e-commerce placed immense pressure on the traditional department store model. The high overheads associated with maintaining multi-storey, historic buildings became a liability rather than an asset. Consumers were demanding more convenience, faster turnaround, and lower prices, and the traditional model—with its multiple layers of staff and decentralised purchasing—began to feel outdated. Several stores attempted to adapt by streamlining operations, introducing new brands, and revamping their interiors, but the sheer scale of the shift was difficult to overcome. This period was characterised by a consolidation of ownership, where smaller stores were absorbed or replaced by larger national chains. It was a time of mourning for many locals who watched as the grand facades were repurposed or demolished. The retail culture in Reading was no longer defined by the singular 'destination' store, but by a more fragmented and rapid retail environment, signalling a fundamental change in the relationship between the town and its commerce.
\r\nThe Evolution Of The High Street
\r\nToday, the legacy of Reading's department stores persists, not necessarily in their original forms, but in the way the town continues to perceive its urban centre. While the buildings themselves have in many cases been transformed into residential units, offices, or mixed-use retail spaces, the footprint of these stores dictates the flow of traffic and pedestrian movement throughout the town. The 'Heelas' name, though transitioned into the John Lewis brand, remains a point of pride, and the site of the former Jackson’s corner still retains its status as a historical focal point for locals. The story of these stores is ultimately one of adaptation. While the physical storefronts have diminished, the spirit of service and the culture of the 'local destination' store have influenced current retail trends, which emphasise experiential shopping over mere transactional utility. Modern Reading has moved toward specialised, boutique-style retail, yet the nostalgia for the great department stores remains a core component of the town’s civic identity. Their history is not just about sales figures and square footage; it is a history of the community that gathered within their walls and the town that grew up around them.
\r\nThe Retail Architecture
\r\nBeyond the economic data, the architecture of Reading’s department stores offers a fascinating case study in urban evolution. These buildings were designed to be cathedrals of consumption - monuments to the town's prosperity. The use of elaborate masonry, large glass windows, and grand staircases was designed to inspire awe and signify longevity.
\r\nAs we look back at the architectural history, it is clear that these structures were built with an assumption of permanence that the modern retail market has largely discarded. Many of these buildings, after their original use ceased, proved surprisingly versatile. Their deep floor plans and solid construction allowed them to be repurposed into apartments and offices, demonstrating the inherent value of the urban density they once anchored.
\r\nThe architectural history of these stores is a narrative of Reading’s ability to evolve and reinvent itself and there is little doubt that the loss of the 'department store' as an institution has left physical scars on the town, yet those scars are covered by the repurposing and redevelopment that defines the current cityscape.
\r\nThe Community Role Of The Department Store
\r\nIt is important to acknowledge the role these stores played in fostering social cohesion for many decades.
\r\nIn an age before digital connectivity, the department store was where the town met. It was where people from different neighbourhoods crossed paths, where staff spent careers spanning decades, and where the community celebrated holidays.
\r\nThe department store was a source of identity. When a resident said they were 'going into town,' they were almost invariably referring to visiting one of the major stores. These spaces acted as the town’s living room.
\r\nThe staff-customer relationship was personal, with shopkeepers often knowing generations of the same families. This created a sense of belonging that is harder to replicate in today’s transactional, digital landscape.
\r\nThe history of the department stores is, at its heart, a history of human connection. The memories held by the residents of Reading regarding these stores are filled with accounts of meeting friends for coffee, finding that one obscure item for a project, that one item of clothing for an important event or simply enjoying the refuge from the weather that the sprawling stores provided.
\r\nThis social history is as significant as the economic history, reminding us that commerce was a human endeavour. We live in changed times since the arrival of the internet and then the pandemic lockdowns.
\r\nThe history of the department stores of Reading is a testament to the town's evolution from a Victorian mercantile centre to a vibrant modern regional hub.
\r\nAnd now one remains.
", "content_text": "Reading has always been a town for commerce. Today it is one of the biggest retail centres of its size in the UK with most leading high street stores represented. In the past retail in the town was defined by the presence of its great department stores. These were often more than just shops; they were urban landmarks and destinations. With John Lewis the last one left, this month we're taking a look back at Reading's retail past. \r\nFrom the bustling corners of Broad Street to the elegant facades that lined the town centre, stores such as Heelas, Jackson’s, AH Bull and McIlroys became synonymous with the identity of the town. To trace the history of these institutions is to trace the history of Reading’s transformation from a Victorian market town into a modern regional retail powerhouse. These stores provided the essential infrastructure for a growing population, offering everything from haberdashery and fine linens to furniture, exotic groceries, and early electrical appliances.\r\nAs the economic landscape shifted through the post-war boom, the advent of car culture and out-of-town shopping, and the rise of the digital age with its online shopping, these grand palaces of consumption faced inevitable challenges. So let's turn back the clock and look at the golden age of Reading's department stores and the impact they left upon the local landscape.\r\n \r\nThe Emergence of the Giants\r\nThe development of Reading’s department stores mirrors the broader Victorian expansion of the British retail sector, which saw the transition from specialised small-scale tradespeople to large, consolidated businesses. During the mid-19th century, Reading was a burgeoning hub, fuelled by the Great Western Railway and the success of local industries such as Huntley & Palmers biscuits and the Simmonds brewery. As wealth increased among the middle classes, the demand for a centralised shopping experience grew. Small drapery businesses began to expand their floor space, taking on adjacent properties and diversifying their stock to meet the aspirations of a town in flux. It was during this period that foundational names began to cement their reputations. These early entrepreneurs recognised that by bringing multiple departments under one roof, they could offer a level of convenience and sophistication that was previously unattainable. The architecture of these early stores often featured large, ornate glass frontages intended to draw the eye, a significant departure from the narrow, darkened shops of the past. This era established the department store as a 'third space,' a location between home and work where citizens could browse, socialise, and experience the emerging culture of modern consumerism, laying the groundwork for the retail giants of the next century.\r\n \r\n\r\nHeelas - The Jewel In The Crown\r\nPerhaps no name is as inextricably linked to Reading’s retail heritage as Heelas. The store's origins were as a modest drapery business opened by William Heelas on Market Place in Wokingham. John Heelas trained in his father’s business before purchasing Albion House at 33 Minster Street in Reading with his sons. (The Wokingham store continued to operate until 1966.) They opened for business on 1st May 1854, as 'linen drapers, silk mercers, and outfitters'. They gradually expanded into adjacent properties: 32 Minster Street, 24 to 27 Minster Street and 110 to 112 Broad Street, with staff growing from 3 to 150. In 1897 the business became a Limited Company.\r\nWhat distinguished Heelas was its commitment to quality and service, a reputation that solidified its status as the 'go-to' destination for the genteel and the aspirational of Reading alike. The store’s reputation for quality grew rapidly, and in 1858 the family was awarded a Royal Warrant. Later, in 1890, they were appointed Linen Drapers and House Furnishers to the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII).\r\nThe rather higgledy-piggledy site was redeveloped in the early 1960s to give the store that you can currently visit.\r\n\r\nThe store was renowned for its staff training, its extensive array of departments, and its elegant tea rooms, which served as social hubs for the ladies of Reading. By the turn of the 20th century, the Heelas name was synonymous with luxury and reliability. The architectural presence of the store, with its refined displays and imposing yet welcoming entrance, reflected the town’s growing confidence.\r\n\r\nGenerations of Reading families marked milestones—weddings, births, and christenings—with gifts and outfits sourced from the hallowed halls of Heelas. Its eventual acquisition by the John Lewis Partnership in the 1950s marked a pivotal moment, transitioning from a family-run local institution into a key branch of a national entity, though it retained its local character and affection for decades to come. For some time it was the only John Lewis branch with a florist. Today it is the last department store remaining in Reading and seems to have a bright future as John Lewis recently opened a new restaurant and committed to a multi-million pound investment in their Reading store.\r\n\r\nJackson’s Corner – The People’s Store\r\nWhile Heelas catered to the more affluent, Jackson’s, situated at the prominent junction of King’s Road and High Street, became famously known as 'the people’s store.' Founded by Henry Jackson in 1875, the store earned its place in the hearts of Reading residents through a philosophy of practicality, affordability, and deep-rooted community loyalty. Jackson’s was iconic for its slightly chaotic, treasure-trove atmosphere, an antithesis to sterile, modern retail environments. Generations of school children in Reading remember the store for its uniform department, while adults relied on its extensive range of hardware, household goods, and clothing that promised longevity over fashion trends. The famous 'Jackson’s Corner' sign was a landmark used by virtually everyone in town as a meeting point. The store's endurance was a testament to the fact that it was family-run for over a century, with a hands-on approach that prioritised the customer experience over corporate efficiency.\r\nIts closure in 2013 signalled the end of an era, marking the final departure of the traditional, independent department store from our town's central shopping district\r\n\r\nMcIlroys – Style and Substance\r\nMcIlroys was another titan of the Reading high street, occupying a massive site that spanned several buildings and offered a vast array of goods. If Heelas was the refined aristocrat, McIlroys was the bustling, energetic workhorse of the retail scene. Located prominently on Broad Street (opposite where the Broad St Mall now sits), the store was famous for its expansive window displays that changed with the seasons, often becoming a spectacle for townspeople to congregate around during the holiday periods.\r\nMcIlroys prided itself on being a 'universal provider,' ensuring that residents of Reading and the surrounding Berkshire countryside did not need to travel to London to find the latest fashions or homeware items. The store’s interior was a maze of wooden escalators, high ceilings, and distinct sections, each overseen by floor managers who ensured the highest standards of service in the best traditions of 'Are You Being Served?'. Many recall the experience of shopping at McIlroys as sensory; the smell of the perfume counters, the sound of the busy floor, and the tactile nature of the fabrics created a lasting impression. Like its contemporaries, McIlroys faced the pressures of the late 20th-century retail shift, eventually consolidating and reformatting, but its influence on the retail culture of Reading remains a vital chapter in the town's commercial development.\r\n\r\nThe Co-Op - The People's Store\r\nThe Co-operative Retail Services department store in West St was part not of what we think of today as the Co-op, but rather a rival mutual retailer. The store was rebranded 'Living' in the 1960s and was closed in 1999 when CRS was dissolved.\r\nIt was enormous. On Cheapside there was an impressive entrance with stairs and lifts to the upper floors. On the second floor of the corner section was the ladies' hairdressing dept, the Salon Bleu et D'Or and on the ground floor was the homewares dept which included some very fine china and glass.\r\nOn West St there was a food department - a Polish supermarket now sits on this site.\r\nA former customer told inReading: \"They used to give you coupons of various values making up the total of what you bought.\r\n\"Once a year members obtained envelopes in which to put their coupons for redemption.\r\n\"They had to be sorted into similar values to make up a total for each envelope. They were then deposited at the banking dept where they were analysed and a proportion of the value (The \"Divi\") would be credited to members' savings accounts.\r\n\"What a job - no computers in those days!\"\r\n \r\nAH Bull - Too Small To Survive\r\nA.H. Bull was another prominent, historic department store located on Broad Street and was part of the Selfridges Provincial Group Stores. It was smaller than some of the other department stores it competed with and was also acquired by the John Lewis Partnership in 1940. It was considered a friendly, welcoming store. In October 1942, The Gazette reported on a welcome wartime distraction for the Partners of AH Bull who threw a dance for American forces in the area, recreating their “national dish” of apple pie for them to remind them of home.\r\n\r\nThe store was ultimately closed and merged with rival Reading retailer Heelas, which stood nearly opposite it on Broad St, in May 1953 when John Lewis bought the larger store. The original site later sold and became a Littlewoods branch.\r\n\r\nThe closing party at AH Bull\r\n \r\nThe Post-War Boom and the Modernisation of Broad Street\r\nThe period following the Second World War brought significant changes to Reading’s retail infrastructure. The town underwent extensive urban planning initiatives, leading to the pedestrianisation of Broad Street and the modernisation of store fronts. The department stores of Reading found themselves at the centre of this transformation. This era saw the introduction of more efficient sales floors, the modernisation of lighting, and the integration of new technologies like telephone orders and delivery fleets. As Reading grew, the competition increased with the rise of out-of-town retail parks and large-scale shopping centres. However, throughout the 1960s and 70s, the department stores remained the anchors of the town centre, drawing thousands of shoppers from miles around. This was the golden age of the Reading high street, where the department stores acted as the town’s social pulse. They hosted events, held seasonal sales that brought the town to a standstill, and provided employment for a large percentage of the local workforce. This era also highlights the shifting demographics of the town, as the stores adapted to cater to a more diverse and youthful consumer base, moving away from the Victorian-era exclusivity of the early shops.\r\n[Section 6: Challenges and the Shift in Consumption Habits]\r\nBy the late 1980s and 1990s, the landscape began to change rapidly. The proliferation of supermarkets, the advent of large-scale, out-of-town retail parks like those in Calcot, and the eventual rise of e-commerce placed immense pressure on the traditional department store model. The high overheads associated with maintaining multi-storey, historic buildings became a liability rather than an asset. Consumers were demanding more convenience, faster turnaround, and lower prices, and the traditional model—with its multiple layers of staff and decentralised purchasing—began to feel outdated. Several stores attempted to adapt by streamlining operations, introducing new brands, and revamping their interiors, but the sheer scale of the shift was difficult to overcome. This period was characterised by a consolidation of ownership, where smaller stores were absorbed or replaced by larger national chains. It was a time of mourning for many locals who watched as the grand facades were repurposed or demolished. The retail culture in Reading was no longer defined by the singular 'destination' store, but by a more fragmented and rapid retail environment, signalling a fundamental change in the relationship between the town and its commerce.\r\nThe Evolution Of The High Street\r\nToday, the legacy of Reading's department stores persists, not necessarily in their original forms, but in the way the town continues to perceive its urban centre. While the buildings themselves have in many cases been transformed into residential units, offices, or mixed-use retail spaces, the footprint of these stores dictates the flow of traffic and pedestrian movement throughout the town. The 'Heelas' name, though transitioned into the John Lewis brand, remains a point of pride, and the site of the former Jackson’s corner still retains its status as a historical focal point for locals. The story of these stores is ultimately one of adaptation. While the physical storefronts have diminished, the spirit of service and the culture of the 'local destination' store have influenced current retail trends, which emphasise experiential shopping over mere transactional utility. Modern Reading has moved toward specialised, boutique-style retail, yet the nostalgia for the great department stores remains a core component of the town’s civic identity. Their history is not just about sales figures and square footage; it is a history of the community that gathered within their walls and the town that grew up around them.\r\nThe Retail Architecture\r\nBeyond the economic data, the architecture of Reading’s department stores offers a fascinating case study in urban evolution. These buildings were designed to be cathedrals of consumption - monuments to the town's prosperity. The use of elaborate masonry, large glass windows, and grand staircases was designed to inspire awe and signify longevity.\r\nAs we look back at the architectural history, it is clear that these structures were built with an assumption of permanence that the modern retail market has largely discarded. Many of these buildings, after their original use ceased, proved surprisingly versatile. Their deep floor plans and solid construction allowed them to be repurposed into apartments and offices, demonstrating the inherent value of the urban density they once anchored.\r\nThe architectural history of these stores is a narrative of Reading’s ability to evolve and reinvent itself and there is little doubt that the loss of the 'department store' as an institution has left physical scars on the town, yet those scars are covered by the repurposing and redevelopment that defines the current cityscape. \r\nThe Community Role Of The Department Store\r\nIt is important to acknowledge the role these stores played in fostering social cohesion for many decades.\r\nIn an age before digital connectivity, the department store was where the town met. It was where people from different neighbourhoods crossed paths, where staff spent careers spanning decades, and where the community celebrated holidays.\r\nThe department store was a source of identity. When a resident said they were 'going into town,' they were almost invariably referring to visiting one of the major stores. These spaces acted as the town’s living room.\r\nThe staff-customer relationship was personal, with shopkeepers often knowing generations of the same families. This created a sense of belonging that is harder to replicate in today’s transactional, digital landscape.\r\nThe history of the department stores is, at its heart, a history of human connection. The memories held by the residents of Reading regarding these stores are filled with accounts of meeting friends for coffee, finding that one obscure item for a project, that one item of clothing for an important event or simply enjoying the refuge from the weather that the sprawling stores provided.\r\nThis social history is as significant as the economic history, reminding us that commerce was a human endeavour. We live in changed times since the arrival of the internet and then the pandemic lockdowns.\r\nThe history of the department stores of Reading is a testament to the town's evolution from a Victorian mercantile centre to a vibrant modern regional hub.\r\nAnd now one remains.", "summary": "From the ornate facades of Heelas to the social hubs of Jackson\u2019s, discover how Reading's iconic department stores shaped the town\u2019s identity for over a century.", "date_published": "2026-07-01T11:02:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-30T11:22:31.649783+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/949151f3.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/949151f3.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Cathedrals Of Commerce", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 2676, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "Reading has always been a town for commerce. Today it is one of the biggest retail centres of its size in the UK with most leading high street stores represented.
In the past retail in the town was defined by the presence of its great department stores. These were often more than just shops; they were urban landmarks and destinations. With John Lewis the last one left, this month we're taking a look back at Reading's retail past.
From the bustling corners of Broad Street to the elegant facades that lined the town centre, stores such as Heelas, Jackson’s, AH Bull and McIlroys became synonymous with the identity of the town. To trace the history of these institutions is to trace the history of Reading’s transformation from a Victorian market town into a modern regional retail powerhouse. These stores provided the essential infrastructure for a growing population, offering everything from haberdashery and fine linens to furniture, exotic groceries, and early electrical appliances.
\r\nAs the economic landscape shifted through the post-war boom, the advent of car culture and out-of-town shopping, and the rise of the digital age with its online shopping, these grand palaces of consumption faced inevitable challenges. So let's turn back the clock and look at the golden age of Reading's department stores and the impact they left upon the local landscape.
\r\n\r\n
The Emergence of the Giants
\r\nThe development of Reading’s department stores mirrors the broader Victorian expansion of the British retail sector, which saw the transition from specialised small-scale tradespeople to large, consolidated businesses. During the mid-19th century, Reading was a burgeoning hub, fuelled by the Great Western Railway and the success of local industries such as Huntley & Palmers biscuits and the Simmonds brewery. As wealth increased among the middle classes, the demand for a centralised shopping experience grew. Small drapery businesses began to expand their floor space, taking on adjacent properties and diversifying their stock to meet the aspirations of a town in flux. It was during this period that foundational names began to cement their reputations. These early entrepreneurs recognised that by bringing multiple departments under one roof, they could offer a level of convenience and sophistication that was previously unattainable. The architecture of these early stores often featured large, ornate glass frontages intended to draw the eye, a significant departure from the narrow, darkened shops of the past. This era established the department store as a 'third space,' a location between home and work where citizens could browse, socialise, and experience the emerging culture of modern consumerism, laying the groundwork for the retail giants of the next century.
\r\n\r\n
Heelas - The Jewel In The Crown
\r\nPerhaps no name is as inextricably linked to Reading’s retail heritage as Heelas. The store's origins were as a modest drapery business opened by William Heelas on Market Place in Wokingham. John Heelas trained in his father’s business before purchasing Albion House at 33 Minster Street in Reading with his sons. (The Wokingham store continued to operate until 1966.) They opened for business on 1st May 1854, as 'linen drapers, silk mercers, and outfitters'. They gradually expanded into adjacent properties: 32 Minster Street, 24 to 27 Minster Street and 110 to 112 Broad Street, with staff growing from 3 to 150. In 1897 the business became a Limited Company.
\r\nWhat distinguished Heelas was its commitment to quality and service, a reputation that solidified its status as the 'go-to' destination for the genteel and the aspirational of Reading alike. The store’s reputation for quality grew rapidly, and in 1858 the family was awarded a Royal Warrant. Later, in 1890, they were appointed Linen Drapers and House Furnishers to the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII).
\r\nThe rather higgledy-piggledy site was redeveloped in the early 1960s to give the store that you can currently visit.
\r\n
The store was renowned for its staff training, its extensive array of departments, and its elegant tea rooms, which served as social hubs for the ladies of Reading. By the turn of the 20th century, the Heelas name was synonymous with luxury and reliability. The architectural presence of the store, with its refined displays and imposing yet welcoming entrance, reflected the town’s growing confidence.
\r\n
Generations of Reading families marked milestones—weddings, births, and christenings—with gifts and outfits sourced from the hallowed halls of Heelas. Its eventual acquisition by the John Lewis Partnership in the 1950s marked a pivotal moment, transitioning from a family-run local institution into a key branch of a national entity, though it retained its local character and affection for decades to come. For some time it was the only John Lewis branch with a florist. Today it is the last department store remaining in Reading and seems to have a bright future as John Lewis recently opened a new restaurant and committed to a multi-million pound investment in their Reading store.
\r\n
Jackson’s Corner – The People’s Store
\r\nWhile Heelas catered to the more affluent, Jackson’s, situated at the prominent junction of King’s Road and High Street, became famously known as 'the people’s store.' Founded by Henry Jackson in 1875, the store earned its place in the hearts of Reading residents through a philosophy of practicality, affordability, and deep-rooted community loyalty. Jackson’s was iconic for its slightly chaotic, treasure-trove atmosphere, an antithesis to sterile, modern retail environments. Generations of school children in Reading remember the store for its uniform department, while adults relied on its extensive range of hardware, household goods, and clothing that promised longevity over fashion trends. The famous 'Jackson’s Corner' sign was a landmark used by virtually everyone in town as a meeting point. The store's endurance was a testament to the fact that it was family-run for over a century, with a hands-on approach that prioritised the customer experience over corporate efficiency.
\r\nIts closure in 2013 signalled the end of an era, marking the final departure of the traditional, independent department store from our town's central shopping district
\r\n
McIlroys – Style and Substance
\r\nMcIlroys was another titan of the Reading high street, occupying a massive site that spanned several buildings and offered a vast array of goods. If Heelas was the refined aristocrat, McIlroys was the bustling, energetic workhorse of the retail scene. Located prominently on Broad Street (opposite where the Broad St Mall now sits), the store was famous for its expansive window displays that changed with the seasons, often becoming a spectacle for townspeople to congregate around during the holiday periods.
\r\nMcIlroys prided itself on being a 'universal provider,' ensuring that residents of Reading and the surrounding Berkshire countryside did not need to travel to London to find the latest fashions or homeware items. The store’s interior was a maze of wooden escalators, high ceilings, and distinct sections, each overseen by floor managers who ensured the highest standards of service in the best traditions of 'Are You Being Served?'. Many recall the experience of shopping at McIlroys as sensory; the smell of the perfume counters, the sound of the busy floor, and the tactile nature of the fabrics created a lasting impression. Like its contemporaries, McIlroys faced the pressures of the late 20th-century retail shift, eventually consolidating and reformatting, but its influence on the retail culture of Reading remains a vital chapter in the town's commercial development.
\r\n
The Co-Op - The People's Store
\r\nThe Co-operative Retail Services department store in West St was part not of what we think of today as the Co-op, but rather a rival mutual retailer. The store was rebranded 'Living' in the 1960s and was closed in 1999 when CRS was dissolved.
\r\nIt was enormous. On Cheapside there was an impressive entrance with stairs and lifts to the upper floors. On the second floor of the corner section was the ladies' hairdressing dept, the Salon Bleu et D'Or and on the ground floor was the homewares dept which included some very fine china and glass.
\r\nOn West St there was a food department - a Polish supermarket now sits on this site.
\r\nA former customer told inReading: \"They used to give you coupons of various values making up the total of what you bought.
\r\n\"Once a year members obtained envelopes in which to put their coupons for redemption.
\r\n\"They had to be sorted into similar values to make up a total for each envelope. They were then deposited at the banking dept where they were analysed and a proportion of the value (The \"Divi\") would be credited to members' savings accounts.
\r\n\"What a job - no computers in those days!\"
\r\n\r\n
AH Bull - Too Small To Survive
\r\nA.H. Bull was another prominent, historic department store located on Broad Street and was part of the Selfridges Provincial Group Stores. It was smaller than some of the other department stores it competed with and was also acquired by the John Lewis Partnership in 1940. It was considered a friendly, welcoming store. In October 1942, The Gazette reported on a welcome wartime distraction for the Partners of AH Bull who threw a dance for American forces in the area, recreating their “national dish” of apple pie for them to remind them of home.
\r\n
The store was ultimately closed and merged with rival Reading retailer Heelas, which stood nearly opposite it on Broad St, in May 1953 when John Lewis bought the larger store. The original site later sold and became a Littlewoods branch.
\r\n
The closing party at AH Bull
\r\n\r\n
The Post-War Boom and the Modernisation of Broad Street
\r\nThe period following the Second World War brought significant changes to Reading’s retail infrastructure. The town underwent extensive urban planning initiatives, leading to the pedestrianisation of Broad Street and the modernisation of store fronts. The department stores of Reading found themselves at the centre of this transformation. This era saw the introduction of more efficient sales floors, the modernisation of lighting, and the integration of new technologies like telephone orders and delivery fleets. As Reading grew, the competition increased with the rise of out-of-town retail parks and large-scale shopping centres. However, throughout the 1960s and 70s, the department stores remained the anchors of the town centre, drawing thousands of shoppers from miles around. This was the golden age of the Reading high street, where the department stores acted as the town’s social pulse. They hosted events, held seasonal sales that brought the town to a standstill, and provided employment for a large percentage of the local workforce. This era also highlights the shifting demographics of the town, as the stores adapted to cater to a more diverse and youthful consumer base, moving away from the Victorian-era exclusivity of the early shops.
\r\n[Section 6: Challenges and the Shift in Consumption Habits]
\r\nBy the late 1980s and 1990s, the landscape began to change rapidly. The proliferation of supermarkets, the advent of large-scale, out-of-town retail parks like those in Calcot, and the eventual rise of e-commerce placed immense pressure on the traditional department store model. The high overheads associated with maintaining multi-storey, historic buildings became a liability rather than an asset. Consumers were demanding more convenience, faster turnaround, and lower prices, and the traditional model—with its multiple layers of staff and decentralised purchasing—began to feel outdated. Several stores attempted to adapt by streamlining operations, introducing new brands, and revamping their interiors, but the sheer scale of the shift was difficult to overcome. This period was characterised by a consolidation of ownership, where smaller stores were absorbed or replaced by larger national chains. It was a time of mourning for many locals who watched as the grand facades were repurposed or demolished. The retail culture in Reading was no longer defined by the singular 'destination' store, but by a more fragmented and rapid retail environment, signalling a fundamental change in the relationship between the town and its commerce.
\r\nThe Evolution Of The High Street
\r\nToday, the legacy of Reading's department stores persists, not necessarily in their original forms, but in the way the town continues to perceive its urban centre. While the buildings themselves have in many cases been transformed into residential units, offices, or mixed-use retail spaces, the footprint of these stores dictates the flow of traffic and pedestrian movement throughout the town. The 'Heelas' name, though transitioned into the John Lewis brand, remains a point of pride, and the site of the former Jackson’s corner still retains its status as a historical focal point for locals. The story of these stores is ultimately one of adaptation. While the physical storefronts have diminished, the spirit of service and the culture of the 'local destination' store have influenced current retail trends, which emphasise experiential shopping over mere transactional utility. Modern Reading has moved toward specialised, boutique-style retail, yet the nostalgia for the great department stores remains a core component of the town’s civic identity. Their history is not just about sales figures and square footage; it is a history of the community that gathered within their walls and the town that grew up around them.
\r\nThe Retail Architecture
\r\nBeyond the economic data, the architecture of Reading’s department stores offers a fascinating case study in urban evolution. These buildings were designed to be cathedrals of consumption - monuments to the town's prosperity. The use of elaborate masonry, large glass windows, and grand staircases was designed to inspire awe and signify longevity.
\r\nAs we look back at the architectural history, it is clear that these structures were built with an assumption of permanence that the modern retail market has largely discarded. Many of these buildings, after their original use ceased, proved surprisingly versatile. Their deep floor plans and solid construction allowed them to be repurposed into apartments and offices, demonstrating the inherent value of the urban density they once anchored.
\r\nThe architectural history of these stores is a narrative of Reading’s ability to evolve and reinvent itself and there is little doubt that the loss of the 'department store' as an institution has left physical scars on the town, yet those scars are covered by the repurposing and redevelopment that defines the current cityscape.
\r\nThe Community Role Of The Department Store
\r\nIt is important to acknowledge the role these stores played in fostering social cohesion for many decades.
\r\nIn an age before digital connectivity, the department store was where the town met. It was where people from different neighbourhoods crossed paths, where staff spent careers spanning decades, and where the community celebrated holidays.
\r\nThe department store was a source of identity. When a resident said they were 'going into town,' they were almost invariably referring to visiting one of the major stores. These spaces acted as the town’s living room.
\r\nThe staff-customer relationship was personal, with shopkeepers often knowing generations of the same families. This created a sense of belonging that is harder to replicate in today’s transactional, digital landscape.
\r\nThe history of the department stores is, at its heart, a history of human connection. The memories held by the residents of Reading regarding these stores are filled with accounts of meeting friends for coffee, finding that one obscure item for a project, that one item of clothing for an important event or simply enjoying the refuge from the weather that the sprawling stores provided.
\r\nThis social history is as significant as the economic history, reminding us that commerce was a human endeavour. We live in changed times since the arrival of the internet and then the pandemic lockdowns.
\r\nThe history of the department stores of Reading is a testament to the town's evolution from a Victorian mercantile centre to a vibrant modern regional hub.
\r\nAnd now one remains.
", "description": "From the ornate facades of Heelas to the social hubs of Jackson\u2019s, discover how Reading's iconic department stores shaped the town\u2019s identity for over a century.", "dateModified": "2026-06-30T11:22:31.649783+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-07-01T11:02:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/cathedrals-of-commerce/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "527", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/progress-theatre-transforms-hamlet-into-steampunk-tragedy-at-reading-abbey-ruins/", "title": "Progress Theatre Transforms Hamlet into Steampunk Tragedy at Reading Abbey Ruins", "content_html": "Director John Goodman explains how a pared-down cast is giving Shakespeare's famous play a timeless feel when it comes to the Reading Abbey Ruins
\r\nIf walls could talk, what story would they tell? Well, Reading Abbey’s ancient stones will soon be speaking loudly: they form the backdrop for a unique theatrical experience as Prospect Theatre prepares to stage one of the Bard’s most renowned works, Hamlet.
\r\nAfter a gap year, the amateur theatre based in Christchurch Green is once again turning the historic site into an outdoor auditorium for the annual Open Air Shakespeare. Come rain or shine, the play will be going on.
\r\n![\"thumbnail](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/a5974014.webp\")
The Tragedy of Hamlet is the longest play to come from the quill of William Shakespeare and tells the story of a Prince who wants revenge against his Uncle Claudius, who murdered Hamlet’s father to seize the throne of Denmark … and marry Hamlet’s mother.
\r\nThe five-act drama is set in Denmark and includes everything from ghostly goings-on to fights and insights into the human condition. With a run-time of four hours and a large cast, it is no wonder that previous Progress Theatre teams have shied away from adapting the play. After all, no one wants to be leaving the Abbey after midnight with numb bums and in a torchlit procession.
\r\n![\"hamlet.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/442da325.webp\")
Instead, director John Goodman has made some sensitive nips and tucks, ensuring the action flows even though some subplots have been lost. The result is a play that runs for just under two-and-a-half hours. It should please Shakespeare purists and those looking to better understand the Bard’s work.
\r\n“Last time we did Hamlet in the theatre itself, I helped adapt it,” John says. “One of my regrets was that we hadn’t cut enough.” No such problems this time.
\r\nAmong the changes, John has brought together an ensemble cast of 13, with some minor roles doubled up, creating a tight and energetic dynamic.
\r\n“The players are also the soldiers and messengers and so on, while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are female parts,” director John Goodman explains. “There is a nice dynamic between the three actors who are playing the Players who are getting involved in sort of sending up the proceedings a bit.”
\r\nTo help the audience navigate the narrative's swift pacing, a familiar theatrical device has been repurposed.
\r\nJohn says: “We've made the grave digger into a narrator figure, so Chris Moran, a past director of Open Air Shakespeare, will introduce the play and appear at intervals to help the audience get to grips with the plot.”
\r\nAnd another change casts Hamlet as a younger man: the opposite of a recent production starring Sir Ian McKellen as the Danish prince.
\r\nDylan Collie, 22, plays the title role of a university student struggling to cope with his emotions, with Amy Taulbut playing Ophelia.
\r\n![\"thumbnail](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/f4da12de.webp\")
John says: “Most productions cast an actor around the age of 40 to play Hamlet, but he is supposed to be a university student. I asked Dylan to play it slightly younger than that. He’s the right age to be a student and, in doing that, it unlocks a whole point of view: He is conflicted because he’s not a mature adult; he’s a young person who doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings.
\r\n“When you make Hamlet younger, then you can make Ophelia younger, and you can make his parents a bit younger as well.”
\r\nThis will affect how the action unfolds in court.
\r\nLighter touches along the dark path
\r\nHamlet follows a famously dark path, but John says the Progress Theatre production deliberately highlights the lighter, sharper moments embedded in the script. In doing so, it helps make the final act resonate even more.
\r\n“We've tried to bring up as many of the comic elements that are there as possible,” John notes. “I don't think it should be a surprise to people to hear that it ends sadly, but there will be things to laugh at along the way.
\r\n“I think the tragedy hits harder when you have established a liking for the characters.”
\r\nOther changes will also wow. Years ago, John turned The Taming of the Shrew into a Western, but here they have gone in a different direction: steampunk. In doing so, the visual identity moves away from traditional period attire, opting instead for a distinct aesthetic designed by production manager Mandy Dodd and the wardrobe team. The set features cogs, wheels, and a large physical clock onstage. When coupled with the backdrop of the ruins, it represents a kingdom in decline.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260627_130523777.MP.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/aa84726c.webp\")
“Because our adaptation has many modern resonances, there was a temptation to set it in modern dress. That seems jarring when you get the historic setting, so I sat down with the costume people and said I would like a setting that places it outside of real time.”
\r\nThe results will look striking when audiences see them.
\r\nJohn adds: “I think there will probably be some purists who won't like it, but when you look, I'm a frequent attender at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and when you look at the settings and the twist that they put on Shakespeare, you realise that you know in here in the 21st century we don't do things, the old John Gielgud men in tights, and Elizabethan ruffs.”
\r\nAt the same time, he knows that, because the Open Air experience is a firm Reading tradition, audiences will expect the unexpected.
\r\n“We recognise that the typical audiences that we get for our Abbey Ruins productions are sort of split,” he explains. “You get some out-and-out Shakespeare fans who jump at any opportunity to see some Shakespeare, and then you get people who are coming because of the event: it's outdoors, it's in an interesting location, and they can bring a picnic. So we get people who come every year, regardless of what we put on.”
\r\nWhile the cast might be relatively small, a lot of work goes into raising the curtain for the 10-day production. John says there will be more than 100 volunteer sessions in order to handle all the logistics. The backstage team has also been heavily supported by volunteers from the former Woodley Theatre, who brought their expertise to the project after their own group wound up.
\r\n“It’s a big project. We are building a theatre where there is no theatre. We bring in seating and all the infrastructure you need: toilets, a bar, changing rooms, and a box office,” John says. “We have something like more than 100 volunteer sessions during the run just for the front of house.”
\r\nAdd in ensuring adequate and secure storage for the wardrobe and props and getting all the right pieces in place at the right time, and you can see why John says the project is a large one.
\r\n“I hope we’ve got quite good at it though,” he adds.
\r\nFor now, the team are looking forward to welcoming audiences for their fresh take on Hamlet.
\r\n“If you don’t know Shakespeare and are a bit nervous about it, we think this is a great introduction. You will hear all the big speeches, but we’ve tried to make it as easy and as entertaining as possible to follow. If you do know Shakespeare and are familiar with Hamlet, we’ve got a different slant on it, and you’ll get a chance to see something new.”
\r\nA steampunk Hamlet: it should go like clockwork.
\r\n\r\n
When is Hamlet coming to Reading, and how can I get tickets?
\r\nHamlet runs from Wednesday, 15 July, through to Saturday, 25 July in the Reading Abbey Ruins. Entrance is from Chestnut Walk, also known as the Oscar Wilde Memorial Walk, and accessed from Forbury Road.
\r\nEvening performances start at 7.30pm, with gates open from 6.45pm. The Saturday matinees start at 2.30pm and the venue is open from 1.45pm.
\r\nThe production has an expected total running time of 2 hours 35 minutes, which includes a 20-minute interval. In the case of rain, a shortened version may be presented and refunds are not available. Audiences are welcome to bring a picnic to the venue to enjoy before the performance, but alcohol is not allowed as there is a bar on site.
\r\nAudiences are advised to bring warm clothing as the temperature drops, and waterproofs if there is a chance of rain. No umbrellas are allowed, apart from in the back row.
\r\nTickets are priced between £23.72 and £37.73 for adults, and between £20.48 and £34.50 for concessions, including all booking fees.
\r\nTickets can be booked from Ticketsource: https://www.ticketsource.com/readingopenair/hamlet/e-grrvaz
\r\nFor more on the show, log on to: https://whatsonreading.com/venues/progress-theatre/whats-on/hamlet-reading-abbey-ruins
", "content_text": "Director John Goodman explains how a pared-down cast is giving Shakespeare's famous play a timeless feel when it comes to the Reading Abbey Ruins\r\nIf walls could talk, what story would they tell? Well, Reading Abbey’s ancient stones will soon be speaking loudly: they form the backdrop for a unique theatrical experience as Prospect Theatre prepares to stage one of the Bard’s most renowned works, Hamlet.\r\nAfter a gap year, the amateur theatre based in Christchurch Green is once again turning the historic site into an outdoor auditorium for the annual Open Air Shakespeare. Come rain or shine, the play will be going on. \r\n\r\nThe Tragedy of Hamlet is the longest play to come from the quill of William Shakespeare and tells the story of a Prince who wants revenge against his Uncle Claudius, who murdered Hamlet’s father to seize the throne of Denmark … and marry Hamlet’s mother.\r\nThe five-act drama is set in Denmark and includes everything from ghostly goings-on to fights and insights into the human condition. With a run-time of four hours and a large cast, it is no wonder that previous Progress Theatre teams have shied away from adapting the play. After all, no one wants to be leaving the Abbey after midnight with numb bums and in a torchlit procession. \r\n\r\nInstead, director John Goodman has made some sensitive nips and tucks, ensuring the action flows even though some subplots have been lost. The result is a play that runs for just under two-and-a-half hours. It should please Shakespeare purists and those looking to better understand the Bard’s work. \r\n“Last time we did Hamlet in the theatre itself, I helped adapt it,” John says. “One of my regrets was that we hadn’t cut enough.” No such problems this time.\r\nAmong the changes, John has brought together an ensemble cast of 13, with some minor roles doubled up, creating a tight and energetic dynamic.\r\n“The players are also the soldiers and messengers and so on, while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are female parts,” director John Goodman explains. “There is a nice dynamic between the three actors who are playing the Players who are getting involved in sort of sending up the proceedings a bit.”\r\nTo help the audience navigate the narrative's swift pacing, a familiar theatrical device has been repurposed.\r\nJohn says: “We've made the grave digger into a narrator figure, so Chris Moran, a past director of Open Air Shakespeare, will introduce the play and appear at intervals to help the audience get to grips with the plot.”\r\nAnd another change casts Hamlet as a younger man: the opposite of a recent production starring Sir Ian McKellen as the Danish prince. \r\nDylan Collie, 22, plays the title role of a university student struggling to cope with his emotions, with Amy Taulbut playing Ophelia.\r\n\r\nJohn says: “Most productions cast an actor around the age of 40 to play Hamlet, but he is supposed to be a university student. I asked Dylan to play it slightly younger than that. He’s the right age to be a student and, in doing that, it unlocks a whole point of view: He is conflicted because he’s not a mature adult; he’s a young person who doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings.\r\n“When you make Hamlet younger, then you can make Ophelia younger, and you can make his parents a bit younger as well.”\r\nThis will affect how the action unfolds in court. \r\nLighter touches along the dark path\r\nHamlet follows a famously dark path, but John says the Progress Theatre production deliberately highlights the lighter, sharper moments embedded in the script. In doing so, it helps make the final act resonate even more.\r\n“We've tried to bring up as many of the comic elements that are there as possible,” John notes. “I don't think it should be a surprise to people to hear that it ends sadly, but there will be things to laugh at along the way. \r\n“I think the tragedy hits harder when you have established a liking for the characters.”\r\nOther changes will also wow. Years ago, John turned The Taming of the Shrew into a Western, but here they have gone in a different direction: steampunk. In doing so, the visual identity moves away from traditional period attire, opting instead for a distinct aesthetic designed by production manager Mandy Dodd and the wardrobe team. The set features cogs, wheels, and a large physical clock onstage. When coupled with the backdrop of the ruins, it represents a kingdom in decline.\r\n\r\n“Because our adaptation has many modern resonances, there was a temptation to set it in modern dress. That seems jarring when you get the historic setting, so I sat down with the costume people and said I would like a setting that places it outside of real time.”\r\nThe results will look striking when audiences see them. \r\nJohn adds: “I think there will probably be some purists who won't like it, but when you look, I'm a frequent attender at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and when you look at the settings and the twist that they put on Shakespeare, you realise that you know in here in the 21st century we don't do things, the old John Gielgud men in tights, and Elizabethan ruffs.”\r\nAt the same time, he knows that, because the Open Air experience is a firm Reading tradition, audiences will expect the unexpected. \r\n“We recognise that the typical audiences that we get for our Abbey Ruins productions are sort of split,” he explains. “You get some out-and-out Shakespeare fans who jump at any opportunity to see some Shakespeare, and then you get people who are coming because of the event: it's outdoors, it's in an interesting location, and they can bring a picnic. So we get people who come every year, regardless of what we put on.”\r\nWhile the cast might be relatively small, a lot of work goes into raising the curtain for the 10-day production. John says there will be more than 100 volunteer sessions in order to handle all the logistics. The backstage team has also been heavily supported by volunteers from the former Woodley Theatre, who brought their expertise to the project after their own group wound up.\r\n“It’s a big project. We are building a theatre where there is no theatre. We bring in seating and all the infrastructure you need: toilets, a bar, changing rooms, and a box office,” John says. “We have something like more than 100 volunteer sessions during the run just for the front of house.”\r\nAdd in ensuring adequate and secure storage for the wardrobe and props and getting all the right pieces in place at the right time, and you can see why John says the project is a large one. \r\n“I hope we’ve got quite good at it though,” he adds. \r\nFor now, the team are looking forward to welcoming audiences for their fresh take on Hamlet. \r\n“If you don’t know Shakespeare and are a bit nervous about it, we think this is a great introduction. You will hear all the big speeches, but we’ve tried to make it as easy and as entertaining as possible to follow. If you do know Shakespeare and are familiar with Hamlet, we’ve got a different slant on it, and you’ll get a chance to see something new.” \r\nA steampunk Hamlet: it should go like clockwork. \r\n \r\nWhen is Hamlet coming to Reading, and how can I get tickets?\r\nHamlet runs from Wednesday, 15 July, through to Saturday, 25 July in the Reading Abbey Ruins. Entrance is from Chestnut Walk, also known as the Oscar Wilde Memorial Walk, and accessed from Forbury Road.\r\nEvening performances start at 7.30pm, with gates open from 6.45pm. The Saturday matinees start at 2.30pm and the venue is open from 1.45pm. \r\nThe production has an expected total running time of 2 hours 35 minutes, which includes a 20-minute interval. In the case of rain, a shortened version may be presented and refunds are not available. Audiences are welcome to bring a picnic to the venue to enjoy before the performance, but alcohol is not allowed as there is a bar on site.\r\nAudiences are advised to bring warm clothing as the temperature drops, and waterproofs if there is a chance of rain. No umbrellas are allowed, apart from in the back row.\r\nTickets are priced between £23.72 and £37.73 for adults, and between £20.48 and £34.50 for concessions, including all booking fees.\r\nTickets can be booked from Ticketsource: https://www.ticketsource.com/readingopenair/hamlet/e-grrvaz\r\nFor more on the show, log on to: https://whatsonreading.com/venues/progress-theatre/whats-on/hamlet-reading-abbey-ruins", "summary": "Experience Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet like never before as Progress Theatre brings a fast-paced, steampunk-inspired adaptation to the historic Reading Abbey Ruins.", "date_published": "2026-07-01T11:02:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-05T22:21:26.964044+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/2d28e203.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/2d28e203.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Progress Theatre Transforms Hamlet into Steampunk Tragedy at Reading Abbey Ruins", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1615, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "Director John Goodman explains how a pared-down cast is giving Shakespeare's famous play a timeless feel when it comes to the Reading Abbey Ruins
\r\nIf walls could talk, what story would they tell? Well, Reading Abbey’s ancient stones will soon be speaking loudly: they form the backdrop for a unique theatrical experience as Prospect Theatre prepares to stage one of the Bard’s most renowned works, Hamlet.
\r\nAfter a gap year, the amateur theatre based in Christchurch Green is once again turning the historic site into an outdoor auditorium for the annual Open Air Shakespeare. Come rain or shine, the play will be going on.
\r\n
The Tragedy of Hamlet is the longest play to come from the quill of William Shakespeare and tells the story of a Prince who wants revenge against his Uncle Claudius, who murdered Hamlet’s father to seize the throne of Denmark … and marry Hamlet’s mother.
\r\nThe five-act drama is set in Denmark and includes everything from ghostly goings-on to fights and insights into the human condition. With a run-time of four hours and a large cast, it is no wonder that previous Progress Theatre teams have shied away from adapting the play. After all, no one wants to be leaving the Abbey after midnight with numb bums and in a torchlit procession.
\r\n
Instead, director John Goodman has made some sensitive nips and tucks, ensuring the action flows even though some subplots have been lost. The result is a play that runs for just under two-and-a-half hours. It should please Shakespeare purists and those looking to better understand the Bard’s work.
\r\n“Last time we did Hamlet in the theatre itself, I helped adapt it,” John says. “One of my regrets was that we hadn’t cut enough.” No such problems this time.
\r\nAmong the changes, John has brought together an ensemble cast of 13, with some minor roles doubled up, creating a tight and energetic dynamic.
\r\n“The players are also the soldiers and messengers and so on, while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are female parts,” director John Goodman explains. “There is a nice dynamic between the three actors who are playing the Players who are getting involved in sort of sending up the proceedings a bit.”
\r\nTo help the audience navigate the narrative's swift pacing, a familiar theatrical device has been repurposed.
\r\nJohn says: “We've made the grave digger into a narrator figure, so Chris Moran, a past director of Open Air Shakespeare, will introduce the play and appear at intervals to help the audience get to grips with the plot.”
\r\nAnd another change casts Hamlet as a younger man: the opposite of a recent production starring Sir Ian McKellen as the Danish prince.
\r\nDylan Collie, 22, plays the title role of a university student struggling to cope with his emotions, with Amy Taulbut playing Ophelia.
\r\n
John says: “Most productions cast an actor around the age of 40 to play Hamlet, but he is supposed to be a university student. I asked Dylan to play it slightly younger than that. He’s the right age to be a student and, in doing that, it unlocks a whole point of view: He is conflicted because he’s not a mature adult; he’s a young person who doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings.
\r\n“When you make Hamlet younger, then you can make Ophelia younger, and you can make his parents a bit younger as well.”
\r\nThis will affect how the action unfolds in court.
\r\nLighter touches along the dark path
\r\nHamlet follows a famously dark path, but John says the Progress Theatre production deliberately highlights the lighter, sharper moments embedded in the script. In doing so, it helps make the final act resonate even more.
\r\n“We've tried to bring up as many of the comic elements that are there as possible,” John notes. “I don't think it should be a surprise to people to hear that it ends sadly, but there will be things to laugh at along the way.
\r\n“I think the tragedy hits harder when you have established a liking for the characters.”
\r\nOther changes will also wow. Years ago, John turned The Taming of the Shrew into a Western, but here they have gone in a different direction: steampunk. In doing so, the visual identity moves away from traditional period attire, opting instead for a distinct aesthetic designed by production manager Mandy Dodd and the wardrobe team. The set features cogs, wheels, and a large physical clock onstage. When coupled with the backdrop of the ruins, it represents a kingdom in decline.
\r\n
“Because our adaptation has many modern resonances, there was a temptation to set it in modern dress. That seems jarring when you get the historic setting, so I sat down with the costume people and said I would like a setting that places it outside of real time.”
\r\nThe results will look striking when audiences see them.
\r\nJohn adds: “I think there will probably be some purists who won't like it, but when you look, I'm a frequent attender at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and when you look at the settings and the twist that they put on Shakespeare, you realise that you know in here in the 21st century we don't do things, the old John Gielgud men in tights, and Elizabethan ruffs.”
\r\nAt the same time, he knows that, because the Open Air experience is a firm Reading tradition, audiences will expect the unexpected.
\r\n“We recognise that the typical audiences that we get for our Abbey Ruins productions are sort of split,” he explains. “You get some out-and-out Shakespeare fans who jump at any opportunity to see some Shakespeare, and then you get people who are coming because of the event: it's outdoors, it's in an interesting location, and they can bring a picnic. So we get people who come every year, regardless of what we put on.”
\r\nWhile the cast might be relatively small, a lot of work goes into raising the curtain for the 10-day production. John says there will be more than 100 volunteer sessions in order to handle all the logistics. The backstage team has also been heavily supported by volunteers from the former Woodley Theatre, who brought their expertise to the project after their own group wound up.
\r\n“It’s a big project. We are building a theatre where there is no theatre. We bring in seating and all the infrastructure you need: toilets, a bar, changing rooms, and a box office,” John says. “We have something like more than 100 volunteer sessions during the run just for the front of house.”
\r\nAdd in ensuring adequate and secure storage for the wardrobe and props and getting all the right pieces in place at the right time, and you can see why John says the project is a large one.
\r\n“I hope we’ve got quite good at it though,” he adds.
\r\nFor now, the team are looking forward to welcoming audiences for their fresh take on Hamlet.
\r\n“If you don’t know Shakespeare and are a bit nervous about it, we think this is a great introduction. You will hear all the big speeches, but we’ve tried to make it as easy and as entertaining as possible to follow. If you do know Shakespeare and are familiar with Hamlet, we’ve got a different slant on it, and you’ll get a chance to see something new.”
\r\nA steampunk Hamlet: it should go like clockwork.
\r\n\r\n
When is Hamlet coming to Reading, and how can I get tickets?
\r\nHamlet runs from Wednesday, 15 July, through to Saturday, 25 July in the Reading Abbey Ruins. Entrance is from Chestnut Walk, also known as the Oscar Wilde Memorial Walk, and accessed from Forbury Road.
\r\nEvening performances start at 7.30pm, with gates open from 6.45pm. The Saturday matinees start at 2.30pm and the venue is open from 1.45pm.
\r\nThe production has an expected total running time of 2 hours 35 minutes, which includes a 20-minute interval. In the case of rain, a shortened version may be presented and refunds are not available. Audiences are welcome to bring a picnic to the venue to enjoy before the performance, but alcohol is not allowed as there is a bar on site.
\r\nAudiences are advised to bring warm clothing as the temperature drops, and waterproofs if there is a chance of rain. No umbrellas are allowed, apart from in the back row.
\r\nTickets are priced between £23.72 and £37.73 for adults, and between £20.48 and £34.50 for concessions, including all booking fees.
\r\nTickets can be booked from Ticketsource: https://www.ticketsource.com/readingopenair/hamlet/e-grrvaz
\r\nFor more on the show, log on to: https://whatsonreading.com/venues/progress-theatre/whats-on/hamlet-reading-abbey-ruins
", "description": "Experience Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet like never before as Progress Theatre brings a fast-paced, steampunk-inspired adaptation to the historic Reading Abbey Ruins.", "dateModified": "2026-07-05T22:21:26.964044+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-07-01T11:02:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/progress-theatre-transforms-hamlet-into-steampunk-tragedy-at-reading-abbey-ruins/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "530", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/will-andy-burnhams-potential-leadership-change-the-future-of-reading/", "title": "The King Of The North And Reading", "content_html": "In the grand, chaotic, and often farcical narrative of British politics over the last decade, we have witnessed a spectacle that would make George R.R. Martin weep with envy. We have cycled through seven Prime Ministers in a timeframe that feels more like a binge-watch of a high-stakes fantasy drama than a stable democratic timeline. Yes, we're living in the Game Of Thrones era.
\r\nThe revolving door of 10 Downing Street has seen characters come and go with the speed of a fleeting Westerosi summer. Yet, as the dust settles and the current political landscape shifts, a new figure is emerging from the misty, post-industrial north, heralded by many as the inevitable successor to the crown: Andy Burnham. Known to his legion of supporters and political onlookers as the King in the North, the Mayor of Greater Manchester seems poised to trade his metropolitan domain for the ultimate seat of power. For those of us living in the leafy, tech-centric, and traffic-clogged corridors of Reading, the potential ascent of Burnham is not merely a headline in a national broadsheet; it is a signal of a fundamental shift in the winds of governance that could reconfigure the very nature of our local life here in Reading.
\r\nOur town has long held a unique position as a commuter heartbeat, a town caught between its historic market origins and its more modern status as the Silicon Valley of the United Kingdom. We are a microcosm of the national struggle - caught between the demands of infrastructure, the desperation for affordable housing, and an ongoing state of development-induced anxiety. If the man who revitalised Greater Manchester transport and championed the northern powerhouse rhetoric finds himself occupying the seat currently occupied by an ever-changing cast of predecessors, as seems increasingly likely, what becomes of our town? Will we find ourselves under the mandate of a new Thames Valley Mayor, or will we see our long-awaited infrastructure projects fall victim to a redirected national treasury focus? Let's peer into the crystal ball of the Burnham administration and consider the implications for our own local fiefdom based on his track record and recent statements.
\r\nA Devolved Thames Valley
\r\nAndy Burnham has spent the better part of his Manchester mayoral tenure as the loudest, most persistent advocate for devolution. He has consistently argued that the concentration of power in Westminster is a relic of a dying empire, ill-equipped to solve the regional disparities that plague the UK. He has long proposed that economic prosperity should be driven by empowered regional bodies rather than decisions made by pencil-pushers in Whitehall. For Reading, this is a pivotal point. Should Burnham assume the mantle of Prime Minister, we could be looking at the rapid acceleration of the 'Thames Valley Mayor' concept. Currently, Reading operates within the context of a borough council that often finds itself struggling to assert dominance against regional interests (think third river crossing) and central government budgetary constraints (think social care). A Thames Valley combined authority, under the ethos Burnham has championed, would likely represent a significant shift in how Reading manages its strategic future.
\r\nImagine a structure where Reading, along with its neighbours, given more direct control over regional planning, transport, and economic development. Burnham’s model in Manchester suggests a focus on integrated public transport that acts as the circulatory system of the region. For Reading, this could mean moving away from the fragmented chaos of bus services and local road-widening schemes toward a more holistic, possibly re-regulated transit network. If Burnham imports the 'Bee Network' philosophy to the Thames Valley, we might see the prioritisation of local connectivity that isn't just focused on getting people to Paddington, but on moving people across the town and the wider valley. However, the caveat remains: devolution requires funding, and the Treasury, under any leader, is a notoriously difficult beast to tame. Would a Burnham-led government allow us to keep more of our locally generated tax revenue, or would the regional Mayoralty become another layer of bureaucracy that we have to fund, adding to the local tax burden of every Reading resident?
\r\n![\"Thames-Valley.webp\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/06/e22a21d4.webp\")
And a fundamental question will be 'what is the Thames Valley?'. The current police area awkwardly covers Oxford, Newbury, Milton Keynes and much of Buckinghamshire - towns such as Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Amersham, but not Swindon. Based on what work has been done to date it is likely that the mayoralty would cover all of Berkshire and Oxfordshire and possibly extend to Swindon and/or Buckinghamshire.
\r\nInfrastructure & The Thames Issue
\r\nOne of the most persistent thorns in the side of any Reading resident is the state of our infrastructure. From the chronic congestion of the IDR to the desperate need for a third Thames bridge and the ludicrous cost of rail tickets, the question of transport is never far away. Burnham’s track record, while heavily focused on public transport, has often been a mix of successful advocacy for massive capital projects and the pragmatic reality of budget constraints. He is a man who loves a big, transformative project, but he also knows the political cost of failing to deliver. However, his rhetoric often focuses on 'levelling up,' which in his view usually means the North, so with his stated new power base in 'No10 North' you have to wonder if the Thames Valley will be cut out of any major investment such as a third river crossing or a direct rail connection to Heathrow?
\r\n![\"RailAir_coach_at_Reading_Station.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/ef938036.webp\")
There is also a real risk that Burnham’s brand of infrastructure investment is hyper-regional. He seems determined to remain focused on his Northern roots, rather than the South East, and specifically high-growth areas like the Thames Valley, which may be considered to be more self-sufficient. This could actually lead to a 'reduced infrastructure investment' scenario for our region, where Whitehall grants become scarce, forcing the proposed Thames Valley Mayor to hike local levies (whatever they may be) to pay for essential upgrades. Rates, parking, bins, permits, the few low value means for RBC to currently raise revenues may need to go sharply up, but with less money coming from the centre. However, the ability to raise additional local taxes may be on the cards via rates, tolls and even a Scottish style local income tax. One thing is certain, the tax burden will go up if you are a net contributor.
\r\nA Social Housing Revolution
\r\nIf there is one area where Andy Burnham has been consistently vocal, it is in the demand for more social housing and the regulation of the private rental sector. He has openly fought against the 'Right to Buy' policies that depleted social housing stock across the country and has pushed for local powers to intervene in the housing market. In a town like Reading, where the cost of living and the cost of renting have skyrocketed to levels that are pricing out the very people who power our town's services, a Burnham-led housing strategy would be a significant point of interest. Already RBC have benefited from changes in Westminster policy that allow them to build more social and affordable housing. Burnham advocates for a housing-first approach, and his potential national policy might include sweeping powers for local authorities to acquire land and develop housing stock that is genuinely affordable, rather than the luxury flats that currently dominate our skyline. Since land availability is a massive issue in Reading, this may be welcome.
\r\n![\"affordablehousing.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/cf037307.webp\")
Instead of approving endless high-rise developments that serve as investment vehicles for offshore entities or corporate landlords, we might see a push towards social housing developments that integrate with the town's existing fabric. Burnham, being a pragmatist, knows that you cannot build a legacy without building bricks and mortar. If he arrives in Number 10 with a mandate to fix the housing crisis, Reading might even become an ideal test site for his aggressive housing construction policies. Major developers are already reviewing the economic viability of major new developments in the town - several such as the Post Office distribution site and The Oracle are under review by their owners even after obtaining planning permission. The hope is that this will actually lead to affordable homes for Reading nurses, teachers, and service staff, but the downside may simply more red tape and stalled developments and even higher rental costs with the scarcity of commercial development pushing up values and prices. It's going to be a delicate balancing act.
\r\nThe Local Tech Economy
\r\nReading’s identity is intrinsically linked to its status as a tech hub. Better co-ordination with the research excellence at Oxford and the burgeoning data centre metropolis in Slough could bring significant benefits, especially if you add in proximity to Heathrow and London. Reading has seen an exodus of tech companies recently, with major former employers like Microsoft down to one building on their former campus in Thames Valley park. But Reading is still home to some of the world's largest multinational corporations, with PepsiCo recently announcing that they will be moving their European HQ to Station Hill, our local economy is heavily dependent on the high-skill, high-wage sector. These companies value a flexible labour force and low cost energy, whereas Andy Burnham’s political DNA is firmly rooted in labour movements and traditional industrial heartlands. There is already a palpable tension between the 'Silicon Valley' model of the South and the 'Regional Industry' model of the North. If Burnham ascends, how does his government view the tech-heavy economy of Reading? Will we be seen as an area that needs more redistribution, or will he seek to harness our tech output to drive national innovation? His past comments suggest an appreciation for the 'Foundry' model—creating regional clusters of industry. Perhaps he will look to Reading not as a competitor, but as a model for how the rest of the country’s regional hubs should look, or perhaps not.
\r\n![\"Oracle_at_Thames_Valley_Park.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/793caec6.webp\")
The fear remains that his government might implement tax or regulatory shifts that are designed to benefit the wider UK manufacturing base at the expense of our service-led economy. If the King in the North brings with him a fiscal policy that prioritises re-industrialisation, the service and tech sectors in the South might find themselves facing a more hostile tax environment. The jovial, if slightly grim, prospect is that the 'Thames Valley Tech Cluster' could become the golden goose that a Labour government might look to for funding its massive public sector expansions. It’s a classic story of the regional lord looking at the wealthy merchant town and deciding that its coffers should be a little more 'shared.' Whether this benefits Reading in the long run or stifles our growth is the billion-pound question that should keep us awake at night.
\r\nHealth & Social Care
\r\nBurnham’s tenure as Mayor of Manchester was defined by his crusade for the integration of health and social care. He has been a fierce advocate for bringing power down to a level where it can actually make a difference to people's lives. In Reading, where our health services often feel stretched to the breaking point by the demands of a growing population and a housing market that puts pressure on local amenities, a Burnham administration could offer a paradigm shift. If he maintains this commitment, we could see a push for further integration between our local NHS trusts and the social care services managed by the council. Perhaps the rebuilding or redevelopment of the Royal Berkshire Hospital promised and then withdrawn by Boris Johnson and his successors will be back on the cards. RBC already spends three quarters of its budget on social care. There are few clues on how this may be alleviated.
\r\nTaxation
\r\nWhich brings us to the issue that will inevitably impact all net contributors in our area - taxation. Britain has the highest taxes ever (apart from a brief period after the Second World War) and this is stifling our economy, innovation and investment. Yet Burnham has clearly stated that he will need to put taxes up. Your children are likely to pay higher inheritance taxes and income tax for those in higher wage brackets will go up. A review of all rating bands could be very expensive for householders in our area. There is little doubt that those with disposable income will have less under a Burnham government and that is likely to have a knock on effect on local businesses, restaurants, pubs and many other services already badly hit by large tax hikes directly and to their customers.
\r\nEducation
\r\nAnother pillar of the Burnham philosophy is the focus on education and skills development to suit local economies. He has spoken often about the 'digital divide' and the need to bridge it with local training schemes. Reading, with its wealth of high-tech firms, has a persistent skills gap; we import talent from all over the world because we struggle to train enough people locally. If a Burnham government decides to double down on regional skills development, Reading could benefit from a significant investment in our local college and university partnerships. Imagine a scenario where central government funds are specifically earmarked for tech-training centres in the Thames Valley, designed to funnel local youth directly into our high-growth job market. This would be a game-changer for social mobility in our town. It represents a shift from the 'university-only' pipeline to a more vocational, industry-integrated approach. reading is calling out for qualified, capable tradespeople. If Burnham can deliver on this, it could secure Reading’s status as a premier tech destination for decades to come, moving us beyond the current reliance on attracting talent from elsewhere. However, there is the irony that the University of Reading does not have a computing department and that the provision of training, apprenticeships and vocational is difficult. In Reading we offered vocational training to Reading College and we were told where to go. This is not an easy problem to solve.
\r\nClimate Change
\r\nClimate change is the backdrop to every political discussion now, and Burnham has been vocal about his 'Net Zero' commitments. He pushed for a green revolution in Manchester, focusing on everything from electric buses to building insulation schemes. Reading has its own ambitious climate goals, but achieving them requires more than just local ambition; it requires massive structural change and central government backing. A Burnham premiership could be the catalyst that unlocks funding for large-scale energy retrofitting of our older housing stock, turning our draughty, Victorian-era terraces into energy-efficient homes, perhaps all funded by a central 'green energy' grant managed by a regional mayor. However, the reality is that what most local people and businesses want to see is cheaper energy prices. It will be interesting to see where he goes with this.
\r\nBusinesses
\r\nFinally, we must consider the business community. Reading’s business leaders have been remarkably resilient, but they are also a cautious bunch. A transition to a Burnham-led Labour government would create a period of intense uncertainty. Will his policies on employment law, corporate taxation, and business regulation stifle the very companies that have made Reading the success story it is? It is probable that we would see a shift towards a more 'co-operative' model of business, where corporations are expected to engage more deeply with the local community. This could be a positive for Reading, creating stronger links between our big tech players and our local schools and community projects. However, it also creates an environment of increased scrutiny. The 'King in the North' is not known for his patience with big business if he feels they aren't playing their part in the wider social fabric. It could be a period of significant tension, but also one of potentially deeper community integration.
\r\nThe Wall
\r\nThere is a danger that a 'King in the North' might be seen as a polarising figure from elsewhere. His positioning may be galling to a Southerner. Whilst his supporters see a man of the people, critics might paint him as someone who doesn't understand the specific pressures of the South. If the tone of his government is perceived as inherently hostile to the 'affluent South,' Reading could find itself in an awkward political position. Our town is already turning Green and Reform UK, as Wokingham has become a LibDem orange. Our region is already looking beyond Labour. We already have a Labour controlled council in town who might find it difficult to lobby for funding if the narrative from the top is 'redistribution to the North.' It would require a very skilled bit of local diplomacy to ensure that Reading is viewed as a partner in national growth rather than a competitor for limited resources. Reading will have to become much better at articulating its value to the national economy, lest we find ourselves on the outside looking in. One aspect that might help with this is that local Earley and Woodley MP Yuan Yang is close to Andy Burnham and, despite her slender majority and recent introduction as an MP, may become a minister in his government. She is a prominent leader of the Tribune group of MPs and is already a key policy contributor to Burnham’s campaign
\r\nThe Red Wedding ?
\r\nWe cannot discuss a potential Burnham premiership without addressing the elephant - or perhaps the dragon - in the room: the sheer volatility of British politics. We have had seven Prime Ministers in a decade. We have watched leaders rise and fall with the regularity of the seasons and incompetence, frustration and apathy have become rife. In an era of phenomenal change, the UK is clearly totally dependent on the US and its capricious orange leader for all major technologies. If Andy Burnham is to become the next monarch of the British political sphere, he is stepping into a landscape that is deeply cynical, exhausted by chaos, and desperately looking for a steady hand. Burnham rather proudly actually seems to see himself as the 'King in the North,' but the premiership of the UK is a different beast entirely. It requires juggling global geopolitics, a fractious parliament, and a public that is increasingly difficult to govern. When he takes over, can he remain in control when there are other issues such as immigration and potholes to sort out?
\r\nA Mancunian In The Thames Valley
\r\nThere is a cultural element to the 'Burnham factor.' The man has a distinct style—a blend of Northern straight-talking and a slightly melancholic, oratorical grace. He doesn't shy away from confrontation with the centre, a trait that served him well in Manchester. If he becomes PM, he will likely bring a certain amount of this 'outsider's perspective' into the heart of Westminster. How does this translate to a place like Reading? We are a town that prides itself on being a cosmopolitan, diverse, and economically vibrant centre. We aren't Manchester - we don't have the same industrial history, but many Dings have a shared sense of frustration with the current state of British politics as the recent local government elections showed.
\r\nIf the King in the North brings his brand of politics to the national stage, we might see a shift in the tone of the national debate towards regionalism. For Reading, this could mean an opportunity to redefine our relationship with the capital. Instead of being seen as an extension of London’s housing market, we might be encouraged to lean into our identity as a regional leader in our own right. This could spark a new wave of local cultural confidence. It’s an interesting prospect: a town that has historically looked towards the capital for its sense of purpose might find itself looking towards a government that is finally willing to empower the regions. Of course, the risk is that the culture clash between the 'Northern' political style and the 'Southern' economic reality results in a disconnect that leaves everyone unhappy. As they would say in Manchester: 'there's never a dull moment'....
\r\n", "content_text": "In the grand, chaotic, and often farcical narrative of British politics over the last decade, we have witnessed a spectacle that would make George R.R. Martin weep with envy. We have cycled through seven Prime Ministers in a timeframe that feels more like a binge-watch of a high-stakes fantasy drama than a stable democratic timeline. Yes, we're living in the Game Of Thrones era.\r\n The revolving door of 10 Downing Street has seen characters come and go with the speed of a fleeting Westerosi summer. Yet, as the dust settles and the current political landscape shifts, a new figure is emerging from the misty, post-industrial north, heralded by many as the inevitable successor to the crown: Andy Burnham. Known to his legion of supporters and political onlookers as the King in the North, the Mayor of Greater Manchester seems poised to trade his metropolitan domain for the ultimate seat of power. For those of us living in the leafy, tech-centric, and traffic-clogged corridors of Reading, the potential ascent of Burnham is not merely a headline in a national broadsheet; it is a signal of a fundamental shift in the winds of governance that could reconfigure the very nature of our local life here in Reading.\r\nOur town has long held a unique position as a commuter heartbeat, a town caught between its historic market origins and its more modern status as the Silicon Valley of the United Kingdom. We are a microcosm of the national struggle - caught between the demands of infrastructure, the desperation for affordable housing, and an ongoing state of development-induced anxiety. If the man who revitalised Greater Manchester transport and championed the northern powerhouse rhetoric finds himself occupying the seat currently occupied by an ever-changing cast of predecessors, as seems increasingly likely, what becomes of our town? Will we find ourselves under the mandate of a new Thames Valley Mayor, or will we see our long-awaited infrastructure projects fall victim to a redirected national treasury focus? Let's peer into the crystal ball of the Burnham administration and consider the implications for our own local fiefdom based on his track record and recent statements.\r\nA Devolved Thames Valley \r\nAndy Burnham has spent the better part of his Manchester mayoral tenure as the loudest, most persistent advocate for devolution. He has consistently argued that the concentration of power in Westminster is a relic of a dying empire, ill-equipped to solve the regional disparities that plague the UK. He has long proposed that economic prosperity should be driven by empowered regional bodies rather than decisions made by pencil-pushers in Whitehall. For Reading, this is a pivotal point. Should Burnham assume the mantle of Prime Minister, we could be looking at the rapid acceleration of the 'Thames Valley Mayor' concept. Currently, Reading operates within the context of a borough council that often finds itself struggling to assert dominance against regional interests (think third river crossing) and central government budgetary constraints (think social care). A Thames Valley combined authority, under the ethos Burnham has championed, would likely represent a significant shift in how Reading manages its strategic future.\r\nImagine a structure where Reading, along with its neighbours, given more direct control over regional planning, transport, and economic development. Burnham’s model in Manchester suggests a focus on integrated public transport that acts as the circulatory system of the region. For Reading, this could mean moving away from the fragmented chaos of bus services and local road-widening schemes toward a more holistic, possibly re-regulated transit network. If Burnham imports the 'Bee Network' philosophy to the Thames Valley, we might see the prioritisation of local connectivity that isn't just focused on getting people to Paddington, but on moving people across the town and the wider valley. However, the caveat remains: devolution requires funding, and the Treasury, under any leader, is a notoriously difficult beast to tame. Would a Burnham-led government allow us to keep more of our locally generated tax revenue, or would the regional Mayoralty become another layer of bureaucracy that we have to fund, adding to the local tax burden of every Reading resident?\r\n\r\nAnd a fundamental question will be 'what is the Thames Valley?'. The current police area awkwardly covers Oxford, Newbury, Milton Keynes and much of Buckinghamshire - towns such as Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Amersham, but not Swindon. Based on what work has been done to date it is likely that the mayoralty would cover all of Berkshire and Oxfordshire and possibly extend to Swindon and/or Buckinghamshire.\r\nInfrastructure & The Thames Issue\r\nOne of the most persistent thorns in the side of any Reading resident is the state of our infrastructure. From the chronic congestion of the IDR to the desperate need for a third Thames bridge and the ludicrous cost of rail tickets, the question of transport is never far away. Burnham’s track record, while heavily focused on public transport, has often been a mix of successful advocacy for massive capital projects and the pragmatic reality of budget constraints. He is a man who loves a big, transformative project, but he also knows the political cost of failing to deliver. However, his rhetoric often focuses on 'levelling up,' which in his view usually means the North, so with his stated new power base in 'No10 North' you have to wonder if the Thames Valley will be cut out of any major investment such as a third river crossing or a direct rail connection to Heathrow?\r\n\r\nThere is also a real risk that Burnham’s brand of infrastructure investment is hyper-regional. He seems determined to remain focused on his Northern roots, rather than the South East, and specifically high-growth areas like the Thames Valley, which may be considered to be more self-sufficient. This could actually lead to a 'reduced infrastructure investment' scenario for our region, where Whitehall grants become scarce, forcing the proposed Thames Valley Mayor to hike local levies (whatever they may be) to pay for essential upgrades. Rates, parking, bins, permits, the few low value means for RBC to currently raise revenues may need to go sharply up, but with less money coming from the centre. However, the ability to raise additional local taxes may be on the cards via rates, tolls and even a Scottish style local income tax. One thing is certain, the tax burden will go up if you are a net contributor.\r\nA Social Housing Revolution\r\nIf there is one area where Andy Burnham has been consistently vocal, it is in the demand for more social housing and the regulation of the private rental sector. He has openly fought against the 'Right to Buy' policies that depleted social housing stock across the country and has pushed for local powers to intervene in the housing market. In a town like Reading, where the cost of living and the cost of renting have skyrocketed to levels that are pricing out the very people who power our town's services, a Burnham-led housing strategy would be a significant point of interest. Already RBC have benefited from changes in Westminster policy that allow them to build more social and affordable housing. Burnham advocates for a housing-first approach, and his potential national policy might include sweeping powers for local authorities to acquire land and develop housing stock that is genuinely affordable, rather than the luxury flats that currently dominate our skyline. Since land availability is a massive issue in Reading, this may be welcome.\r\n\r\nInstead of approving endless high-rise developments that serve as investment vehicles for offshore entities or corporate landlords, we might see a push towards social housing developments that integrate with the town's existing fabric. Burnham, being a pragmatist, knows that you cannot build a legacy without building bricks and mortar. If he arrives in Number 10 with a mandate to fix the housing crisis, Reading might even become an ideal test site for his aggressive housing construction policies. Major developers are already reviewing the economic viability of major new developments in the town - several such as the Post Office distribution site and The Oracle are under review by their owners even after obtaining planning permission. The hope is that this will actually lead to affordable homes for Reading nurses, teachers, and service staff, but the downside may simply more red tape and stalled developments and even higher rental costs with the scarcity of commercial development pushing up values and prices. It's going to be a delicate balancing act.\r\nThe Local Tech Economy\r\nReading’s identity is intrinsically linked to its status as a tech hub. Better co-ordination with the research excellence at Oxford and the burgeoning data centre metropolis in Slough could bring significant benefits, especially if you add in proximity to Heathrow and London. Reading has seen an exodus of tech companies recently, with major former employers like Microsoft down to one building on their former campus in Thames Valley park. But Reading is still home to some of the world's largest multinational corporations, with PepsiCo recently announcing that they will be moving their European HQ to Station Hill, our local economy is heavily dependent on the high-skill, high-wage sector. These companies value a flexible labour force and low cost energy, whereas Andy Burnham’s political DNA is firmly rooted in labour movements and traditional industrial heartlands. There is already a palpable tension between the 'Silicon Valley' model of the South and the 'Regional Industry' model of the North. If Burnham ascends, how does his government view the tech-heavy economy of Reading? Will we be seen as an area that needs more redistribution, or will he seek to harness our tech output to drive national innovation? His past comments suggest an appreciation for the 'Foundry' model—creating regional clusters of industry. Perhaps he will look to Reading not as a competitor, but as a model for how the rest of the country’s regional hubs should look, or perhaps not.\r\n\r\nThe fear remains that his government might implement tax or regulatory shifts that are designed to benefit the wider UK manufacturing base at the expense of our service-led economy. If the King in the North brings with him a fiscal policy that prioritises re-industrialisation, the service and tech sectors in the South might find themselves facing a more hostile tax environment. The jovial, if slightly grim, prospect is that the 'Thames Valley Tech Cluster' could become the golden goose that a Labour government might look to for funding its massive public sector expansions. It’s a classic story of the regional lord looking at the wealthy merchant town and deciding that its coffers should be a little more 'shared.' Whether this benefits Reading in the long run or stifles our growth is the billion-pound question that should keep us awake at night.\r\nHealth & Social Care\r\nBurnham’s tenure as Mayor of Manchester was defined by his crusade for the integration of health and social care. He has been a fierce advocate for bringing power down to a level where it can actually make a difference to people's lives. In Reading, where our health services often feel stretched to the breaking point by the demands of a growing population and a housing market that puts pressure on local amenities, a Burnham administration could offer a paradigm shift. If he maintains this commitment, we could see a push for further integration between our local NHS trusts and the social care services managed by the council. Perhaps the rebuilding or redevelopment of the Royal Berkshire Hospital promised and then withdrawn by Boris Johnson and his successors will be back on the cards. RBC already spends three quarters of its budget on social care. There are few clues on how this may be alleviated.\r\nTaxation\r\nWhich brings us to the issue that will inevitably impact all net contributors in our area - taxation. Britain has the highest taxes ever (apart from a brief period after the Second World War) and this is stifling our economy, innovation and investment. Yet Burnham has clearly stated that he will need to put taxes up. Your children are likely to pay higher inheritance taxes and income tax for those in higher wage brackets will go up. A review of all rating bands could be very expensive for householders in our area. There is little doubt that those with disposable income will have less under a Burnham government and that is likely to have a knock on effect on local businesses, restaurants, pubs and many other services already badly hit by large tax hikes directly and to their customers.\r\nEducation\r\nAnother pillar of the Burnham philosophy is the focus on education and skills development to suit local economies. He has spoken often about the 'digital divide' and the need to bridge it with local training schemes. Reading, with its wealth of high-tech firms, has a persistent skills gap; we import talent from all over the world because we struggle to train enough people locally. If a Burnham government decides to double down on regional skills development, Reading could benefit from a significant investment in our local college and university partnerships. Imagine a scenario where central government funds are specifically earmarked for tech-training centres in the Thames Valley, designed to funnel local youth directly into our high-growth job market. This would be a game-changer for social mobility in our town. It represents a shift from the 'university-only' pipeline to a more vocational, industry-integrated approach. reading is calling out for qualified, capable tradespeople. If Burnham can deliver on this, it could secure Reading’s status as a premier tech destination for decades to come, moving us beyond the current reliance on attracting talent from elsewhere. However, there is the irony that the University of Reading does not have a computing department and that the provision of training, apprenticeships and vocational is difficult. In Reading we offered vocational training to Reading College and we were told where to go. This is not an easy problem to solve.\r\nClimate Change\r\nClimate change is the backdrop to every political discussion now, and Burnham has been vocal about his 'Net Zero' commitments. He pushed for a green revolution in Manchester, focusing on everything from electric buses to building insulation schemes. Reading has its own ambitious climate goals, but achieving them requires more than just local ambition; it requires massive structural change and central government backing. A Burnham premiership could be the catalyst that unlocks funding for large-scale energy retrofitting of our older housing stock, turning our draughty, Victorian-era terraces into energy-efficient homes, perhaps all funded by a central 'green energy' grant managed by a regional mayor. However, the reality is that what most local people and businesses want to see is cheaper energy prices. It will be interesting to see where he goes with this.\r\nBusinesses\r\nFinally, we must consider the business community. Reading’s business leaders have been remarkably resilient, but they are also a cautious bunch. A transition to a Burnham-led Labour government would create a period of intense uncertainty. Will his policies on employment law, corporate taxation, and business regulation stifle the very companies that have made Reading the success story it is? It is probable that we would see a shift towards a more 'co-operative' model of business, where corporations are expected to engage more deeply with the local community. This could be a positive for Reading, creating stronger links between our big tech players and our local schools and community projects. However, it also creates an environment of increased scrutiny. The 'King in the North' is not known for his patience with big business if he feels they aren't playing their part in the wider social fabric. It could be a period of significant tension, but also one of potentially deeper community integration.\r\nThe Wall\r\nThere is a danger that a 'King in the North' might be seen as a polarising figure from elsewhere. His positioning may be galling to a Southerner. Whilst his supporters see a man of the people, critics might paint him as someone who doesn't understand the specific pressures of the South. If the tone of his government is perceived as inherently hostile to the 'affluent South,' Reading could find itself in an awkward political position. Our town is already turning Green and Reform UK, as Wokingham has become a LibDem orange. Our region is already looking beyond Labour. We already have a Labour controlled council in town who might find it difficult to lobby for funding if the narrative from the top is 'redistribution to the North.' It would require a very skilled bit of local diplomacy to ensure that Reading is viewed as a partner in national growth rather than a competitor for limited resources. Reading will have to become much better at articulating its value to the national economy, lest we find ourselves on the outside looking in. One aspect that might help with this is that local Earley and Woodley MP Yuan Yang is close to Andy Burnham and, despite her slender majority and recent introduction as an MP, may become a minister in his government. She is a prominent leader of the Tribune group of MPs and is already a key policy contributor to Burnham’s campaign\r\nThe Red Wedding ?\r\nWe cannot discuss a potential Burnham premiership without addressing the elephant - or perhaps the dragon - in the room: the sheer volatility of British politics. We have had seven Prime Ministers in a decade. We have watched leaders rise and fall with the regularity of the seasons and incompetence, frustration and apathy have become rife. In an era of phenomenal change, the UK is clearly totally dependent on the US and its capricious orange leader for all major technologies. If Andy Burnham is to become the next monarch of the British political sphere, he is stepping into a landscape that is deeply cynical, exhausted by chaos, and desperately looking for a steady hand. Burnham rather proudly actually seems to see himself as the 'King in the North,' but the premiership of the UK is a different beast entirely. It requires juggling global geopolitics, a fractious parliament, and a public that is increasingly difficult to govern. When he takes over, can he remain in control when there are other issues such as immigration and potholes to sort out?\r\nA Mancunian In The Thames Valley\r\nThere is a cultural element to the 'Burnham factor.' The man has a distinct style—a blend of Northern straight-talking and a slightly melancholic, oratorical grace. He doesn't shy away from confrontation with the centre, a trait that served him well in Manchester. If he becomes PM, he will likely bring a certain amount of this 'outsider's perspective' into the heart of Westminster. How does this translate to a place like Reading? We are a town that prides itself on being a cosmopolitan, diverse, and economically vibrant centre. We aren't Manchester - we don't have the same industrial history, but many Dings have a shared sense of frustration with the current state of British politics as the recent local government elections showed.\r\nIf the King in the North brings his brand of politics to the national stage, we might see a shift in the tone of the national debate towards regionalism. For Reading, this could mean an opportunity to redefine our relationship with the capital. Instead of being seen as an extension of London’s housing market, we might be encouraged to lean into our identity as a regional leader in our own right. This could spark a new wave of local cultural confidence. It’s an interesting prospect: a town that has historically looked towards the capital for its sense of purpose might find itself looking towards a government that is finally willing to empower the regions. Of course, the risk is that the culture clash between the 'Northern' political style and the 'Southern' economic reality results in a disconnect that leaves everyone unhappy. As they would say in Manchester: 'there's never a dull moment'....\r\n ", "summary": "As Andy Burnham emerges as a key figure in national politics, we explore what a potential 'King in the North' premiership could mean for Reading's infrastructure, transport, and regional devolution.", "date_published": "2026-07-01T11:01:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-30T10:01:47.740043+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Iolo Jones" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/fa76f3e3.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/06/fa76f3e3.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "Iolo Jones", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "The King Of The North And Reading", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 3355, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
In the grand, chaotic, and often farcical narrative of British politics over the last decade, we have witnessed a spectacle that would make George R.R. Martin weep with envy. We have cycled through seven Prime Ministers in a timeframe that feels more like a binge-watch of a high-stakes fantasy drama than a stable democratic timeline. Yes, we're living in the Game Of Thrones era.
\r\nThe revolving door of 10 Downing Street has seen characters come and go with the speed of a fleeting Westerosi summer. Yet, as the dust settles and the current political landscape shifts, a new figure is emerging from the misty, post-industrial north, heralded by many as the inevitable successor to the crown: Andy Burnham. Known to his legion of supporters and political onlookers as the King in the North, the Mayor of Greater Manchester seems poised to trade his metropolitan domain for the ultimate seat of power. For those of us living in the leafy, tech-centric, and traffic-clogged corridors of Reading, the potential ascent of Burnham is not merely a headline in a national broadsheet; it is a signal of a fundamental shift in the winds of governance that could reconfigure the very nature of our local life here in Reading.
\r\nOur town has long held a unique position as a commuter heartbeat, a town caught between its historic market origins and its more modern status as the Silicon Valley of the United Kingdom. We are a microcosm of the national struggle - caught between the demands of infrastructure, the desperation for affordable housing, and an ongoing state of development-induced anxiety. If the man who revitalised Greater Manchester transport and championed the northern powerhouse rhetoric finds himself occupying the seat currently occupied by an ever-changing cast of predecessors, as seems increasingly likely, what becomes of our town? Will we find ourselves under the mandate of a new Thames Valley Mayor, or will we see our long-awaited infrastructure projects fall victim to a redirected national treasury focus? Let's peer into the crystal ball of the Burnham administration and consider the implications for our own local fiefdom based on his track record and recent statements.
\r\nA Devolved Thames Valley
\r\nAndy Burnham has spent the better part of his Manchester mayoral tenure as the loudest, most persistent advocate for devolution. He has consistently argued that the concentration of power in Westminster is a relic of a dying empire, ill-equipped to solve the regional disparities that plague the UK. He has long proposed that economic prosperity should be driven by empowered regional bodies rather than decisions made by pencil-pushers in Whitehall. For Reading, this is a pivotal point. Should Burnham assume the mantle of Prime Minister, we could be looking at the rapid acceleration of the 'Thames Valley Mayor' concept. Currently, Reading operates within the context of a borough council that often finds itself struggling to assert dominance against regional interests (think third river crossing) and central government budgetary constraints (think social care). A Thames Valley combined authority, under the ethos Burnham has championed, would likely represent a significant shift in how Reading manages its strategic future.
\r\nImagine a structure where Reading, along with its neighbours, given more direct control over regional planning, transport, and economic development. Burnham’s model in Manchester suggests a focus on integrated public transport that acts as the circulatory system of the region. For Reading, this could mean moving away from the fragmented chaos of bus services and local road-widening schemes toward a more holistic, possibly re-regulated transit network. If Burnham imports the 'Bee Network' philosophy to the Thames Valley, we might see the prioritisation of local connectivity that isn't just focused on getting people to Paddington, but on moving people across the town and the wider valley. However, the caveat remains: devolution requires funding, and the Treasury, under any leader, is a notoriously difficult beast to tame. Would a Burnham-led government allow us to keep more of our locally generated tax revenue, or would the regional Mayoralty become another layer of bureaucracy that we have to fund, adding to the local tax burden of every Reading resident?
\r\n
And a fundamental question will be 'what is the Thames Valley?'. The current police area awkwardly covers Oxford, Newbury, Milton Keynes and much of Buckinghamshire - towns such as Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Amersham, but not Swindon. Based on what work has been done to date it is likely that the mayoralty would cover all of Berkshire and Oxfordshire and possibly extend to Swindon and/or Buckinghamshire.
\r\nInfrastructure & The Thames Issue
\r\nOne of the most persistent thorns in the side of any Reading resident is the state of our infrastructure. From the chronic congestion of the IDR to the desperate need for a third Thames bridge and the ludicrous cost of rail tickets, the question of transport is never far away. Burnham’s track record, while heavily focused on public transport, has often been a mix of successful advocacy for massive capital projects and the pragmatic reality of budget constraints. He is a man who loves a big, transformative project, but he also knows the political cost of failing to deliver. However, his rhetoric often focuses on 'levelling up,' which in his view usually means the North, so with his stated new power base in 'No10 North' you have to wonder if the Thames Valley will be cut out of any major investment such as a third river crossing or a direct rail connection to Heathrow?
\r\n
There is also a real risk that Burnham’s brand of infrastructure investment is hyper-regional. He seems determined to remain focused on his Northern roots, rather than the South East, and specifically high-growth areas like the Thames Valley, which may be considered to be more self-sufficient. This could actually lead to a 'reduced infrastructure investment' scenario for our region, where Whitehall grants become scarce, forcing the proposed Thames Valley Mayor to hike local levies (whatever they may be) to pay for essential upgrades. Rates, parking, bins, permits, the few low value means for RBC to currently raise revenues may need to go sharply up, but with less money coming from the centre. However, the ability to raise additional local taxes may be on the cards via rates, tolls and even a Scottish style local income tax. One thing is certain, the tax burden will go up if you are a net contributor.
\r\nA Social Housing Revolution
\r\nIf there is one area where Andy Burnham has been consistently vocal, it is in the demand for more social housing and the regulation of the private rental sector. He has openly fought against the 'Right to Buy' policies that depleted social housing stock across the country and has pushed for local powers to intervene in the housing market. In a town like Reading, where the cost of living and the cost of renting have skyrocketed to levels that are pricing out the very people who power our town's services, a Burnham-led housing strategy would be a significant point of interest. Already RBC have benefited from changes in Westminster policy that allow them to build more social and affordable housing. Burnham advocates for a housing-first approach, and his potential national policy might include sweeping powers for local authorities to acquire land and develop housing stock that is genuinely affordable, rather than the luxury flats that currently dominate our skyline. Since land availability is a massive issue in Reading, this may be welcome.
\r\n
Instead of approving endless high-rise developments that serve as investment vehicles for offshore entities or corporate landlords, we might see a push towards social housing developments that integrate with the town's existing fabric. Burnham, being a pragmatist, knows that you cannot build a legacy without building bricks and mortar. If he arrives in Number 10 with a mandate to fix the housing crisis, Reading might even become an ideal test site for his aggressive housing construction policies. Major developers are already reviewing the economic viability of major new developments in the town - several such as the Post Office distribution site and The Oracle are under review by their owners even after obtaining planning permission. The hope is that this will actually lead to affordable homes for Reading nurses, teachers, and service staff, but the downside may simply more red tape and stalled developments and even higher rental costs with the scarcity of commercial development pushing up values and prices. It's going to be a delicate balancing act.
\r\nThe Local Tech Economy
\r\nReading’s identity is intrinsically linked to its status as a tech hub. Better co-ordination with the research excellence at Oxford and the burgeoning data centre metropolis in Slough could bring significant benefits, especially if you add in proximity to Heathrow and London. Reading has seen an exodus of tech companies recently, with major former employers like Microsoft down to one building on their former campus in Thames Valley park. But Reading is still home to some of the world's largest multinational corporations, with PepsiCo recently announcing that they will be moving their European HQ to Station Hill, our local economy is heavily dependent on the high-skill, high-wage sector. These companies value a flexible labour force and low cost energy, whereas Andy Burnham’s political DNA is firmly rooted in labour movements and traditional industrial heartlands. There is already a palpable tension between the 'Silicon Valley' model of the South and the 'Regional Industry' model of the North. If Burnham ascends, how does his government view the tech-heavy economy of Reading? Will we be seen as an area that needs more redistribution, or will he seek to harness our tech output to drive national innovation? His past comments suggest an appreciation for the 'Foundry' model—creating regional clusters of industry. Perhaps he will look to Reading not as a competitor, but as a model for how the rest of the country’s regional hubs should look, or perhaps not.
\r\n
The fear remains that his government might implement tax or regulatory shifts that are designed to benefit the wider UK manufacturing base at the expense of our service-led economy. If the King in the North brings with him a fiscal policy that prioritises re-industrialisation, the service and tech sectors in the South might find themselves facing a more hostile tax environment. The jovial, if slightly grim, prospect is that the 'Thames Valley Tech Cluster' could become the golden goose that a Labour government might look to for funding its massive public sector expansions. It’s a classic story of the regional lord looking at the wealthy merchant town and deciding that its coffers should be a little more 'shared.' Whether this benefits Reading in the long run or stifles our growth is the billion-pound question that should keep us awake at night.
\r\nHealth & Social Care
\r\nBurnham’s tenure as Mayor of Manchester was defined by his crusade for the integration of health and social care. He has been a fierce advocate for bringing power down to a level where it can actually make a difference to people's lives. In Reading, where our health services often feel stretched to the breaking point by the demands of a growing population and a housing market that puts pressure on local amenities, a Burnham administration could offer a paradigm shift. If he maintains this commitment, we could see a push for further integration between our local NHS trusts and the social care services managed by the council. Perhaps the rebuilding or redevelopment of the Royal Berkshire Hospital promised and then withdrawn by Boris Johnson and his successors will be back on the cards. RBC already spends three quarters of its budget on social care. There are few clues on how this may be alleviated.
\r\nTaxation
\r\nWhich brings us to the issue that will inevitably impact all net contributors in our area - taxation. Britain has the highest taxes ever (apart from a brief period after the Second World War) and this is stifling our economy, innovation and investment. Yet Burnham has clearly stated that he will need to put taxes up. Your children are likely to pay higher inheritance taxes and income tax for those in higher wage brackets will go up. A review of all rating bands could be very expensive for householders in our area. There is little doubt that those with disposable income will have less under a Burnham government and that is likely to have a knock on effect on local businesses, restaurants, pubs and many other services already badly hit by large tax hikes directly and to their customers.
\r\nEducation
\r\nAnother pillar of the Burnham philosophy is the focus on education and skills development to suit local economies. He has spoken often about the 'digital divide' and the need to bridge it with local training schemes. Reading, with its wealth of high-tech firms, has a persistent skills gap; we import talent from all over the world because we struggle to train enough people locally. If a Burnham government decides to double down on regional skills development, Reading could benefit from a significant investment in our local college and university partnerships. Imagine a scenario where central government funds are specifically earmarked for tech-training centres in the Thames Valley, designed to funnel local youth directly into our high-growth job market. This would be a game-changer for social mobility in our town. It represents a shift from the 'university-only' pipeline to a more vocational, industry-integrated approach. reading is calling out for qualified, capable tradespeople. If Burnham can deliver on this, it could secure Reading’s status as a premier tech destination for decades to come, moving us beyond the current reliance on attracting talent from elsewhere. However, there is the irony that the University of Reading does not have a computing department and that the provision of training, apprenticeships and vocational is difficult. In Reading we offered vocational training to Reading College and we were told where to go. This is not an easy problem to solve.
\r\nClimate Change
\r\nClimate change is the backdrop to every political discussion now, and Burnham has been vocal about his 'Net Zero' commitments. He pushed for a green revolution in Manchester, focusing on everything from electric buses to building insulation schemes. Reading has its own ambitious climate goals, but achieving them requires more than just local ambition; it requires massive structural change and central government backing. A Burnham premiership could be the catalyst that unlocks funding for large-scale energy retrofitting of our older housing stock, turning our draughty, Victorian-era terraces into energy-efficient homes, perhaps all funded by a central 'green energy' grant managed by a regional mayor. However, the reality is that what most local people and businesses want to see is cheaper energy prices. It will be interesting to see where he goes with this.
\r\nBusinesses
\r\nFinally, we must consider the business community. Reading’s business leaders have been remarkably resilient, but they are also a cautious bunch. A transition to a Burnham-led Labour government would create a period of intense uncertainty. Will his policies on employment law, corporate taxation, and business regulation stifle the very companies that have made Reading the success story it is? It is probable that we would see a shift towards a more 'co-operative' model of business, where corporations are expected to engage more deeply with the local community. This could be a positive for Reading, creating stronger links between our big tech players and our local schools and community projects. However, it also creates an environment of increased scrutiny. The 'King in the North' is not known for his patience with big business if he feels they aren't playing their part in the wider social fabric. It could be a period of significant tension, but also one of potentially deeper community integration.
\r\nThe Wall
\r\nThere is a danger that a 'King in the North' might be seen as a polarising figure from elsewhere. His positioning may be galling to a Southerner. Whilst his supporters see a man of the people, critics might paint him as someone who doesn't understand the specific pressures of the South. If the tone of his government is perceived as inherently hostile to the 'affluent South,' Reading could find itself in an awkward political position. Our town is already turning Green and Reform UK, as Wokingham has become a LibDem orange. Our region is already looking beyond Labour. We already have a Labour controlled council in town who might find it difficult to lobby for funding if the narrative from the top is 'redistribution to the North.' It would require a very skilled bit of local diplomacy to ensure that Reading is viewed as a partner in national growth rather than a competitor for limited resources. Reading will have to become much better at articulating its value to the national economy, lest we find ourselves on the outside looking in. One aspect that might help with this is that local Earley and Woodley MP Yuan Yang is close to Andy Burnham and, despite her slender majority and recent introduction as an MP, may become a minister in his government. She is a prominent leader of the Tribune group of MPs and is already a key policy contributor to Burnham’s campaign
\r\nThe Red Wedding ?
\r\nWe cannot discuss a potential Burnham premiership without addressing the elephant - or perhaps the dragon - in the room: the sheer volatility of British politics. We have had seven Prime Ministers in a decade. We have watched leaders rise and fall with the regularity of the seasons and incompetence, frustration and apathy have become rife. In an era of phenomenal change, the UK is clearly totally dependent on the US and its capricious orange leader for all major technologies. If Andy Burnham is to become the next monarch of the British political sphere, he is stepping into a landscape that is deeply cynical, exhausted by chaos, and desperately looking for a steady hand. Burnham rather proudly actually seems to see himself as the 'King in the North,' but the premiership of the UK is a different beast entirely. It requires juggling global geopolitics, a fractious parliament, and a public that is increasingly difficult to govern. When he takes over, can he remain in control when there are other issues such as immigration and potholes to sort out?
\r\nA Mancunian In The Thames Valley
\r\nThere is a cultural element to the 'Burnham factor.' The man has a distinct style—a blend of Northern straight-talking and a slightly melancholic, oratorical grace. He doesn't shy away from confrontation with the centre, a trait that served him well in Manchester. If he becomes PM, he will likely bring a certain amount of this 'outsider's perspective' into the heart of Westminster. How does this translate to a place like Reading? We are a town that prides itself on being a cosmopolitan, diverse, and economically vibrant centre. We aren't Manchester - we don't have the same industrial history, but many Dings have a shared sense of frustration with the current state of British politics as the recent local government elections showed.
\r\nIf the King in the North brings his brand of politics to the national stage, we might see a shift in the tone of the national debate towards regionalism. For Reading, this could mean an opportunity to redefine our relationship with the capital. Instead of being seen as an extension of London’s housing market, we might be encouraged to lean into our identity as a regional leader in our own right. This could spark a new wave of local cultural confidence. It’s an interesting prospect: a town that has historically looked towards the capital for its sense of purpose might find itself looking towards a government that is finally willing to empower the regions. Of course, the risk is that the culture clash between the 'Northern' political style and the 'Southern' economic reality results in a disconnect that leaves everyone unhappy. As they would say in Manchester: 'there's never a dull moment'....
\r\n", "description": "As Andy Burnham emerges as a key figure in national politics, we explore what a potential 'King in the North' premiership could mean for Reading's infrastructure, transport, and regional devolution.", "dateModified": "2026-06-30T10:01:47.740043+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-07-01T11:01:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/will-andy-burnhams-potential-leadership-change-the-future-of-reading/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "438", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/cemetery-junction-behind-readings-busiest-landmark/", "title": "Cemetery Junction: Behind Reading\u2019s Busiest Landmark", "content_html": "
If you’ve ever sat in a queue of traffic on London Road, watching the red brake lights stretch down Kings Road and Wokingham Road, you know that you live in Reading and you know that you are at Cemetery Junction, a junction famous enough to have a film named after it.
\r\nIt is the undisputed eastern gateway into Reading and also acts as a funnel from the motorways and dual carriageways to the east of town, creating a throttle point for all traffic recently exacerbated by the addition of bus lanes.
\r\nStanding like a lost sandstone sentinel right at the heart of this bustle is the Grade II listed Cemetery Arch. Thousands of us pass by it every day by car, on a bus, by foot, scooter or bike. It’s a striking reminder that this was once a peaceful, rural corner. Or to quote a joke by a friend of mine, 'the dead centre of Reading'. Cheers,John.
\r\n\r\n
![\"cj6.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/05/ae901e55.webp\")
\r\n
In the early 1840s, Reading was booming. The arrival of the Great Western Railway in 1840 had supercharged the town's population, and local churchyards were rapidly running out of space.
\r\nIn response, a group of local businessmen formed the Reading Cemetery Company in 1842. They bought a parcel of rural land well outside the town's then compact boundary, but conveniently nestled between the historic highways leading out of the town to London and Wokingham, an area thought to have already previously been used as an interment ground for the dead from the Abbey's leper hospital, with bones discovered by workmen in a burial pit.
\r\nArchitect William Brown was tasked with designing a landscape that followed the fashionable Victorian trend of 'garden cemeteries'—places not just for mourning, but for the living to walk among beautiful trees and classical architecture. The walled cemetery and the Cemetery Archway were completed in 1843.
\r\n\r\n
![\"cj5.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/05/88968d70.webp\")
\r\n
Built in the grand Neolithic Grecian style from Bath stone, it served a dual purpose: a magnificent formal entrance for funeral processions and a practical lodge for the cemetery registrar. When the cemetery officially opened space for burials in 1843, it transformed what had been a simple fork in the road into a landmark.
\r\nThe graveyard itself contains the last resting place of many famous local citizens including the Sutton seeds and Simmonds brewing families, including the grave of the sculptor of the Maiwand Lion statue in Forbury Gardens, George Simonds. Some of the gravestones themselves are listed.
As the 19th century progressed, Reading expanded eastward at a breakneck pace. The open fields surrounding the cemetery were quickly swallowed up by the grid of streets in Newtown, built to house the workforce for Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory, and the grander Victorian villas of London Road and Redlands.
\r\nThe junction where London Road, Wokingham Road, and Kings Road converged inevitably became a commercial and transit nucleus with shops appearing to service the local and transient population.
\r\n\r\n
![\"cj8.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/05/1a2d496b.webp\")
\r\n
In 1879, horse-drawn trams began clattering past the Cemetery Arch. By 1903, these were replaced by Reading Corporation’s sleek electric tram system.
\r\nThe Junction became a crucial tramways intersection, and a bustling interchange for passengers heading out to Earley or Wokingham or into the town centre.
\r\nBy the time motor cars and trolleybuses replaced the trams in the mid-20th century, the \"Cemetery Junction\" moniker was firmly locked into the local lexicon—even if most people passing it by nowawere thinking about their morning commute rather than the graveyard.
\r\n\r\n
To serve the growing local population and weary travellers alike, the local shops and pubs inevitably expanded.
\r\nThe first pub on the site was built in the early 1800s and appearing on the 1841 Census as a beerhouse operated by Joseph Pickett. Now called the Hope & Bear, it was formerly known as the Abbott Cook, Upin Arms and Jack Of Two Faces - an appropriate name for a building on both London and Kings Roads.
\r\nAdjacent is the former Cemetery Tavern, renamed the Marquis of Granby (John Manners, Marquess of Granby (1721–1770), was a brilliant and immensely popular British army commander during the Seven Years' War who gave sptpiends to his injured soldier that they could use to open taverns). It was once owned by football legend Terry Venables and is now, of course, a burger and ice cream parlour.
\r\nAnd just off the junction is the ever popular late night drinking dive Up The Junction. Pharmacies, takeaways, convenience store and mini markets sit alongside longterm tenants such as tghe every fascinating Reading Stained Glass and the latest sandwich bar from Cafe Yolk.
\r\nThe arch itself was used as a police outpost for many years.
\r\n\r\n
In recent decades, Cemetery Junction has earned a spot in broader British cultural history. It famously gave its name to the 2010 retro-comedy-drama film 'Cemetery Junction', written and directed by Reading’s own Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. While the movie itself was filmed elsewhere and did not feature the junction at all. to capture a 1970s small-town vibe, Gervais frequently cited the real-world location as a symbol of being on the crossroads of life, deciding which direction to take. Perhaps something that regular commuters ponder on as they are stuck at the lights.
\r\nToday, the Junction faces the classic challenges of a modern urban bottleneck. After years of sitting empty, the iconic Archway itself has been the subject of passionate community campaigns aimed at preserving it and transforming it into a vibrant community arts hub. It is currently undergoing restoration.
\r\nWhile the council officially started planned, 12-week conservation and masonry cleaning works in February 2025, thecontractors, Cliveden Conservation, and structural engineers quickly hit a major snag. While putting up scaffolding and getting a closer look at the upper masonry, they uncovered significant, acute defects to the front stone gable and a leaning pediment thanks to traffic polution ands water damage.
\r\nThe council's ultimate goal is to complete the core stabilization so that the building can be safely brought back into active community use. They have been working in tandem with the local community group Junction Arch Heritage and Arts (JAHA).
\r\nJAHA has been working to secure National Lottery Heritage funding to transform the arch into a permanent community heritage and arts hub, featuring space for local art exhibitions, one-off community events, and a small café—carrying on the vision originally championed by late local coordinator Nick Cooksey.
\r\nNot many towns and cities are know for their junctions and especially one named after a cemetery, but that's Reading for you..!
\r\n\r\n
", "content_text": "If you’ve ever sat in a queue of traffic on London Road, watching the red brake lights stretch down Kings Road and Wokingham Road, you know that you live in Reading and you know that you are at Cemetery Junction, a junction famous enough to have a film named after it.\r\nIt is the undisputed eastern gateway into Reading and also acts as a funnel from the motorways and dual carriageways to the east of town, creating a throttle point for all traffic recently exacerbated by the addition of bus lanes.\r\nStanding like a lost sandstone sentinel right at the heart of this bustle is the Grade II listed Cemetery Arch. Thousands of us pass by it every day by car, on a bus, by foot, scooter or bike. It’s a striking reminder that this was once a peaceful, rural corner. Or to quote a joke by a friend of mine, 'the dead centre of Reading'. Cheers,John.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nIn the early 1840s, Reading was booming. The arrival of the Great Western Railway in 1840 had supercharged the town's population, and local churchyards were rapidly running out of space.\r\nIn response, a group of local businessmen formed the Reading Cemetery Company in 1842. They bought a parcel of rural land well outside the town's then compact boundary, but conveniently nestled between the historic highways leading out of the town to London and Wokingham, an area thought to have already previously been used as an interment ground for the dead from the Abbey's leper hospital, with bones discovered by workmen in a burial pit.\r\nArchitect William Brown was tasked with designing a landscape that followed the fashionable Victorian trend of 'garden cemeteries'—places not just for mourning, but for the living to walk among beautiful trees and classical architecture. The walled cemetery and the Cemetery Archway were completed in 1843.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nBuilt in the grand Neolithic Grecian style from Bath stone, it served a dual purpose: a magnificent formal entrance for funeral processions and a practical lodge for the cemetery registrar. When the cemetery officially opened space for burials in 1843, it transformed what had been a simple fork in the road into a landmark.\r\nThe graveyard itself contains the last resting place of many famous local citizens including the Sutton seeds and Simmonds brewing families, including the grave of the sculptor of the Maiwand Lion statue in Forbury Gardens, George Simonds. Some of the gravestones themselves are listed.\r\nUrbanisation\r\nAs the 19th century progressed, Reading expanded eastward at a breakneck pace. The open fields surrounding the cemetery were quickly swallowed up by the grid of streets in Newtown, built to house the workforce for Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory, and the grander Victorian villas of London Road and Redlands.\r\nThe junction where London Road, Wokingham Road, and Kings Road converged inevitably became a commercial and transit nucleus with shops appearing to service the local and transient population.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nThe Trams Arrive\r\nIn 1879, horse-drawn trams began clattering past the Cemetery Arch. By 1903, these were replaced by Reading Corporation’s sleek electric tram system. \r\nThe Junction became a crucial tramways intersection, and a bustling interchange for passengers heading out to Earley or Wokingham or into the town centre.\r\nBy the time motor cars and trolleybuses replaced the trams in the mid-20th century, the \"Cemetery Junction\" moniker was firmly locked into the local lexicon—even if most people passing it by nowawere thinking about their morning commute rather than the graveyard.\r\n \r\nPubs and Shops\r\nTo serve the growing local population and weary travellers alike, the local shops and pubs inevitably expanded. \r\nThe first pub on the site was built in the early 1800s and appearing on the 1841 Census as a beerhouse operated by Joseph Pickett. Now called the Hope & Bear, it was formerly known as the Abbott Cook, Upin Arms and Jack Of Two Faces - an appropriate name for a building on both London and Kings Roads.\r\nAdjacent is the former Cemetery Tavern, renamed the Marquis of Granby (John Manners, Marquess of Granby (1721–1770), was a brilliant and immensely popular British army commander during the Seven Years' War who gave sptpiends to his injured soldier that they could use to open taverns). It was once owned by football legend Terry Venables and is now, of course, a burger and ice cream parlour. \r\nAnd just off the junction is the ever popular late night drinking dive Up The Junction. Pharmacies, takeaways, convenience store and mini markets sit alongside longterm tenants such as tghe every fascinating Reading Stained Glass and the latest sandwich bar from Cafe Yolk.\r\nThe arch itself was used as a police outpost for many years.\r\n \r\nPop Culture and the Modern Era\r\nIn recent decades, Cemetery Junction has earned a spot in broader British cultural history. It famously gave its name to the 2010 retro-comedy-drama film 'Cemetery Junction', written and directed by Reading’s own Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. While the movie itself was filmed elsewhere and did not feature the junction at all. to capture a 1970s small-town vibe, Gervais frequently cited the real-world location as a symbol of being on the crossroads of life, deciding which direction to take. Perhaps something that regular commuters ponder on as they are stuck at the lights.\r\nToday, the Junction faces the classic challenges of a modern urban bottleneck. After years of sitting empty, the iconic Archway itself has been the subject of passionate community campaigns aimed at preserving it and transforming it into a vibrant community arts hub. It is currently undergoing restoration.\r\nWhile the council officially started planned, 12-week conservation and masonry cleaning works in February 2025, thecontractors, Cliveden Conservation, and structural engineers quickly hit a major snag. While putting up scaffolding and getting a closer look at the upper masonry, they uncovered significant, acute defects to the front stone gable and a leaning pediment thanks to traffic polution ands water damage. \r\nThe council's ultimate goal is to complete the core stabilization so that the building can be safely brought back into active community use. They have been working in tandem with the local community group Junction Arch Heritage and Arts (JAHA).\r\nJAHA has been working to secure National Lottery Heritage funding to transform the arch into a permanent community heritage and arts hub, featuring space for local art exhibitions, one-off community events, and a small café—carrying on the vision originally championed by late local coordinator Nick Cooksey.\r\nNot many towns and cities are know for their junctions and especially one named after a cemetery, but that's Reading for you..!\r\n \r\n ", "summary": "Discover the story of Reading's famous Cemetery Junction, from its 1840s origins as a Victorian garden cemetery to its evolution into a bustling urban transit hub.", "date_published": "2026-06-01T16:14:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-01T07:08:54.888370+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/05/03423735.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/05/03423735.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Cemetery Junction: Behind Reading\u2019s Busiest Landmark", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1171, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
If you’ve ever sat in a queue of traffic on London Road, watching the red brake lights stretch down Kings Road and Wokingham Road, you know that you live in Reading and you know that you are at Cemetery Junction, a junction famous enough to have a film named after it.
\r\nIt is the undisputed eastern gateway into Reading and also acts as a funnel from the motorways and dual carriageways to the east of town, creating a throttle point for all traffic recently exacerbated by the addition of bus lanes.
\r\nStanding like a lost sandstone sentinel right at the heart of this bustle is the Grade II listed Cemetery Arch. Thousands of us pass by it every day by car, on a bus, by foot, scooter or bike. It’s a striking reminder that this was once a peaceful, rural corner. Or to quote a joke by a friend of mine, 'the dead centre of Reading'. Cheers,John.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
In the early 1840s, Reading was booming. The arrival of the Great Western Railway in 1840 had supercharged the town's population, and local churchyards were rapidly running out of space.
\r\nIn response, a group of local businessmen formed the Reading Cemetery Company in 1842. They bought a parcel of rural land well outside the town's then compact boundary, but conveniently nestled between the historic highways leading out of the town to London and Wokingham, an area thought to have already previously been used as an interment ground for the dead from the Abbey's leper hospital, with bones discovered by workmen in a burial pit.
\r\nArchitect William Brown was tasked with designing a landscape that followed the fashionable Victorian trend of 'garden cemeteries'—places not just for mourning, but for the living to walk among beautiful trees and classical architecture. The walled cemetery and the Cemetery Archway were completed in 1843.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
Built in the grand Neolithic Grecian style from Bath stone, it served a dual purpose: a magnificent formal entrance for funeral processions and a practical lodge for the cemetery registrar. When the cemetery officially opened space for burials in 1843, it transformed what had been a simple fork in the road into a landmark.
\r\nThe graveyard itself contains the last resting place of many famous local citizens including the Sutton seeds and Simmonds brewing families, including the grave of the sculptor of the Maiwand Lion statue in Forbury Gardens, George Simonds. Some of the gravestones themselves are listed.
As the 19th century progressed, Reading expanded eastward at a breakneck pace. The open fields surrounding the cemetery were quickly swallowed up by the grid of streets in Newtown, built to house the workforce for Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory, and the grander Victorian villas of London Road and Redlands.
\r\nThe junction where London Road, Wokingham Road, and Kings Road converged inevitably became a commercial and transit nucleus with shops appearing to service the local and transient population.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
In 1879, horse-drawn trams began clattering past the Cemetery Arch. By 1903, these were replaced by Reading Corporation’s sleek electric tram system.
\r\nThe Junction became a crucial tramways intersection, and a bustling interchange for passengers heading out to Earley or Wokingham or into the town centre.
\r\nBy the time motor cars and trolleybuses replaced the trams in the mid-20th century, the \"Cemetery Junction\" moniker was firmly locked into the local lexicon—even if most people passing it by nowawere thinking about their morning commute rather than the graveyard.
\r\n\r\n
To serve the growing local population and weary travellers alike, the local shops and pubs inevitably expanded.
\r\nThe first pub on the site was built in the early 1800s and appearing on the 1841 Census as a beerhouse operated by Joseph Pickett. Now called the Hope & Bear, it was formerly known as the Abbott Cook, Upin Arms and Jack Of Two Faces - an appropriate name for a building on both London and Kings Roads.
\r\nAdjacent is the former Cemetery Tavern, renamed the Marquis of Granby (John Manners, Marquess of Granby (1721–1770), was a brilliant and immensely popular British army commander during the Seven Years' War who gave sptpiends to his injured soldier that they could use to open taverns). It was once owned by football legend Terry Venables and is now, of course, a burger and ice cream parlour.
\r\nAnd just off the junction is the ever popular late night drinking dive Up The Junction. Pharmacies, takeaways, convenience store and mini markets sit alongside longterm tenants such as tghe every fascinating Reading Stained Glass and the latest sandwich bar from Cafe Yolk.
\r\nThe arch itself was used as a police outpost for many years.
\r\n\r\n
In recent decades, Cemetery Junction has earned a spot in broader British cultural history. It famously gave its name to the 2010 retro-comedy-drama film 'Cemetery Junction', written and directed by Reading’s own Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. While the movie itself was filmed elsewhere and did not feature the junction at all. to capture a 1970s small-town vibe, Gervais frequently cited the real-world location as a symbol of being on the crossroads of life, deciding which direction to take. Perhaps something that regular commuters ponder on as they are stuck at the lights.
\r\nToday, the Junction faces the classic challenges of a modern urban bottleneck. After years of sitting empty, the iconic Archway itself has been the subject of passionate community campaigns aimed at preserving it and transforming it into a vibrant community arts hub. It is currently undergoing restoration.
\r\nWhile the council officially started planned, 12-week conservation and masonry cleaning works in February 2025, thecontractors, Cliveden Conservation, and structural engineers quickly hit a major snag. While putting up scaffolding and getting a closer look at the upper masonry, they uncovered significant, acute defects to the front stone gable and a leaning pediment thanks to traffic polution ands water damage.
\r\nThe council's ultimate goal is to complete the core stabilization so that the building can be safely brought back into active community use. They have been working in tandem with the local community group Junction Arch Heritage and Arts (JAHA).
\r\nJAHA has been working to secure National Lottery Heritage funding to transform the arch into a permanent community heritage and arts hub, featuring space for local art exhibitions, one-off community events, and a small café—carrying on the vision originally championed by late local coordinator Nick Cooksey.
\r\nNot many towns and cities are know for their junctions and especially one named after a cemetery, but that's Reading for you..!
\r\n\r\n
", "description": "Discover the story of Reading's famous Cemetery Junction, from its 1840s origins as a Victorian garden cemetery to its evolution into a bustling urban transit hub.", "dateModified": "2026-06-01T07:08:54.888370+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-06-01T16:14:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/cemetery-junction-behind-readings-busiest-landmark/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "439", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/dining-out-why-osaka-is-a-must-visit-for-japanese-food-lovers-in-reading/", "title": "Osaka", "content_html": "
In my younger days I had a thing for everything Japanese. I think it came from doing judo and then karate and then doing my major in Japanese film.
\r\nMy interest extended to Japanese food and I learnt how to cook basic dishes whilst still at uni.
\r\nBack then, before the days of even YoSushi!, the first Japanese restaurants I went to were in Paris. One even had food on a conveyor belt, long before they appeared in the UK and became YoSushi!'s main gimmick.
\r\nThere were a handful of ultra expensive Japanese restaurants around Bond St and then there was the Japan Centre in Brewer St, which is were I ate my first sushi and tempura. Those where the days when the Swiss Centre promoted Switzerland not M&Ms and many countries sought to excert a cultural influence in London. Part of the problem was that Japan was so successful and the UK was in such dire straits that they felt obliged to do some foodie PR. Perhaps we Brits missed a trick, with English breakfasts on the Costa del Sol being our international outreach effort. Ho hum.
\r\nThe thing about Japanese food is that it is very diverse and very specialist. In Japan, it's not unusual to find restaurants that specialise in one dish, let alone one style of cooking (or so I understand, since I have still not managed to visit - I hear that it's actually quite a cost effective holiday these days and they could do with our British pounds, being by now the most indebted developed country on earth).
\r\nThere's ramen and udon and ramen and all the noodle soups, there's tepyaki and teryaki and yakatori. There's tempura, and, of course, sushi, but also kaiseki for formaldining and izakaya for Japanese pub food.
\r\nReading has lots of sushi joints. Both Waitrose and M&S have dedicated sushi counters. But almost all are takeaways, and some do specialise.
\r\nThe brand new Sume on Broad St does Japanese noodles as does Marugame Udon down by Oracle Riverside; IroSushi and YouMe Sushi have small shopfronts on Friar St., Kokoro and Itsu are just round the corner. Out of Oxford Road there's Oishi.
\r\nSushimania has always had a good reputation but is likely to shortly fall victim to the redevelopment of Broad St Mall but remains on the must visit list. Up in Lower Earley there's Blissful Umami, which I think has a sister restaurant in Wokingham, which itself has by now a choice of sushi joints.
\r\nIntoku and Osaka are two reasonably independent Japanese restaurants in the town centre, both offer a slightly more diverse range of dishes than the norm.
\r\nSo, for a town with hardly any European restaurants and only one gastropub in the centre, there are choices, choices and choices of Japanese food, So it was high time the inReading food blog went Japanese.
\r\nAfter a long tour of the northern and western coasts of his native Scotland, G was back in town and it was time for a catch up.
\r\nOn my last visit to Osaka my wife and I had taken her god daughter and sister who live in Singapore. Their mum runs a VC in Japan and they eat sushi weekly and compared Osaka favourably with the places they were used to in the Far East. Which is high praise indeed, and after a run of really bad experiences I wanted to write a positive review.
\r\nThe biggest bugbear I have about sushi is how predictable it is. Salmon, salmon, salmon and a bit of tuna, the odd prawn and maybe some mackerel (which sadly we shouldn't be eating at present).
\r\nBut Osaka presents a reassuringly delicious range of fishy options including octopus, prawns, eels, crab and, yes, tuna and salmon.
\r\nI arrived to find G sipping a beer and eating crackers with dipping sauce. I ordered the Kirin Ichiban (number one) Japanese beer and nibbled on the crackers, which I found a tad tasteless and a bit soggy, and I am a fan of prawn crackers, so I would give these a miss unless you really are ravenous and need something whilst waiting. G accurately called them 'Japanese Rivita' and they were by some distance the worst part of the meal.
\r\n\r\n
.![\"PXL_20260521_112751795.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/382d04c8.webp\")
\r\n
Two beers and a proper catchup later over his journeys to Scotland and my journey of a lifetime to Egypt, we were ready to order.
\r\nOn a Thursday lunchtime it was moderately busy and around half full in the downstairs part. (These things are important to report in these bedevilled days).
\r\nWe ordered spicy tuna maki, which came with the fish and sauce on top of the seaweed and rice roll. It was just the right side of hot warm in the mouth, but tuna is a very subtle fish and, on reflection,with sushi this good, less may be better and the ordinary tuna makimight have been a better call. Next time.
\r\n\r\n
![\"PXL_20260521_121204302.MP.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/33fb679f.webp\")
Green dragon uramaki with generous 'Western' fillings of cucumber (for crunch, I guess) and avocado (for smootheness) along with the deep fried prawn in batter.
At this point it'sworth talking rice. Sushi rice is slightly sticky and glutious and cut with a very little vinegar. Whereas in an Indian or Chinese restaurant there is great room for inaccuracy, the mainstay of sushi has to be the quality of the rice. It needs to be chewy but soft with a very slight acidic taste. I notice when the rice changes - I had a very bad lot from Waitrose lately, where the rice was ever so slightly undercooked, but this meant that nothing worked (my wife works from home on a Friday and sushi from Waitrose in caversham is our fish Friday - she is a lapsed Catholic, after all..). Osaka's rice is exemplary.
\r\nLikewise Tempura is a measure of any Japanese kitchen. We ordered the selection which generously included prawn, courgette, beans and carrot with a teryaki like dipping sauce. Personally, I like some chilli mayo with my tempura. And that is the beauty of Japanese food - for a country that eats KFC quasi-religiously on Christmas Day as an aftermath from US occupation, anything quirky goes.
\r\n\r\n
![\"PXL_20260521_121148956.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/b0f35e49.webp\")
Tempura is also not easy to get right and this batter was as good as I have tasted, with carrot tempura being a revelation - a hard vegetable surprisingly lends itself well to being battered and deep fried, and was the very unusual highlight of this meal, among many other high notes. I pointed out that this could be a revelation to the good people of Glasgow, but G ignored me...
\r\nFinally G enthusiastically insisted that we had takoyaki balls. They are basically profiteroles with strong fishy creamy filling of pureed octopus topped with mayo, bonita (tuna) and nori (seaweed) flakes. I had never tried them before and probably will not again, despite eating two of them, which came atop a bowl of crispy salad. I'm not sure what it was, but when profiteroles are one of your favourite things in life (I used to live around the corner from the immortal original Popelini in Paris).
\r\nAnd of course, some delicious, smooth Junmai Gingo saki which with its slightly fruity taste went extremely well with the meal. I am no sake expert but had this one before in New York and it is to be recommended. At the equivalent of £30 a full bottle for an similar wine it is also very good value.
\r\nThe portions at Osaka are more than generous at sensible prices and our idea of continuing with noodles will now have to wait for another day.
\r\nIt's not hard to see why Osaka is thriving and the group is looking to open another branch at Station Hill (although that is now long delayed and you wonder if it is a sensible move in these straitened times). One Osaka may very well be enough for Reading, along with all those other Japanese takeaways.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260521_121404395.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/16cfda1f.webp\")
\r\n
Sushi Roundup
\r\nSome of the types of sushi that you will encounter in your journeys around Reading's Japanese restaurants and takeaways are:
\r\nNigiri - a small mound of rice topped with a slice of fish or other ingredient such as Sake (salmon), Maguro (tuna), Ebi (shrimp), Unagi (grilled eel) ir Tamago (sweet egg)
\r\nMaki - rolled rice and fillings rolled in seaweed (nori) wrap and sliced into bite sized pieces such as Hosomaki (thin rolls, 1 filling), Futomaki (thick rolls, multiple fillings), Kappa maki (cucumber) and Tekka maki (tuna).
\r\nUramaki - 'inside out rolls' with rice on the outside, seaweed inside - rather more popular outside Japan with variations such as California roll (crab, avocado, cucumber), Dragon roll (eel, avocado), Rainbow roll (topped with mixed fish) and Spider roll (soft-shell crab). Can come with hot sauce or crunchy onion toppings. They're often more elaborate and “Westernised.”
\r\nSashimi - slices of raw fish without rice so technically not sushi. Salmon, tuna, yellowtail, octopus, etc. Just pure fish—no rice, no distractions but with prices to match.
\r\nTemaki - cone-shaped rolls meant to be eaten by hand, filled with rice, fish or veg.
\r\nOshizushi - pressed sushi made in a mould, then cut into blocks. Common in Osaka (the place)-style sushi it tends to be firm, neat, and slightly different texture.
\r\nChirashi - is a bowl of sushi rice topped with assorted fish and ingredients - sort of “deconstructed sushi.”
\r\nInari Sushi - rice stuffed inside sweet fried tofu pockets that are mild, slightly sweet - a good vegetarian option.
", "content_text": "In my younger days I had a thing for everything Japanese. I think it came from doing judo and then karate and then doing my major in Japanese film. \r\nMy interest extended to Japanese food and I learnt how to cook basic dishes whilst still at uni.\r\nBack then, before the days of even YoSushi!, the first Japanese restaurants I went to were in Paris. One even had food on a conveyor belt, long before they appeared in the UK and became YoSushi!'s main gimmick.\r\nThere were a handful of ultra expensive Japanese restaurants around Bond St and then there was the Japan Centre in Brewer St, which is were I ate my first sushi and tempura. Those where the days when the Swiss Centre promoted Switzerland not M&Ms and many countries sought to excert a cultural influence in London. Part of the problem was that Japan was so successful and the UK was in such dire straits that they felt obliged to do some foodie PR. Perhaps we Brits missed a trick, with English breakfasts on the Costa del Sol being our international outreach effort. Ho hum.\r\nThe thing about Japanese food is that it is very diverse and very specialist. In Japan, it's not unusual to find restaurants that specialise in one dish, let alone one style of cooking (or so I understand, since I have still not managed to visit - I hear that it's actually quite a cost effective holiday these days and they could do with our British pounds, being by now the most indebted developed country on earth).\r\nThere's ramen and udon and ramen and all the noodle soups, there's tepyaki and teryaki and yakatori. There's tempura, and, of course, sushi, but also kaiseki for formaldining and izakaya for Japanese pub food.\r\nReading has lots of sushi joints. Both Waitrose and M&S have dedicated sushi counters. But almost all are takeaways, and some do specialise.\r\nThe brand new Sume on Broad St does Japanese noodles as does Marugame Udon down by Oracle Riverside; IroSushi and YouMe Sushi have small shopfronts on Friar St., Kokoro and Itsu are just round the corner. Out of Oxford Road there's Oishi.\r\nSushimania has always had a good reputation but is likely to shortly fall victim to the redevelopment of Broad St Mall but remains on the must visit list. Up in Lower Earley there's Blissful Umami, which I think has a sister restaurant in Wokingham, which itself has by now a choice of sushi joints.\r\nIntoku and Osaka are two reasonably independent Japanese restaurants in the town centre, both offer a slightly more diverse range of dishes than the norm.\r\nSo, for a town with hardly any European restaurants and only one gastropub in the centre, there are choices, choices and choices of Japanese food, So it was high time the inReading food blog went Japanese.\r\nAfter a long tour of the northern and western coasts of his native Scotland, G was back in town and it was time for a catch up.\r\nOn my last visit to Osaka my wife and I had taken her god daughter and sister who live in Singapore. Their mum runs a VC in Japan and they eat sushi weekly and compared Osaka favourably with the places they were used to in the Far East. Which is high praise indeed, and after a run of really bad experiences I wanted to write a positive review.\r\nThe biggest bugbear I have about sushi is how predictable it is. Salmon, salmon, salmon and a bit of tuna, the odd prawn and maybe some mackerel (which sadly we shouldn't be eating at present).\r\nBut Osaka presents a reassuringly delicious range of fishy options including octopus, prawns, eels, crab and, yes, tuna and salmon.\r\nI arrived to find G sipping a beer and eating crackers with dipping sauce. I ordered the Kirin Ichiban (number one) Japanese beer and nibbled on the crackers, which I found a tad tasteless and a bit soggy, and I am a fan of prawn crackers, so I would give these a miss unless you really are ravenous and need something whilst waiting. G accurately called them 'Japanese Rivita' and they were by some distance the worst part of the meal.\r\n \r\n.\r\n \r\nTwo beers and a proper catchup later over his journeys to Scotland and my journey of a lifetime to Egypt, we were ready to order.\r\nOn a Thursday lunchtime it was moderately busy and around half full in the downstairs part. (These things are important to report in these bedevilled days).\r\nWe ordered spicy tuna maki, which came with the fish and sauce on top of the seaweed and rice roll. It was just the right side of hot warm in the mouth, but tuna is a very subtle fish and, on reflection,with sushi this good, less may be better and the ordinary tuna makimight have been a better call. Next time.\r\n \r\n\r\nGreen dragon uramaki with generous 'Western' fillings of cucumber (for crunch, I guess) and avocado (for smootheness) along with the deep fried prawn in batter.\r\nAt this point it'sworth talking rice. Sushi rice is slightly sticky and glutious and cut with a very little vinegar. Whereas in an Indian or Chinese restaurant there is great room for inaccuracy, the mainstay of sushi has to be the quality of the rice. It needs to be chewy but soft with a very slight acidic taste. I notice when the rice changes - I had a very bad lot from Waitrose lately, where the rice was ever so slightly undercooked, but this meant that nothing worked (my wife works from home on a Friday and sushi from Waitrose in caversham is our fish Friday - she is a lapsed Catholic, after all..). Osaka's rice is exemplary.\r\nLikewise Tempura is a measure of any Japanese kitchen. We ordered the selection which generously included prawn, courgette, beans and carrot with a teryaki like dipping sauce. Personally, I like some chilli mayo with my tempura. And that is the beauty of Japanese food - for a country that eats KFC quasi-religiously on Christmas Day as an aftermath from US occupation, anything quirky goes.\r\n \r\n\r\nTempura is also not easy to get right and this batter was as good as I have tasted, with carrot tempura being a revelation - a hard vegetable surprisingly lends itself well to being battered and deep fried, and was the very unusual highlight of this meal, among many other high notes. I pointed out that this could be a revelation to the good people of Glasgow, but G ignored me...\r\nFinally G enthusiastically insisted that we had takoyaki balls. They are basically profiteroles with strong fishy creamy filling of pureed octopus topped with mayo, bonita (tuna) and nori (seaweed) flakes. I had never tried them before and probably will not again, despite eating two of them, which came atop a bowl of crispy salad. I'm not sure what it was, but when profiteroles are one of your favourite things in life (I used to live around the corner from the immortal original Popelini in Paris).\r\nAnd of course, some delicious, smooth Junmai Gingo saki which with its slightly fruity taste went extremely well with the meal. I am no sake expert but had this one before in New York and it is to be recommended. At the equivalent of £30 a full bottle for an similar wine it is also very good value.\r\nThe portions at Osaka are more than generous at sensible prices and our idea of continuing with noodles will now have to wait for another day.\r\nIt's not hard to see why Osaka is thriving and the group is looking to open another branch at Station Hill (although that is now long delayed and you wonder if it is a sensible move in these straitened times). One Osaka may very well be enough for Reading, along with all those other Japanese takeaways.\r\n\r\n \r\nSushi Roundup\r\nSome of the types of sushi that you will encounter in your journeys around Reading's Japanese restaurants and takeaways are:\r\nNigiri - a small mound of rice topped with a slice of fish or other ingredient such as Sake (salmon), Maguro (tuna), Ebi (shrimp), Unagi (grilled eel) ir Tamago (sweet egg)\r\nMaki - rolled rice and fillings rolled in seaweed (nori) wrap and sliced into bite sized pieces such as Hosomaki (thin rolls, 1 filling), Futomaki (thick rolls, multiple fillings), Kappa maki (cucumber) and Tekka maki (tuna).\r\nUramaki - 'inside out rolls' with rice on the outside, seaweed inside - rather more popular outside Japan with variations such as California roll (crab, avocado, cucumber), Dragon roll (eel, avocado), Rainbow roll (topped with mixed fish) and Spider roll (soft-shell crab). Can come with hot sauce or crunchy onion toppings. They're often more elaborate and “Westernised.”\r\nSashimi - slices of raw fish without rice so technically not sushi. Salmon, tuna, yellowtail, octopus, etc. Just pure fish—no rice, no distractions but with prices to match.\r\nTemaki - cone-shaped rolls meant to be eaten by hand, filled with rice, fish or veg.\r\nOshizushi - pressed sushi made in a mould, then cut into blocks. Common in Osaka (the place)-style sushi it tends to be firm, neat, and slightly different texture.\r\nChirashi - is a bowl of sushi rice topped with assorted fish and ingredients - sort of “deconstructed sushi.”\r\nInari Sushi - rice stuffed inside sweet fried tofu pockets that are mild, slightly sweet - a good vegetarian option.", "summary": "Reading is teeming with sushi spots, but does Osaka stand out from the crowd? Join us for an honest review of this town-centre Japanese restaurant and its diverse menu.", "date_published": "2026-06-01T08:00:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-12T20:48:54.025214+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/05/a2663b2b.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p56af8945/2026/05/a2663b2b.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Osaka", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1679, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "In my younger days I had a thing for everything Japanese. I think it came from doing judo and then karate and then doing my major in Japanese film.
\r\nMy interest extended to Japanese food and I learnt how to cook basic dishes whilst still at uni.
\r\nBack then, before the days of even YoSushi!, the first Japanese restaurants I went to were in Paris. One even had food on a conveyor belt, long before they appeared in the UK and became YoSushi!'s main gimmick.
\r\nThere were a handful of ultra expensive Japanese restaurants around Bond St and then there was the Japan Centre in Brewer St, which is were I ate my first sushi and tempura. Those where the days when the Swiss Centre promoted Switzerland not M&Ms and many countries sought to excert a cultural influence in London. Part of the problem was that Japan was so successful and the UK was in such dire straits that they felt obliged to do some foodie PR. Perhaps we Brits missed a trick, with English breakfasts on the Costa del Sol being our international outreach effort. Ho hum.
\r\nThe thing about Japanese food is that it is very diverse and very specialist. In Japan, it's not unusual to find restaurants that specialise in one dish, let alone one style of cooking (or so I understand, since I have still not managed to visit - I hear that it's actually quite a cost effective holiday these days and they could do with our British pounds, being by now the most indebted developed country on earth).
\r\nThere's ramen and udon and ramen and all the noodle soups, there's tepyaki and teryaki and yakatori. There's tempura, and, of course, sushi, but also kaiseki for formaldining and izakaya for Japanese pub food.
\r\nReading has lots of sushi joints. Both Waitrose and M&S have dedicated sushi counters. But almost all are takeaways, and some do specialise.
\r\nThe brand new Sume on Broad St does Japanese noodles as does Marugame Udon down by Oracle Riverside; IroSushi and YouMe Sushi have small shopfronts on Friar St., Kokoro and Itsu are just round the corner. Out of Oxford Road there's Oishi.
\r\nSushimania has always had a good reputation but is likely to shortly fall victim to the redevelopment of Broad St Mall but remains on the must visit list. Up in Lower Earley there's Blissful Umami, which I think has a sister restaurant in Wokingham, which itself has by now a choice of sushi joints.
\r\nIntoku and Osaka are two reasonably independent Japanese restaurants in the town centre, both offer a slightly more diverse range of dishes than the norm.
\r\nSo, for a town with hardly any European restaurants and only one gastropub in the centre, there are choices, choices and choices of Japanese food, So it was high time the inReading food blog went Japanese.
\r\nAfter a long tour of the northern and western coasts of his native Scotland, G was back in town and it was time for a catch up.
\r\nOn my last visit to Osaka my wife and I had taken her god daughter and sister who live in Singapore. Their mum runs a VC in Japan and they eat sushi weekly and compared Osaka favourably with the places they were used to in the Far East. Which is high praise indeed, and after a run of really bad experiences I wanted to write a positive review.
\r\nThe biggest bugbear I have about sushi is how predictable it is. Salmon, salmon, salmon and a bit of tuna, the odd prawn and maybe some mackerel (which sadly we shouldn't be eating at present).
\r\nBut Osaka presents a reassuringly delicious range of fishy options including octopus, prawns, eels, crab and, yes, tuna and salmon.
\r\nI arrived to find G sipping a beer and eating crackers with dipping sauce. I ordered the Kirin Ichiban (number one) Japanese beer and nibbled on the crackers, which I found a tad tasteless and a bit soggy, and I am a fan of prawn crackers, so I would give these a miss unless you really are ravenous and need something whilst waiting. G accurately called them 'Japanese Rivita' and they were by some distance the worst part of the meal.
\r\n\r\n
.
\r\n
Two beers and a proper catchup later over his journeys to Scotland and my journey of a lifetime to Egypt, we were ready to order.
\r\nOn a Thursday lunchtime it was moderately busy and around half full in the downstairs part. (These things are important to report in these bedevilled days).
\r\nWe ordered spicy tuna maki, which came with the fish and sauce on top of the seaweed and rice roll. It was just the right side of hot warm in the mouth, but tuna is a very subtle fish and, on reflection,with sushi this good, less may be better and the ordinary tuna makimight have been a better call. Next time.
\r\n\r\n
Green dragon uramaki with generous 'Western' fillings of cucumber (for crunch, I guess) and avocado (for smootheness) along with the deep fried prawn in batter.
At this point it'sworth talking rice. Sushi rice is slightly sticky and glutious and cut with a very little vinegar. Whereas in an Indian or Chinese restaurant there is great room for inaccuracy, the mainstay of sushi has to be the quality of the rice. It needs to be chewy but soft with a very slight acidic taste. I notice when the rice changes - I had a very bad lot from Waitrose lately, where the rice was ever so slightly undercooked, but this meant that nothing worked (my wife works from home on a Friday and sushi from Waitrose in caversham is our fish Friday - she is a lapsed Catholic, after all..). Osaka's rice is exemplary.
\r\nLikewise Tempura is a measure of any Japanese kitchen. We ordered the selection which generously included prawn, courgette, beans and carrot with a teryaki like dipping sauce. Personally, I like some chilli mayo with my tempura. And that is the beauty of Japanese food - for a country that eats KFC quasi-religiously on Christmas Day as an aftermath from US occupation, anything quirky goes.
\r\n\r\n
Tempura is also not easy to get right and this batter was as good as I have tasted, with carrot tempura being a revelation - a hard vegetable surprisingly lends itself well to being battered and deep fried, and was the very unusual highlight of this meal, among many other high notes. I pointed out that this could be a revelation to the good people of Glasgow, but G ignored me...
\r\nFinally G enthusiastically insisted that we had takoyaki balls. They are basically profiteroles with strong fishy creamy filling of pureed octopus topped with mayo, bonita (tuna) and nori (seaweed) flakes. I had never tried them before and probably will not again, despite eating two of them, which came atop a bowl of crispy salad. I'm not sure what it was, but when profiteroles are one of your favourite things in life (I used to live around the corner from the immortal original Popelini in Paris).
\r\nAnd of course, some delicious, smooth Junmai Gingo saki which with its slightly fruity taste went extremely well with the meal. I am no sake expert but had this one before in New York and it is to be recommended. At the equivalent of £30 a full bottle for an similar wine it is also very good value.
\r\nThe portions at Osaka are more than generous at sensible prices and our idea of continuing with noodles will now have to wait for another day.
\r\nIt's not hard to see why Osaka is thriving and the group is looking to open another branch at Station Hill (although that is now long delayed and you wonder if it is a sensible move in these straitened times). One Osaka may very well be enough for Reading, along with all those other Japanese takeaways.
\r\n
\r\n
Sushi Roundup
\r\nSome of the types of sushi that you will encounter in your journeys around Reading's Japanese restaurants and takeaways are:
\r\nNigiri - a small mound of rice topped with a slice of fish or other ingredient such as Sake (salmon), Maguro (tuna), Ebi (shrimp), Unagi (grilled eel) ir Tamago (sweet egg)
\r\nMaki - rolled rice and fillings rolled in seaweed (nori) wrap and sliced into bite sized pieces such as Hosomaki (thin rolls, 1 filling), Futomaki (thick rolls, multiple fillings), Kappa maki (cucumber) and Tekka maki (tuna).
\r\nUramaki - 'inside out rolls' with rice on the outside, seaweed inside - rather more popular outside Japan with variations such as California roll (crab, avocado, cucumber), Dragon roll (eel, avocado), Rainbow roll (topped with mixed fish) and Spider roll (soft-shell crab). Can come with hot sauce or crunchy onion toppings. They're often more elaborate and “Westernised.”
\r\nSashimi - slices of raw fish without rice so technically not sushi. Salmon, tuna, yellowtail, octopus, etc. Just pure fish—no rice, no distractions but with prices to match.
\r\nTemaki - cone-shaped rolls meant to be eaten by hand, filled with rice, fish or veg.
\r\nOshizushi - pressed sushi made in a mould, then cut into blocks. Common in Osaka (the place)-style sushi it tends to be firm, neat, and slightly different texture.
\r\nChirashi - is a bowl of sushi rice topped with assorted fish and ingredients - sort of “deconstructed sushi.”
\r\nInari Sushi - rice stuffed inside sweet fried tofu pockets that are mild, slightly sweet - a good vegetarian option.
", "description": "Reading is teeming with sushi spots, but does Osaka stand out from the crowd? Join us for an honest review of this town-centre Japanese restaurant and its diverse menu.", "dateModified": "2026-06-12T20:48:54.025214+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-06-01T08:00:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/dining-out-why-osaka-is-a-must-visit-for-japanese-food-lovers-in-reading/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "436", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/reading-in-reading-a-new-chapter-for-our-libraries/", "title": "Reading In Reading: A New Chapter For Our Libraries", "content_html": "Reading’s library scene is having quite the moment. Between major relocations, shiny new facilities and a quiet revolution in what a library card can unlock, the borough’s book\u2011lovers are stepping into a very different future — one that blends community spaces, digital perks and a surprising number of hidden freebies.
\r\n\r\n
Reading’s brand\u2011new Central Library, a bright, modern space at the Civic Centre on Bridge Street, will be opening its doors on 18 June.
\r\nThe old King’s Road site has now closed so that 60,000 books can be moved across town. During the transition, nothing is due back and, in true Reading style, no fines apply! In fact, reading does not impose library fines - you just have to buy the book if you don't return it, which seems fair enough !
\r\nThe new building will have almost 100 work and study spaces, a dedicated teen zone, a larger children’s library wrapped in woodland\u2011themed décor, and a new community events hub called The Square. There will be tablets, laptops, free Wi\u2011Fi, and a refreshed local history section for anyone tracing their Berkshire roots.
\r\nCouncil Leader Liz Terry calls it “a new chapter for library services in the town,” commenting that the former site had become “dark and doesn’t have the facilities residents now require.”
\r\n\r\n
Meanwhile, Winnersh Library is packing its shelves once again. Currently tucked inside The Forest School, it made a temporary hop to the Rainbow Community Centre and Children’s Centre over Easter. The council is apparently sketching out a long\u2011term plan to settle the library at Winnersh Community Centre.
\r\nRachel Bishop\u2011Firth, the councillor overseeing resident services, says the temporary home could become more than a stopgap. “At Rainbow Park, the library will be next to a children’s centre… we may be able to keep some library facility there if the main library moves to the community centre,” she explains.
\r\nFrom associations with Jane Austen to Michael Bond, Reading has a literary tradition centuries long.
\r\n\r\n
![\"AI](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/documents/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/dd2f7e17.png\")
Reading’s library tradition reaches back to the medieval era and Reading Abbey, whose monastic library was “large and important”, with a 13th\u2011century catalogue listing 228 volumes and manuscripts that later found their way into major public collections.
\r\nAfter the Abbey’s dissolution, the town’s appetite for learning resurfaced in the 19th century through reading rooms and subscription libraries, part of a wider Victorian push for self\u2011improvement.
\r\nLike many expanding industrial towns in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Reading had several reading rooms and men's institutes. These spaces were established to provide working-class men with alternatives to the pub, offering access to newspapers, books, and educational lectures.
\r\nKey historical venues in Reading included The Reading Mechanics’ Institute, established in 1826 at 4 London Road, it provided adult education, a library, and reading rooms for local tradesmen. It evolved into a miniature technical college before merging with the University Extension College (now the University of Reading). St. Giles Working Men's Club and Reading Room was located on the corner of Southampton Street and Crown Street, founded in the 19th century to provide a social, literary, and educational hub for local laborers.
\r\nThe GWR (Great Western Railway) operated institutes for its workforce, providing newspapers, reading material, and societal rooms. Throughout the greater Reading area (such as in Shinfield), smaller localized reading rooms were set up by local landowners and churches to promote self-help and rational recreation.
\r\nYet, despite the Public Libraries Act 1850, Reading’s council hesitated to fund a free public library until 1875, when William Isaac Palmer of Huntley & Palmers personally paid to establish a Free Library in West Street; its popularity finally persuaded the borough to adopt the Act in 1877 and create a municipal service.
\r\nA purpose\u2011built public library was then woven into the extension of Reading Town Hall, opening in October 1882 alongside the museum and art school and becoming the civic heart of reading and research for generations.
\r\nOver the 20th century, provision spread outwards as branch libraries appeared in growing suburbs, embedding books, newspapers and quiet study space into neighbourhood life.
\r\nIn 1985, the Town Hall library was replaced by the new King’s Road Central Library, purpose\u2011built as the County Library for Berkshire and serving as Reading’s main hub until the latest shift to the Civic Centre site.
\r\n\r\n
While the library buildings are changing, the biggest surprises may be hiding in your wallet. Reading’s library card has quietly evolved into a pass for streaming, learning, research and even household essentials.
\r\nFor example, residents in the food\u2011waste scheme can pick up free green caddy liners from any Reading library — a small but satisfying perk that can save a few pounds every year.
\r\nInside the local library branches, you can settle into a seat and explore BFI Replay, the British Film Institute’s vast archive of digitised film and TV. Access is in\u2011library only, and you’ll need your card and PIN to log in.
\r\nThe National Theatre Collection is also available on library computers, offering high\u2011quality recordings of major stage productions — just remember to bring headphones unless you want to share Hamlet with the entire building.
\r\nMusic lovers, meanwhile, can take Naxos Music Library home with them. With millions of classical, jazz and world\u2011music tracks, it’s essentially a premium streaming service that comes free with your library membership.
\r\n![\"new](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/16cd9f79.webp\")
PressReader and Libby turn your card into a global newspaper and magazine subscription, offering everything from The Washington Post to Vogue at no cost.
\r\nFor learners, the library’s online portal includes Transparent Language, Theory Test Pro, and GoCitizen, covering everything from ESOL to driving theory to the Life in the UK test.
\r\nAnd for family historians, Ancestry Library Edition is available on\u2011site — a treasure trove for anyone digging into Berkshire’s past.
\r\n\r\n
With six other community libraries — Battle, Caversham, Palmer Park, Southcote, Tilehurst and Whitley — still open throughout the transition, Reading’s network remains as active as ever. These branches continue to offer book loans, audiobooks, printing and computer access while the Central Library prepares for its grand opening.
\r\nIt seems that in the AI era, llibraries are no longer just places to borrow books. They’re cultural hubs, digital gateways, family spaces and, increasingly, essential community infrastructure.
\r\nIf you haven’t visited in a while, this summer might be the perfect time to rediscover what your library card can really do!
\r\n", "content_text": "Reading’s library scene is having quite the moment. Between major relocations, shiny new facilities and a quiet revolution in what a library card can unlock, the borough’s book\u2011lovers are stepping into a very different future — one that blends community spaces, digital perks and a surprising number of hidden freebies.\r\n \r\nReading’s New Central Library\r\nReading’s brand\u2011new Central Library, a bright, modern space at the Civic Centre on Bridge Street, will be opening its doors on 18 June.\r\nThe old King’s Road site has now closed so that 60,000 books can be moved across town. During the transition, nothing is due back and, in true Reading style, no fines apply! In fact, reading does not impose library fines - you just have to buy the book if you don't return it, which seems fair enough !\r\nThe new building will have almost 100 work and study spaces, a dedicated teen zone, a larger children’s library wrapped in woodland\u2011themed décor, and a new community events hub called The Square. There will be tablets, laptops, free Wi\u2011Fi, and a refreshed local history section for anyone tracing their Berkshire roots.\r\nCouncil Leader Liz Terry calls it “a new chapter for library services in the town,” commenting that the former site had become “dark and doesn’t have the facilities residents now require.”\r\n \r\nWinnersh on the Move\r\nMeanwhile, Winnersh Library is packing its shelves once again. Currently tucked inside The Forest School, it made a temporary hop to the Rainbow Community Centre and Children’s Centre over Easter. The council is apparently sketching out a long\u2011term plan to settle the library at Winnersh Community Centre.\r\nRachel Bishop\u2011Firth, the councillor overseeing resident services, says the temporary home could become more than a stopgap. “At Rainbow Park, the library will be next to a children’s centre… we may be able to keep some library facility there if the main library moves to the community centre,” she explains.\r\nFrom associations with Jane Austen to Michael Bond, Reading has a literary tradition centuries long.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nA Tradition Of Reading in Reading\r\nReading’s library tradition reaches back to the medieval era and Reading Abbey, whose monastic library was “large and important”, with a 13th\u2011century catalogue listing 228 volumes and manuscripts that later found their way into major public collections. \r\nAfter the Abbey’s dissolution, the town’s appetite for learning resurfaced in the 19th century through reading rooms and subscription libraries, part of a wider Victorian push for self\u2011improvement.\r\nLike many expanding industrial towns in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Reading had several reading rooms and men's institutes. These spaces were established to provide working-class men with alternatives to the pub, offering access to newspapers, books, and educational lectures.\r\nKey historical venues in Reading included The Reading Mechanics’ Institute, established in 1826 at 4 London Road, it provided adult education, a library, and reading rooms for local tradesmen. It evolved into a miniature technical college before merging with the University Extension College (now the University of Reading). St. Giles Working Men's Club and Reading Room was located on the corner of Southampton Street and Crown Street, founded in the 19th century to provide a social, literary, and educational hub for local laborers.\r\nThe GWR (Great Western Railway) operated institutes for its workforce, providing newspapers, reading material, and societal rooms. Throughout the greater Reading area (such as in Shinfield), smaller localized reading rooms were set up by local landowners and churches to promote self-help and rational recreation.\r\nYet, despite the Public Libraries Act 1850, Reading’s council hesitated to fund a free public library until 1875, when William Isaac Palmer of Huntley & Palmers personally paid to establish a Free Library in West Street; its popularity finally persuaded the borough to adopt the Act in 1877 and create a municipal service.\r\nA purpose\u2011built public library was then woven into the extension of Reading Town Hall, opening in October 1882 alongside the museum and art school and becoming the civic heart of reading and research for generations.\r\nOver the 20th century, provision spread outwards as branch libraries appeared in growing suburbs, embedding books, newspapers and quiet study space into neighbourhood life.\r\nIn 1985, the Town Hall library was replaced by the new King’s Road Central Library, purpose\u2011built as the County Library for Berkshire and serving as Reading’s main hub until the latest shift to the Civic Centre site.\r\n \r\nThe Secret Superpowers of Your Library Card\r\nWhile the library buildings are changing, the biggest surprises may be hiding in your wallet. Reading’s library card has quietly evolved into a pass for streaming, learning, research and even household essentials.\r\nFor example, residents in the food\u2011waste scheme can pick up free green caddy liners from any Reading library — a small but satisfying perk that can save a few pounds every year.\r\nInside the local library branches, you can settle into a seat and explore BFI Replay, the British Film Institute’s vast archive of digitised film and TV. Access is in\u2011library only, and you’ll need your card and PIN to log in. \r\nThe National Theatre Collection is also available on library computers, offering high\u2011quality recordings of major stage productions — just remember to bring headphones unless you want to share Hamlet with the entire building.\r\nMusic lovers, meanwhile, can take Naxos Music Library home with them. With millions of classical, jazz and world\u2011music tracks, it’s essentially a premium streaming service that comes free with your library membership.\r\n\r\nA Digital Newsstand and a Classroom in Your Pocket\r\nPressReader and Libby turn your card into a global newspaper and magazine subscription, offering everything from The Washington Post to Vogue at no cost.\r\nFor learners, the library’s online portal includes Transparent Language, Theory Test Pro, and GoCitizen, covering everything from ESOL to driving theory to the Life in the UK test.\r\nAnd for family historians, Ancestry Library Edition is available on\u2011site — a treasure trove for anyone digging into Berkshire’s past.\r\n \r\nA Community Hub for the Future\r\nWith six other community libraries — Battle, Caversham, Palmer Park, Southcote, Tilehurst and Whitley — still open throughout the transition, Reading’s network remains as active as ever. These branches continue to offer book loans, audiobooks, printing and computer access while the Central Library prepares for its grand opening.\r\nIt seems that in the AI era, llibraries are no longer just places to borrow books. They’re cultural hubs, digital gateways, family spaces and, increasingly, essential community infrastructure.\r\nIf you haven’t visited in a while, this summer might be the perfect time to rediscover what your library card can really do!\r\n ", "summary": "From the grand opening of the new Central Library at the Civic Centre to major relocations in Winnersh, Reading's library network is undergoing a major transformation. Discover the new features, digital perks, and rich history behind the town's evolving literary landscape.", "date_published": "2026-06-01T08:00:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-01T07:09:45.934484+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/da768c17.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/da768c17.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Reading In Reading: A New Chapter For Our Libraries", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1141, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
Reading’s library scene is having quite the moment. Between major relocations, shiny new facilities and a quiet revolution in what a library card can unlock, the borough’s book\u2011lovers are stepping into a very different future — one that blends community spaces, digital perks and a surprising number of hidden freebies.
\r\n\r\n
Reading’s brand\u2011new Central Library, a bright, modern space at the Civic Centre on Bridge Street, will be opening its doors on 18 June.
\r\nThe old King’s Road site has now closed so that 60,000 books can be moved across town. During the transition, nothing is due back and, in true Reading style, no fines apply! In fact, reading does not impose library fines - you just have to buy the book if you don't return it, which seems fair enough !
\r\nThe new building will have almost 100 work and study spaces, a dedicated teen zone, a larger children’s library wrapped in woodland\u2011themed décor, and a new community events hub called The Square. There will be tablets, laptops, free Wi\u2011Fi, and a refreshed local history section for anyone tracing their Berkshire roots.
\r\nCouncil Leader Liz Terry calls it “a new chapter for library services in the town,” commenting that the former site had become “dark and doesn’t have the facilities residents now require.”
\r\n\r\n
Meanwhile, Winnersh Library is packing its shelves once again. Currently tucked inside The Forest School, it made a temporary hop to the Rainbow Community Centre and Children’s Centre over Easter. The council is apparently sketching out a long\u2011term plan to settle the library at Winnersh Community Centre.
\r\nRachel Bishop\u2011Firth, the councillor overseeing resident services, says the temporary home could become more than a stopgap. “At Rainbow Park, the library will be next to a children’s centre… we may be able to keep some library facility there if the main library moves to the community centre,” she explains.
\r\nFrom associations with Jane Austen to Michael Bond, Reading has a literary tradition centuries long.
\r\n\r\n
Reading’s library tradition reaches back to the medieval era and Reading Abbey, whose monastic library was “large and important”, with a 13th\u2011century catalogue listing 228 volumes and manuscripts that later found their way into major public collections.
\r\nAfter the Abbey’s dissolution, the town’s appetite for learning resurfaced in the 19th century through reading rooms and subscription libraries, part of a wider Victorian push for self\u2011improvement.
\r\nLike many expanding industrial towns in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Reading had several reading rooms and men's institutes. These spaces were established to provide working-class men with alternatives to the pub, offering access to newspapers, books, and educational lectures.
\r\nKey historical venues in Reading included The Reading Mechanics’ Institute, established in 1826 at 4 London Road, it provided adult education, a library, and reading rooms for local tradesmen. It evolved into a miniature technical college before merging with the University Extension College (now the University of Reading). St. Giles Working Men's Club and Reading Room was located on the corner of Southampton Street and Crown Street, founded in the 19th century to provide a social, literary, and educational hub for local laborers.
\r\nThe GWR (Great Western Railway) operated institutes for its workforce, providing newspapers, reading material, and societal rooms. Throughout the greater Reading area (such as in Shinfield), smaller localized reading rooms were set up by local landowners and churches to promote self-help and rational recreation.
\r\nYet, despite the Public Libraries Act 1850, Reading’s council hesitated to fund a free public library until 1875, when William Isaac Palmer of Huntley & Palmers personally paid to establish a Free Library in West Street; its popularity finally persuaded the borough to adopt the Act in 1877 and create a municipal service.
\r\nA purpose\u2011built public library was then woven into the extension of Reading Town Hall, opening in October 1882 alongside the museum and art school and becoming the civic heart of reading and research for generations.
\r\nOver the 20th century, provision spread outwards as branch libraries appeared in growing suburbs, embedding books, newspapers and quiet study space into neighbourhood life.
\r\nIn 1985, the Town Hall library was replaced by the new King’s Road Central Library, purpose\u2011built as the County Library for Berkshire and serving as Reading’s main hub until the latest shift to the Civic Centre site.
\r\n\r\n
While the library buildings are changing, the biggest surprises may be hiding in your wallet. Reading’s library card has quietly evolved into a pass for streaming, learning, research and even household essentials.
\r\nFor example, residents in the food\u2011waste scheme can pick up free green caddy liners from any Reading library — a small but satisfying perk that can save a few pounds every year.
\r\nInside the local library branches, you can settle into a seat and explore BFI Replay, the British Film Institute’s vast archive of digitised film and TV. Access is in\u2011library only, and you’ll need your card and PIN to log in.
\r\nThe National Theatre Collection is also available on library computers, offering high\u2011quality recordings of major stage productions — just remember to bring headphones unless you want to share Hamlet with the entire building.
\r\nMusic lovers, meanwhile, can take Naxos Music Library home with them. With millions of classical, jazz and world\u2011music tracks, it’s essentially a premium streaming service that comes free with your library membership.
\r\n
PressReader and Libby turn your card into a global newspaper and magazine subscription, offering everything from The Washington Post to Vogue at no cost.
\r\nFor learners, the library’s online portal includes Transparent Language, Theory Test Pro, and GoCitizen, covering everything from ESOL to driving theory to the Life in the UK test.
\r\nAnd for family historians, Ancestry Library Edition is available on\u2011site — a treasure trove for anyone digging into Berkshire’s past.
\r\n\r\n
With six other community libraries — Battle, Caversham, Palmer Park, Southcote, Tilehurst and Whitley — still open throughout the transition, Reading’s network remains as active as ever. These branches continue to offer book loans, audiobooks, printing and computer access while the Central Library prepares for its grand opening.
\r\nIt seems that in the AI era, llibraries are no longer just places to borrow books. They’re cultural hubs, digital gateways, family spaces and, increasingly, essential community infrastructure.
\r\nIf you haven’t visited in a while, this summer might be the perfect time to rediscover what your library card can really do!
\r\n", "description": "From the grand opening of the new Central Library at the Civic Centre to major relocations in Winnersh, Reading's library network is undergoing a major transformation. Discover the new features, digital perks, and rich history behind the town's evolving literary landscape.", "dateModified": "2026-06-01T07:09:45.934484+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-06-01T08:00:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/reading-in-reading-a-new-chapter-for-our-libraries/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "437", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-flowing-spring/", "title": "The Flowing Spring", "content_html": "
For the over twelve years I have lived in Reading I have had The Flowing Spring on my to do list. Every time I drove past it, usually going to or from Henley, I would say to myself 'I must go there', but had never managed it. So a trip to the nearby garden centre to boost the garden for summer seemed like an excellent opportunity and excuse, especially since the garden centre, unusually, does not have a full blown caff (although the coffee van gets rave reviews).
\r\nReading is ringed by garden centres, which seem to regulalry change hands and one day have a Waitrose supermarket and Cotton Trader franchise in store, and the next don't.
\r\nBath Road around Hare Hatch used to be garden centre mile, but Dobbies recently sold their massive site, Sheplands is now something else and other centres lie empty.
\r\nSo off up the Henley Road it was and then finally on to The Flowing Spring, foolishly leaving our purchases to wilt in the spring heatleaving lessof a flowering spring...
\r\n\r\n
![\"PXL_20260502_124129990.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/0ea3cf28.webp\")
We arrived at 12:30 and the pub was deserted. I was grateful that the large car park was empty since the spaces look tight. It's not somewhere to drive to on a busy day in an SUV, I suspect.
\r\nSo it does beg the question how this lovely little pub survives, especially since there are two more just off the roundabout and a collection of places to drink a short walk away in Sonning village.
\r\nThe answer seems to be music and cars.
\r\nThere is a large marquee in the garden where regular gigs are held, often with tribute bands, and there are regular car and bike enthusiast meets in the car park.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260502_120235680.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/e04b8584.webp\")
\r\n
It's a decent site backing onto the Sonning flood plain, but on a sunny day sitting outside the traffic on the busy Henley Road is intrusive. It's also nearly impossible to get to by public transport with the nearest bus stop being on the roundabout a half pavement less mile away.
\r\nI really wanted to love this quirky pub with its great selection of real ales and odball decor playing dad music (I appreciated that Michael Macdonald was on as I walked in). Initially, it seemed like I had found my mothership. Deserted.
\r\nIt was so empty when we arrived that I shouted out to check if they were open. Another couple arrived after half an hour, but the car park and terrace remained depressingly empty for a Saturday afternoon, which was, perhaps, telling.
\r\nThe menu is eclectic - the usual burger, fish and chips and pizza, but also some more interesting dishes such as the venison, salmon or veggies with giant Yorkshire puds or the veggie and meat kebabs, and there are a good selection of smaller dishes, sandwiches and baked potatoes.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260502_124030398.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/9f3de889.webp\")
The beer selection is properly hardcore, many of the beers and ciders are local from Renegade and Tutts amonst others.
\r\nMy wife decided on good old fish and chips (and it wasn't even a Friday) whilst I was tempted by the chilli, especially the version in Yorkshire puds, but opted for the shwarma kebab since it sounded interesting and I had just been watching John Chantarasak's take on a Thai kebab inspired by Cardif's chippy street on Great British Menu the previous evening. I quite like a riff on a classic. We ordered and it all came to just under £50 with a shandy and a pint of Tutts cider.
\r\nDespite being the only punters it took the kitchen a good forty minutes to get up to speed and it truly was not worth the wait.
\r\n\r\n
![\"PXL_20260502_121608267.MP.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/c219d7c7.webp\")
The fish batter was advertised as glutten free, looked great but tasted a bit chewy - the white fish inside was OK. The chips were standard package large frozen ones and the peas were unmushy, as I believe theyr should be.
\r\nAsking for sauces, my wife received tubes of Heinz Tomato sause and Heinz Fish & Chips sauce (which I guess is their version of tartare - who knew that was a thing ? ).
\r\nShe wasn't very impressed and left more than half of her meal.
\r\nMy meal was even more depressing. A flatbread just out of the packet and cold, topped with lots of shredded lettuce, tomato, cucumber and red onion, still cold from the fridge, topped with some strange rubbery squiggles of meat that looked like dog food.
\r\n![\"PXL_20260502_121649559.jpg\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/69d81240.webp\")
I did have two tiny bowls of sauce on the side - a hot one and a yoghurt one, both tatsed vinegary like they had come out of a bottle.
\r\nI managed a few mouthfuls and then gave up. It was really bad and pointless.
\r\nI was just back from holiday in Egypt so perhaps a kebab was a bad call, but it does astound me that pubs can still get away with food this bad.
\r\nI really, really wanted to like The Flowing Spring. I wanted to find an excuse to take an expensive cab here and back as we do to The Mill at Sonning or the Crooked Billet at Stoke Row, but after this experience this would be for the beer and the music.
\r\nSo, come for the beer, come for the music but on evidence of our lunch, I won't be coming back for the food.
\r\n\r\n
", "content_text": "For the over twelve years I have lived in Reading I have had The Flowing Spring on my to do list. Every time I drove past it, usually going to or from Henley, I would say to myself 'I must go there', but had never managed it. So a trip to the nearby garden centre to boost the garden for summer seemed like an excellent opportunity and excuse, especially since the garden centre, unusually, does not have a full blown caff (although the coffee van gets rave reviews).\r\nReading is ringed by garden centres, which seem to regulalry change hands and one day have a Waitrose supermarket and Cotton Trader franchise in store, and the next don't.\r\nBath Road around Hare Hatch used to be garden centre mile, but Dobbies recently sold their massive site, Sheplands is now something else and other centres lie empty.\r\nSo off up the Henley Road it was and then finally on to The Flowing Spring, foolishly leaving our purchases to wilt in the spring heatleaving lessof a flowering spring...\r\n \r\n\r\nWe arrived at 12:30 and the pub was deserted. I was grateful that the large car park was empty since the spaces look tight. It's not somewhere to drive to on a busy day in an SUV, I suspect.\r\nSo it does beg the question how this lovely little pub survives, especially since there are two more just off the roundabout and a collection of places to drink a short walk away in Sonning village.\r\nThe answer seems to be music and cars. \r\nThere is a large marquee in the garden where regular gigs are held, often with tribute bands, and there are regular car and bike enthusiast meets in the car park.\r\n\r\n \r\nIt's a decent site backing onto the Sonning flood plain, but on a sunny day sitting outside the traffic on the busy Henley Road is intrusive. It's also nearly impossible to get to by public transport with the nearest bus stop being on the roundabout a half pavement less mile away.\r\nI really wanted to love this quirky pub with its great selection of real ales and odball decor playing dad music (I appreciated that Michael Macdonald was on as I walked in). Initially, it seemed like I had found my mothership. Deserted.\r\nIt was so empty when we arrived that I shouted out to check if they were open. Another couple arrived after half an hour, but the car park and terrace remained depressingly empty for a Saturday afternoon, which was, perhaps, telling.\r\nThe menu is eclectic - the usual burger, fish and chips and pizza, but also some more interesting dishes such as the venison, salmon or veggies with giant Yorkshire puds or the veggie and meat kebabs, and there are a good selection of smaller dishes, sandwiches and baked potatoes.\r\n\r\nThe beer selection is properly hardcore, many of the beers and ciders are local from Renegade and Tutts amonst others.\r\nMy wife decided on good old fish and chips (and it wasn't even a Friday) whilst I was tempted by the chilli, especially the version in Yorkshire puds, but opted for the shwarma kebab since it sounded interesting and I had just been watching John Chantarasak's take on a Thai kebab inspired by Cardif's chippy street on Great British Menu the previous evening. I quite like a riff on a classic. We ordered and it all came to just under £50 with a shandy and a pint of Tutts cider.\r\nDespite being the only punters it took the kitchen a good forty minutes to get up to speed and it truly was not worth the wait.\r\n \r\n\r\nThe fish batter was advertised as glutten free, looked great but tasted a bit chewy - the white fish inside was OK. The chips were standard package large frozen ones and the peas were unmushy, as I believe theyr should be.\r\nAsking for sauces, my wife received tubes of Heinz Tomato sause and Heinz Fish & Chips sauce (which I guess is their version of tartare - who knew that was a thing ? ).\r\nShe wasn't very impressed and left more than half of her meal.\r\nMy meal was even more depressing. A flatbread just out of the packet and cold, topped with lots of shredded lettuce, tomato, cucumber and red onion, still cold from the fridge, topped with some strange rubbery squiggles of meat that looked like dog food.\r\n\r\nI did have two tiny bowls of sauce on the side - a hot one and a yoghurt one, both tatsed vinegary like they had come out of a bottle.\r\nI managed a few mouthfuls and then gave up. It was really bad and pointless.\r\nI was just back from holiday in Egypt so perhaps a kebab was a bad call, but it does astound me that pubs can still get away with food this bad.\r\nI really, really wanted to like The Flowing Spring. I wanted to find an excuse to take an expensive cab here and back as we do to The Mill at Sonning or the Crooked Billet at Stoke Row, but after this experience this would be for the beer and the music.\r\nSo, come for the beer, come for the music but on evidence of our lunch, I won't be coming back for the food.\r\n \r\n ", "summary": "After years of intending to visit, we finally stopped by The Flowing Spring near Henley. Unfortunately, a promising atmosphere and local ale selection couldn't save a lackluster meal.", "date_published": "2026-06-01T08:00:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-01T07:09:18.481811+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/0ea3cf28.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/0ea3cf28.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "The Flowing Spring", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 982, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
For the over twelve years I have lived in Reading I have had The Flowing Spring on my to do list. Every time I drove past it, usually going to or from Henley, I would say to myself 'I must go there', but had never managed it. So a trip to the nearby garden centre to boost the garden for summer seemed like an excellent opportunity and excuse, especially since the garden centre, unusually, does not have a full blown caff (although the coffee van gets rave reviews).
\r\nReading is ringed by garden centres, which seem to regulalry change hands and one day have a Waitrose supermarket and Cotton Trader franchise in store, and the next don't.
\r\nBath Road around Hare Hatch used to be garden centre mile, but Dobbies recently sold their massive site, Sheplands is now something else and other centres lie empty.
\r\nSo off up the Henley Road it was and then finally on to The Flowing Spring, foolishly leaving our purchases to wilt in the spring heatleaving lessof a flowering spring...
\r\n\r\n
We arrived at 12:30 and the pub was deserted. I was grateful that the large car park was empty since the spaces look tight. It's not somewhere to drive to on a busy day in an SUV, I suspect.
\r\nSo it does beg the question how this lovely little pub survives, especially since there are two more just off the roundabout and a collection of places to drink a short walk away in Sonning village.
\r\nThe answer seems to be music and cars.
\r\nThere is a large marquee in the garden where regular gigs are held, often with tribute bands, and there are regular car and bike enthusiast meets in the car park.
\r\n
\r\n
It's a decent site backing onto the Sonning flood plain, but on a sunny day sitting outside the traffic on the busy Henley Road is intrusive. It's also nearly impossible to get to by public transport with the nearest bus stop being on the roundabout a half pavement less mile away.
\r\nI really wanted to love this quirky pub with its great selection of real ales and odball decor playing dad music (I appreciated that Michael Macdonald was on as I walked in). Initially, it seemed like I had found my mothership. Deserted.
\r\nIt was so empty when we arrived that I shouted out to check if they were open. Another couple arrived after half an hour, but the car park and terrace remained depressingly empty for a Saturday afternoon, which was, perhaps, telling.
\r\nThe menu is eclectic - the usual burger, fish and chips and pizza, but also some more interesting dishes such as the venison, salmon or veggies with giant Yorkshire puds or the veggie and meat kebabs, and there are a good selection of smaller dishes, sandwiches and baked potatoes.
\r\n
The beer selection is properly hardcore, many of the beers and ciders are local from Renegade and Tutts amonst others.
\r\nMy wife decided on good old fish and chips (and it wasn't even a Friday) whilst I was tempted by the chilli, especially the version in Yorkshire puds, but opted for the shwarma kebab since it sounded interesting and I had just been watching John Chantarasak's take on a Thai kebab inspired by Cardif's chippy street on Great British Menu the previous evening. I quite like a riff on a classic. We ordered and it all came to just under £50 with a shandy and a pint of Tutts cider.
\r\nDespite being the only punters it took the kitchen a good forty minutes to get up to speed and it truly was not worth the wait.
\r\n\r\n
The fish batter was advertised as glutten free, looked great but tasted a bit chewy - the white fish inside was OK. The chips were standard package large frozen ones and the peas were unmushy, as I believe theyr should be.
\r\nAsking for sauces, my wife received tubes of Heinz Tomato sause and Heinz Fish & Chips sauce (which I guess is their version of tartare - who knew that was a thing ? ).
\r\nShe wasn't very impressed and left more than half of her meal.
\r\nMy meal was even more depressing. A flatbread just out of the packet and cold, topped with lots of shredded lettuce, tomato, cucumber and red onion, still cold from the fridge, topped with some strange rubbery squiggles of meat that looked like dog food.
\r\n
I did have two tiny bowls of sauce on the side - a hot one and a yoghurt one, both tatsed vinegary like they had come out of a bottle.
\r\nI managed a few mouthfuls and then gave up. It was really bad and pointless.
\r\nI was just back from holiday in Egypt so perhaps a kebab was a bad call, but it does astound me that pubs can still get away with food this bad.
\r\nI really, really wanted to like The Flowing Spring. I wanted to find an excuse to take an expensive cab here and back as we do to The Mill at Sonning or the Crooked Billet at Stoke Row, but after this experience this would be for the beer and the music.
\r\nSo, come for the beer, come for the music but on evidence of our lunch, I won't be coming back for the food.
\r\n\r\n
", "description": "After years of intending to visit, we finally stopped by The Flowing Spring near Henley. Unfortunately, a promising atmosphere and local ale selection couldn't save a lackluster meal.", "dateModified": "2026-06-01T07:09:18.481811+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-06-01T08:00:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-flowing-spring/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "435", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-thames-valley-tectonic-shift-decoding-reading-and-wokinghams-political-earthquake/", "title": "A Permanent Political Shift ?", "content_html": "
The political landscape across the Thames Valley has shifted after the recent local elections.
\r\nIf one thing was clear from last month's local elections in Reading and Wokingham it is that we no longer live in a two party state or even a two party region. The Tories who long dominated Wokingham, and Labour, who have had a near monopoly in town, are now part of a five party system comprising of the Lib Dems, the Greens and Reform UK.
\r\nRecent local council elections have served as a litmus test for the national mood, exposing deep fissures in the traditional party strongholds that have defined our region for decades with the Tories and Labour swapping MPs roughly in line with the national vote, so what are the results and implications for our area based on the local results ?
\r\nNo councils changed hands, but the trend is undisputable: we now live in an era of multi party European type politics where we are unlikely to see one or two parties dominate again for the foreseeable future.
\r\nAs we unpack the specific numbers from Reading Borough Council and Wokingham Borough Council, the reality is that the old political binary is dying, and something more volatile and unpredictable is taking its place. The data suggests that the comfortable margins of the past have evaporated, leaving candidates to navigate an increasingly hostile and fragmented electorate that no longer responds to the traditional hegemony.
\r\n\r\n
Reading Borough Council: The Consolidation of Labour Dominance
\r\nReading’s political landscape has been thoroughly shaken up. While Labour managed to hold onto overall control of Reading Borough Council with 29 seats, their historic grip on the town is loosening as voters demand a fresh direction.
\r\nThe biggest story of the night belongs to the Green Party, who achieved their best-ever result in Reading. Expanding their presence to 11 seats, the Greens have firmly cemented themselves as the official opposition. In a series of dramatic upsets, Green challengers unseated three high-profile, long-serving Labour cabinet members in Abbey, Thames, and Coley wards.
\r\nThis targeted surge proves that localized progressive and environmental dissatisfaction is changing the face of municipal politics.
\r\nDespite capturing national headlines and securing thousands of protest votes across our wards, the ultra right Reform UK failed to break through in a deeply multi ethnic town. The party entered election night with one councillor—former Conservative leader Clarence Mitchell, who had defected to Reform—but lost the seat back to the Tories in Emmer Green. Reform leaves the chamber with zero councillors, though local party leaders insist their solid vote shares in areas like Kentwood and Norcot provide a foundation for the future.
\r\nThe new 48-seat council chamber leaves Labour with 29 seats (down 4), the Greens with 11 (up 3), the Conservatives with 5 (up 1), and the Liberal Democrats holding steady at 3.
\r\nWhile Labour leader Liz Terry still commands a functional majority to pass budgets, the loss of key executive cabinet members means the ruling party faces a highly energized, emboldened Green opposition with a reshuffle already undereway. Expect much tougher debates ahead on local climate policies, community safety, and local town infrastructure.
\r\n\r\n
Wokingham: The Collapse of the Conservative Heartland
\r\nIf Reading represents the consolidation of power, Wokingham offers a stark, cautionary tale of the Conservative Party’s decline in what was once considered an unassailable bastion of Tory support where thatcherist hardliner John Redwood held a seat for nearly forty years.
\r\nWokingham was the archetype of the suburban blue wall—a place where the ballot box was considered a formality rather than a choice. Yet, the recent electoral outcomes have dismantled this myth step-by-step.
\r\nThe steady erosion of the Conservative majority, replaced by a complex, multi-party landscape involving the Liberal Democrats and independents, signals a profound identity crisis for local conservatism. Residents in Wokingham are no longer voting along traditional party lines; they are voting against an establishment that they feel has ignored the realities of over-development, strained public services, and the cost-of-living squeeze. on the surface the borough looks very affluent, but there is increasing evidence that this is hiding cracks underneath.
\r\nThe swing away from the Conservatives here is not just a protest - it is a fundamental realignment. Voters who once identified as natural Tories are finding that their values no longer align with the party’s direction at the local or national level. This shift is tectonic, and the Conservative Party machine, which once functioned like clockwork, now appears rusted and out of touch with the very people who built its success. Unlike in Reading, where the swing has been to the Greens, in Wokingham it is the Liberal Democrats who have benefitted, gaining another seat from Labour at the recent vote. The council now sits with: Liberal Democrats: 29 seats, Conservative Party: 19 seats, Labour Party: 5 seats and the Green Party: 1 seat
\r\n\r\n
Extrapolating to Westminster: The Next Election
\r\nAnother factor that has changed the political landscape locally was the massive Westminster boundary shake-up, dividing our area into three distinct battlegrounds. With possible local boundary changes also coming, directly mapping past results and current trends onto furture elections is difficult, but data from the independent tracking site PollCheck reveals that the upcoming election won’t just be a repeat of the past. Driven by shifting demographics, changing local council seats, and surging alternative parties, our three local constituencies are moving in completely unexpected directions.
\r\nHere is how the numbers look right now, and what they mean for the future of our local representation.
\r\nCurrent MP: Matt Rodda (Labour)
\r\n2024 General Election Result: Labour comfortable win (47.7%), Conservatives second (19.8%).
\r\nReading Central, which takes in the urban heart of the town, includingthe town centre, Caversham and the university areas—has looked like a safe bet for Labour since they won the predecessor seat back in 2017. Matt Rodda secured a massive 12,637-vote majority under the new boundaries.
\r\nHowever, the latest PollCheck data suggests a dramatic shift. While Labour still holds a lead, it is shrinking fast.
\r\n| Party | \r\n2024 Actual Vote | \r\nCurrent PollCheck Projection | \r\nChange | \r\n
| Labour | \r\n47.7% | \r\n35.7% | \r\n-12.0% | \r\n
| Green | \r\n14.2% | \r\n28.1% | \r\n+13.9% | \r\n
| Reform UK | \r\n8.6% | \r\n15.8% | \r\n+7.2% | \r\n
| Conservative | \r\n19.8% | \r\n12.1% | \r\n-7.7% | \r\n
| Lib Dem | \r\n8.8% | \r\n7.7% | \r\n-1.1% | \r\n
Reading Central is a highly educated, younger, and tenant-heavy constituency (45.2% of residents have a degree; over half rent privately or through social housing). This demographic mix is proving incredibly fertile ground for the Green Party.
\r\nThis isn't just hypothetical national polling data leaking in. Local council election data shows this shift happening live on our doorsteps. In the recent local ballots, wards like Park, Redlands, and Katesgrove saw massive swings away from Labour to elect Green councillors. Even central wards like Abbey and Coley flipped from Labour to Green. Reading Central is rapidly transforming from a Labour-Conservative battleground into a high-stakes Labour-Green progressive showdown.
\r\n\r\n
Current MP: Olivia Bailey (Labour)
\r\n2024 General Election Result: Labour gain from Conservative by just 1,361 votes.
\r\nIf Reading Central is a battle of ideas on the left, Reading West and Mid Berkshire is absolute political chaos. This vast, sprawling seat mixes working class suburban Tilehurst, Kentwood, and Norcot with affluent West Berkshire villages like Pangbourne, Bradfield, and Theale.
\r\nOlivia Bailey scraped a narrow 3.0% victory here, but current tracking indicates the seat has completely fractured into a three-way tie where tactical voting on the right may play a part int he electorcal outcome.
\r\n| Party | \r\n2024 Actual Vote | \r\nCurrent PollCheck Projection | \r\nChange | \r\n
| Labour | \r\n35.0% | \r\n24.3% | \r\n-10.7% | \r\n
| Reform UK | \r\n13.4% | \r\n24.1% | \r\n+10.7% | \r\n
| Conservative | \r\n32.0% | \r\n22.5% | \r\n-9.5% | \r\n
| Green | \r\n6.8% | \r\n17.5% | \r\n+10.7% | \r\n
| Lib Dem | \r\n11.0% | \r\n10.0% | \r\n-1.0% | \r\n
With 70.2% of homes being owner-occupied and a much higher median age (nearly 43), this seat naturally leans further right than its urban neighbor. However, traditional Conservative voters are fracturing.
\r\nAccording to PollCheck, Reform UK has surged into a statistical dead-heat with Labour, trailing by a microscopic 0.2 percentage points. At the same time, the Greens have nearly tripled their projected share to 17.5%, tearing into Labour’s left flank in suburban estates.
\r\nLocal council voting patterns emphasize this breakdown. In recent local elections, Labour’s vote share plummeted by 13.5 points in Kentwood and nearly 17 points in Norcot. Meanwhile, Tilehurst voters defected en masse to the Liberal Democrats, while Reform UK put up strong second-place finishes across the suburban wards.
\r\nThis is one of the most unpredictable marginal seats in the entire UK. A shift of just a few hundred voters could hand the seat to Labour, Reform UK, or the Conservatives.
\r\nCurrent MP: Yuan Yang (Labour)
\r\n2024 General Election Result: Labour historic win (40.4%), Conservatives second (31.7%).
\r\nThe creation of Earley and Woodley was the biggest surprise of the boundary review, pulling together distinct suburbs from Wokingham Borough with parts of East Reading (like Church ward) to form a brand-new entity. Yuan Yang took the historic first win for Labour with a majority of 4,374.
\r\nBecause this seat is built from disparate pieces across different local authorities, tracking it is notoriously difficult. Nationally, seats with this specific profile—graduate-heavy, middle-class suburban professionals with young families—are seeing intense tug-of-war dynamics.
\r\nWhile specific data access for this sub-profile is tighter, the broader trends impacting its surrounding neighbors apply directly here. The massive squeeze on the Labour vote seen in Central and West Reading means Yuan Yang will be playing serious defense.
\r\nThe outcome here rests entirely on a multi-directional split: Can the Conservatives win back the traditional, affluent suburban voters in Earley and Sonning? How deeply will the Lib Dems (who traditionally perform exceptionally well in Wokingham local elections) squeeze the centrist vote? Will the progressive, university-adjacent voters in the Reading end of the seat stay loyal to Labour or drift Green?
\r\nEarley and Woodley remains a highly volatile suburban wildcard. If the opposition vote remains fractured between the Conservatives, Lib Dems, and Reform, Labour could hold on through the middle. If any single opposition party consolidates that suburban discontent, it will go down to the wire.
\r\n\r\n
Infrastructure and Housing: The Unspoken Election Deciders
\r\nEven as immigration falls back and housebuilding slows, the single most contentious issue across both Reading and Wokingham remains the relentless pace of development. The three political constituencies by now represent one urban sprawl of high rise modern blocks and suburban identikit houses. Planning policy is the now the frontline of politics. The dog whistle politics of Reform UK and its social media supporters have somehow managed to instill the idea that immigrants not Thatecherite policies are responsible for the lack of social and affordable housing. Meanwhile, in the few remaining green belts such as the area around the proposed massive Loddon Valley 'new village' backed by the University, NIMBYism raises its head with voiciferous local opposition to even small scale developments.
\r\nLocal councillors have found themselves caught in a vice: the mandate to deliver housing quotas imposed by Westminster versus the vociferous opposition of existing residents who fear the erosion of their local character and this may well reflect results in the future national election.
\r\n\r\n
Demographic Shifts and the Changing Voter Profile
\r\nThe demographic composition of the Reading area is not what it was twenty, or even ten years ago. The influx of young professionals working in the tech sector, combined with the migration of families from London seeking more space and a considerable ethnic population has created a voter profile that is younger, more diverse, and less loyal to the traditional parties. Traditionally these were left leaning Labour supporters, but a combination of economic factors (these communities are getting wealthier), perceived Labour support for Israel against Palestine and an increase in more conservative orientated immigrants from India and Hong Kong
\r\nThis demographic is less concerned with the historical party allegiances of their parents and more focused on issues like environmental sustainability, public transport connectivity, and the cost of childcare. The local elections in Wokingham, in particular, showed a marked shift in voting patterns among younger demographics who are traditionally hard to reach but highly influential when they do turn out. Politicians who continue to focus their messaging on the 'traditional voter' are fundamentally misunderstanding the population they represent. The future of Reading’s politics belongs to those who can capture the imagination of this new, pragmatic, and highly mobile constituency that is quick to punish incompetence and slow to offer loyalty.
\r\n\r\n
Looking At The Bottom Line
\r\nBeyond the ideological battles, there is a simmering resentment regarding the fiscal management of our local councils across the UK - Reading and Workingham are reasonably solvent, but Slough and Windsor and Maindehead are in dire straits.
\r\nSlough Borough Council remains under the direct control of government-appointed commissioners, an intervention that was officially extended following its catastrophic Section 114 notice. Slough's crisis was originally triggered by historic financial mismanagement and a severe commercial debt portfolio. However, its ongoing instability is compounded by an acute budget gap driven by spiralling costs in temporary accommodation and adult social care.
\r\nJust a few miles away, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) has spent months on the absolute precipice of issuing its own Section 114 notice. RBWM's financial distress stems from a decade of keeping council tax artificially low alongside heavy borrowing, which completely eroded its financial resilience.
\r\nMeanwhile reading is spending over 70% of its budget on social care, leaving little left for other issues that voters see as important. This is being seized upon by Reform UK whodespite their racist policies and lack of any fundamental new vision for the country according to Electoral Calculus seem to be on course to be the majority party at the next election:
\r\n
Coalitions and the Fragility of Power
\r\nPerhaps the most compelling outcome and take away from the recent elections is the advent of the era of European like coallitions from the top to the bottom of government.
\r\nThe era of comfortable majorities is over, replaced by the need for negotiation, compromise, and constant political horse-trading. Arguably this is, in many ways, a return to a healthier, more deliberative form of democracy, but it is also one that is prone to gridlock and indecision. Ironically, the electoral imperitive for greater change will result in less.
\r\nThe ability to work across party lines is now a required skill set for any aspiring MP. Those who cannot build consensus will find it impossible to govern effectively in an environment where no single party holds all the cards. The Reading area is becoming a microcosm of a new national political reality: one where the messy business of compromise is the only way forward.
\r\n\r\n
", "content_text": "The political landscape across the Thames Valley has shifted after the recent local elections. \r\nIf one thing was clear from last month's local elections in Reading and Wokingham it is that we no longer live in a two party state or even a two party region. The Tories who long dominated Wokingham, and Labour, who have had a near monopoly in town, are now part of a five party system comprising of the Lib Dems, the Greens and Reform UK.\r\nRecent local council elections have served as a litmus test for the national mood, exposing deep fissures in the traditional party strongholds that have defined our region for decades with the Tories and Labour swapping MPs roughly in line with the national vote, so what are the results and implications for our area based on the local results ?\r\nNo councils changed hands, but the trend is undisputable: we now live in an era of multi party European type politics where we are unlikely to see one or two parties dominate again for the foreseeable future.\r\nAs we unpack the specific numbers from Reading Borough Council and Wokingham Borough Council, the reality is that the old political binary is dying, and something more volatile and unpredictable is taking its place. The data suggests that the comfortable margins of the past have evaporated, leaving candidates to navigate an increasingly hostile and fragmented electorate that no longer responds to the traditional hegemony.\r\n \r\nReading Borough Council: The Consolidation of Labour Dominance\r\nReading’s political landscape has been thoroughly shaken up. While Labour managed to hold onto overall control of Reading Borough Council with 29 seats, their historic grip on the town is loosening as voters demand a fresh direction.\r\nThe biggest story of the night belongs to the Green Party, who achieved their best-ever result in Reading. Expanding their presence to 11 seats, the Greens have firmly cemented themselves as the official opposition. In a series of dramatic upsets, Green challengers unseated three high-profile, long-serving Labour cabinet members in Abbey, Thames, and Coley wards.\r\nThis targeted surge proves that localized progressive and environmental dissatisfaction is changing the face of municipal politics.\r\nDespite capturing national headlines and securing thousands of protest votes across our wards, the ultra right Reform UK failed to break through in a deeply multi ethnic town. The party entered election night with one councillor—former Conservative leader Clarence Mitchell, who had defected to Reform—but lost the seat back to the Tories in Emmer Green. Reform leaves the chamber with zero councillors, though local party leaders insist their solid vote shares in areas like Kentwood and Norcot provide a foundation for the future.\r\nThe new 48-seat council chamber leaves Labour with 29 seats (down 4), the Greens with 11 (up 3), the Conservatives with 5 (up 1), and the Liberal Democrats holding steady at 3.\r\nWhile Labour leader Liz Terry still commands a functional majority to pass budgets, the loss of key executive cabinet members means the ruling party faces a highly energized, emboldened Green opposition with a reshuffle already undereway. Expect much tougher debates ahead on local climate policies, community safety, and local town infrastructure.\r\n \r\nWokingham: The Collapse of the Conservative Heartland\r\nIf Reading represents the consolidation of power, Wokingham offers a stark, cautionary tale of the Conservative Party’s decline in what was once considered an unassailable bastion of Tory support where thatcherist hardliner John Redwood held a seat for nearly forty years.\r\nWokingham was the archetype of the suburban blue wall—a place where the ballot box was considered a formality rather than a choice. Yet, the recent electoral outcomes have dismantled this myth step-by-step.\r\nThe steady erosion of the Conservative majority, replaced by a complex, multi-party landscape involving the Liberal Democrats and independents, signals a profound identity crisis for local conservatism. Residents in Wokingham are no longer voting along traditional party lines; they are voting against an establishment that they feel has ignored the realities of over-development, strained public services, and the cost-of-living squeeze. on the surface the borough looks very affluent, but there is increasing evidence that this is hiding cracks underneath.\r\nThe swing away from the Conservatives here is not just a protest - it is a fundamental realignment. Voters who once identified as natural Tories are finding that their values no longer align with the party’s direction at the local or national level. This shift is tectonic, and the Conservative Party machine, which once functioned like clockwork, now appears rusted and out of touch with the very people who built its success. Unlike in Reading, where the swing has been to the Greens, in Wokingham it is the Liberal Democrats who have benefitted, gaining another seat from Labour at the recent vote. The council now sits with: Liberal Democrats: 29 seats, Conservative Party: 19 seats, Labour Party: 5 seats and the Green Party: 1 seat\r\n \r\nExtrapolating to Westminster: The Next Election\r\n\r\nAnother factor that has changed the political landscape locally was the massive Westminster boundary shake-up, dividing our area into three distinct battlegrounds. With possible local boundary changes also coming, directly mapping past results and current trends onto furture elections is difficult, but data from the independent tracking site PollCheck reveals that the upcoming election won’t just be a repeat of the past. Driven by shifting demographics, changing local council seats, and surging alternative parties, our three local constituencies are moving in completely unexpected directions.\r\nHere is how the numbers look right now, and what they mean for the future of our local representation.\r\nReading Central: The Green Surge Threatens a Labour Stronghold\r\n\r\n\r\nCurrent MP: Matt Rodda (Labour)\r\n\r\n\r\n2024 General Election Result: Labour comfortable win (47.7%), Conservatives second (19.8%).\r\n\r\n\r\nReading Central, which takes in the urban heart of the town, includingthe town centre, Caversham and the university areas—has looked like a safe bet for Labour since they won the predecessor seat back in 2017. Matt Rodda secured a massive 12,637-vote majority under the new boundaries.\r\nHowever, the latest PollCheck data suggests a dramatic shift. While Labour still holds a lead, it is shrinking fast.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nParty\r\n2024 Actual Vote\r\nCurrent PollCheck Projection\r\nChange\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nLabour\r\n47.7%\r\n35.7%\r\n-12.0%\r\n\r\n\r\nGreen\r\n14.2%\r\n28.1%\r\n+13.9%\r\n\r\n\r\nReform UK\r\n8.6%\r\n15.8%\r\n+7.2%\r\n\r\n\r\nConservative\r\n19.8%\r\n12.1%\r\n-7.7%\r\n\r\n\r\nLib Dem\r\n8.8%\r\n7.7%\r\n-1.1%\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nReading Central is a highly educated, younger, and tenant-heavy constituency (45.2% of residents have a degree; over half rent privately or through social housing). This demographic mix is proving incredibly fertile ground for the Green Party.\r\nThis isn't just hypothetical national polling data leaking in. Local council election data shows this shift happening live on our doorsteps. In the recent local ballots, wards like Park, Redlands, and Katesgrove saw massive swings away from Labour to elect Green councillors. Even central wards like Abbey and Coley flipped from Labour to Green. Reading Central is rapidly transforming from a Labour-Conservative battleground into a high-stakes Labour-Green progressive showdown.\r\n \r\nReading West and Mid Berkshire: A Brand New Three-Way Knife-Edge\r\n\r\n\r\nCurrent MP: Olivia Bailey (Labour)\r\n\r\n\r\n2024 General Election Result: Labour gain from Conservative by just 1,361 votes.\r\n\r\n\r\nIf Reading Central is a battle of ideas on the left, Reading West and Mid Berkshire is absolute political chaos. This vast, sprawling seat mixes working class suburban Tilehurst, Kentwood, and Norcot with affluent West Berkshire villages like Pangbourne, Bradfield, and Theale.\r\nOlivia Bailey scraped a narrow 3.0% victory here, but current tracking indicates the seat has completely fractured into a three-way tie where tactical voting on the right may play a part int he electorcal outcome.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nParty\r\n2024 Actual Vote\r\nCurrent PollCheck Projection\r\nChange\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nLabour\r\n35.0%\r\n24.3%\r\n-10.7%\r\n\r\n\r\nReform UK\r\n13.4%\r\n24.1%\r\n+10.7%\r\n\r\n\r\nConservative\r\n32.0%\r\n22.5%\r\n-9.5%\r\n\r\n\r\nGreen\r\n6.8%\r\n17.5%\r\n+10.7%\r\n\r\n\r\nLib Dem\r\n11.0%\r\n10.0%\r\n-1.0%\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWith 70.2% of homes being owner-occupied and a much higher median age (nearly 43), this seat naturally leans further right than its urban neighbor. However, traditional Conservative voters are fracturing.\r\nAccording to PollCheck, Reform UK has surged into a statistical dead-heat with Labour, trailing by a microscopic 0.2 percentage points. At the same time, the Greens have nearly tripled their projected share to 17.5%, tearing into Labour’s left flank in suburban estates.\r\nLocal council voting patterns emphasize this breakdown. In recent local elections, Labour’s vote share plummeted by 13.5 points in Kentwood and nearly 17 points in Norcot. Meanwhile, Tilehurst voters defected en masse to the Liberal Democrats, while Reform UK put up strong second-place finishes across the suburban wards.\r\nThis is one of the most unpredictable marginal seats in the entire UK. A shift of just a few hundred voters could hand the seat to Labour, Reform UK, or the Conservatives.\r\nEarley and Woodley: The Suburban Wildcard\r\n\r\n\r\nCurrent MP: Yuan Yang (Labour)\r\n\r\n\r\n2024 General Election Result: Labour historic win (40.4%), Conservatives second (31.7%).\r\n\r\n\r\nThe creation of Earley and Woodley was the biggest surprise of the boundary review, pulling together distinct suburbs from Wokingham Borough with parts of East Reading (like Church ward) to form a brand-new entity. Yuan Yang took the historic first win for Labour with a majority of 4,374.\r\nBecause this seat is built from disparate pieces across different local authorities, tracking it is notoriously difficult. Nationally, seats with this specific profile—graduate-heavy, middle-class suburban professionals with young families—are seeing intense tug-of-war dynamics.\r\nWhile specific data access for this sub-profile is tighter, the broader trends impacting its surrounding neighbors apply directly here. The massive squeeze on the Labour vote seen in Central and West Reading means Yuan Yang will be playing serious defense.\r\nThe outcome here rests entirely on a multi-directional split: Can the Conservatives win back the traditional, affluent suburban voters in Earley and Sonning? How deeply will the Lib Dems (who traditionally perform exceptionally well in Wokingham local elections) squeeze the centrist vote? Will the progressive, university-adjacent voters in the Reading end of the seat stay loyal to Labour or drift Green?\r\nEarley and Woodley remains a highly volatile suburban wildcard. If the opposition vote remains fractured between the Conservatives, Lib Dems, and Reform, Labour could hold on through the middle. If any single opposition party consolidates that suburban discontent, it will go down to the wire.\r\n\r\n \r\nInfrastructure and Housing: The Unspoken Election Deciders\r\nEven as immigration falls back and housebuilding slows, the single most contentious issue across both Reading and Wokingham remains the relentless pace of development. The three political constituencies by now represent one urban sprawl of high rise modern blocks and suburban identikit houses. Planning policy is the now the frontline of politics. The dog whistle politics of Reform UK and its social media supporters have somehow managed to instill the idea that immigrants not Thatecherite policies are responsible for the lack of social and affordable housing. Meanwhile, in the few remaining green belts such as the area around the proposed massive Loddon Valley 'new village' backed by the University, NIMBYism raises its head with voiciferous local opposition to even small scale developments.\r\nLocal councillors have found themselves caught in a vice: the mandate to deliver housing quotas imposed by Westminster versus the vociferous opposition of existing residents who fear the erosion of their local character and this may well reflect results in the future national election.\r\n \r\nDemographic Shifts and the Changing Voter Profile\r\nThe demographic composition of the Reading area is not what it was twenty, or even ten years ago. The influx of young professionals working in the tech sector, combined with the migration of families from London seeking more space and a considerable ethnic population has created a voter profile that is younger, more diverse, and less loyal to the traditional parties. Traditionally these were left leaning Labour supporters, but a combination of economic factors (these communities are getting wealthier), perceived Labour support for Israel against Palestine and an increase in more conservative orientated immigrants from India and Hong Kong \r\nThis demographic is less concerned with the historical party allegiances of their parents and more focused on issues like environmental sustainability, public transport connectivity, and the cost of childcare. The local elections in Wokingham, in particular, showed a marked shift in voting patterns among younger demographics who are traditionally hard to reach but highly influential when they do turn out. Politicians who continue to focus their messaging on the 'traditional voter' are fundamentally misunderstanding the population they represent. The future of Reading’s politics belongs to those who can capture the imagination of this new, pragmatic, and highly mobile constituency that is quick to punish incompetence and slow to offer loyalty.\r\n \r\nLooking At The Bottom Line\r\nBeyond the ideological battles, there is a simmering resentment regarding the fiscal management of our local councils across the UK - Reading and Workingham are reasonably solvent, but Slough and Windsor and Maindehead are in dire straits.\r\nSlough Borough Council remains under the direct control of government-appointed commissioners, an intervention that was officially extended following its catastrophic Section 114 notice. Slough's crisis was originally triggered by historic financial mismanagement and a severe commercial debt portfolio. However, its ongoing instability is compounded by an acute budget gap driven by spiralling costs in temporary accommodation and adult social care. \r\nJust a few miles away, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) has spent months on the absolute precipice of issuing its own Section 114 notice. RBWM's financial distress stems from a decade of keeping council tax artificially low alongside heavy borrowing, which completely eroded its financial resilience. \r\nMeanwhile reading is spending over 70% of its budget on social care, leaving little left for other issues that voters see as important. This is being seized upon by Reform UK whodespite their racist policies and lack of any fundamental new vision for the country according to Electoral Calculus seem to be on course to be the majority party at the next election:\r\n\r\nReform UK: 245 seats (up from 5) — Predicted to be the largest party but short of the 326 needed for an outright majority.\r\nConservative Party: 116 seats (down from 121) — Stabilising into second place after severe declines.\r\nLabour Party: 83 seats (down from 412) — Projected to fall to third place in a historic collapse of their 2024 parliamentary majority.\r\nLiberal Democrats: 61 seats (down from 72) — Remaining a stable minor force.\r\nGreen Party: 61 seats (up from 4) — Achieving a massive parliamentary breakthrough fueled by high support among younger voters.\r\nScottish National Party (SNP): 46 seats (up from 9) — Rebounding significantly in Scotland.\r\nPlaid Cymru: 15 seats (up from 4)\r\n\r\n \r\nCoalitions and the Fragility of Power\r\nPerhaps the most compelling outcome and take away from the recent elections is the advent of the era of European like coallitions from the top to the bottom of government. \r\nThe era of comfortable majorities is over, replaced by the need for negotiation, compromise, and constant political horse-trading. Arguably this is, in many ways, a return to a healthier, more deliberative form of democracy, but it is also one that is prone to gridlock and indecision. Ironically, the electoral imperitive for greater change will result in less.\r\nThe ability to work across party lines is now a required skill set for any aspiring MP. Those who cannot build consensus will find it impossible to govern effectively in an environment where no single party holds all the cards. The Reading area is becoming a microcosm of a new national political reality: one where the messy business of compromise is the only way forward.\r\n\r\n \r\n ", "summary": "Recent local elections have reshaped the Thames Valley\u2019s political landscape, cementing Labour's hold on Reading while signaling a historic collapse of the Conservative stronghold in Wokingham.", "date_published": "2026-06-01T08:00:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-01T08:02:54.459458+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/6d9eba52.webp", "tags": [ "News" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/6d9eba52.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "A Permanent Political Shift ?", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 3213, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
The political landscape across the Thames Valley has shifted after the recent local elections.
\r\nIf one thing was clear from last month's local elections in Reading and Wokingham it is that we no longer live in a two party state or even a two party region. The Tories who long dominated Wokingham, and Labour, who have had a near monopoly in town, are now part of a five party system comprising of the Lib Dems, the Greens and Reform UK.
\r\nRecent local council elections have served as a litmus test for the national mood, exposing deep fissures in the traditional party strongholds that have defined our region for decades with the Tories and Labour swapping MPs roughly in line with the national vote, so what are the results and implications for our area based on the local results ?
\r\nNo councils changed hands, but the trend is undisputable: we now live in an era of multi party European type politics where we are unlikely to see one or two parties dominate again for the foreseeable future.
\r\nAs we unpack the specific numbers from Reading Borough Council and Wokingham Borough Council, the reality is that the old political binary is dying, and something more volatile and unpredictable is taking its place. The data suggests that the comfortable margins of the past have evaporated, leaving candidates to navigate an increasingly hostile and fragmented electorate that no longer responds to the traditional hegemony.
\r\n\r\n
Reading Borough Council: The Consolidation of Labour Dominance
\r\nReading’s political landscape has been thoroughly shaken up. While Labour managed to hold onto overall control of Reading Borough Council with 29 seats, their historic grip on the town is loosening as voters demand a fresh direction.
\r\nThe biggest story of the night belongs to the Green Party, who achieved their best-ever result in Reading. Expanding their presence to 11 seats, the Greens have firmly cemented themselves as the official opposition. In a series of dramatic upsets, Green challengers unseated three high-profile, long-serving Labour cabinet members in Abbey, Thames, and Coley wards.
\r\nThis targeted surge proves that localized progressive and environmental dissatisfaction is changing the face of municipal politics.
\r\nDespite capturing national headlines and securing thousands of protest votes across our wards, the ultra right Reform UK failed to break through in a deeply multi ethnic town. The party entered election night with one councillor—former Conservative leader Clarence Mitchell, who had defected to Reform—but lost the seat back to the Tories in Emmer Green. Reform leaves the chamber with zero councillors, though local party leaders insist their solid vote shares in areas like Kentwood and Norcot provide a foundation for the future.
\r\nThe new 48-seat council chamber leaves Labour with 29 seats (down 4), the Greens with 11 (up 3), the Conservatives with 5 (up 1), and the Liberal Democrats holding steady at 3.
\r\nWhile Labour leader Liz Terry still commands a functional majority to pass budgets, the loss of key executive cabinet members means the ruling party faces a highly energized, emboldened Green opposition with a reshuffle already undereway. Expect much tougher debates ahead on local climate policies, community safety, and local town infrastructure.
\r\n\r\n
Wokingham: The Collapse of the Conservative Heartland
\r\nIf Reading represents the consolidation of power, Wokingham offers a stark, cautionary tale of the Conservative Party’s decline in what was once considered an unassailable bastion of Tory support where thatcherist hardliner John Redwood held a seat for nearly forty years.
\r\nWokingham was the archetype of the suburban blue wall—a place where the ballot box was considered a formality rather than a choice. Yet, the recent electoral outcomes have dismantled this myth step-by-step.
\r\nThe steady erosion of the Conservative majority, replaced by a complex, multi-party landscape involving the Liberal Democrats and independents, signals a profound identity crisis for local conservatism. Residents in Wokingham are no longer voting along traditional party lines; they are voting against an establishment that they feel has ignored the realities of over-development, strained public services, and the cost-of-living squeeze. on the surface the borough looks very affluent, but there is increasing evidence that this is hiding cracks underneath.
\r\nThe swing away from the Conservatives here is not just a protest - it is a fundamental realignment. Voters who once identified as natural Tories are finding that their values no longer align with the party’s direction at the local or national level. This shift is tectonic, and the Conservative Party machine, which once functioned like clockwork, now appears rusted and out of touch with the very people who built its success. Unlike in Reading, where the swing has been to the Greens, in Wokingham it is the Liberal Democrats who have benefitted, gaining another seat from Labour at the recent vote. The council now sits with: Liberal Democrats: 29 seats, Conservative Party: 19 seats, Labour Party: 5 seats and the Green Party: 1 seat
\r\n\r\n
Extrapolating to Westminster: The Next Election
\r\nAnother factor that has changed the political landscape locally was the massive Westminster boundary shake-up, dividing our area into three distinct battlegrounds. With possible local boundary changes also coming, directly mapping past results and current trends onto furture elections is difficult, but data from the independent tracking site PollCheck reveals that the upcoming election won’t just be a repeat of the past. Driven by shifting demographics, changing local council seats, and surging alternative parties, our three local constituencies are moving in completely unexpected directions.
\r\nHere is how the numbers look right now, and what they mean for the future of our local representation.
\r\nCurrent MP: Matt Rodda (Labour)
\r\n2024 General Election Result: Labour comfortable win (47.7%), Conservatives second (19.8%).
\r\nReading Central, which takes in the urban heart of the town, includingthe town centre, Caversham and the university areas—has looked like a safe bet for Labour since they won the predecessor seat back in 2017. Matt Rodda secured a massive 12,637-vote majority under the new boundaries.
\r\nHowever, the latest PollCheck data suggests a dramatic shift. While Labour still holds a lead, it is shrinking fast.
\r\n| Party | \r\n2024 Actual Vote | \r\nCurrent PollCheck Projection | \r\nChange | \r\n
| Labour | \r\n47.7% | \r\n35.7% | \r\n-12.0% | \r\n
| Green | \r\n14.2% | \r\n28.1% | \r\n+13.9% | \r\n
| Reform UK | \r\n8.6% | \r\n15.8% | \r\n+7.2% | \r\n
| Conservative | \r\n19.8% | \r\n12.1% | \r\n-7.7% | \r\n
| Lib Dem | \r\n8.8% | \r\n7.7% | \r\n-1.1% | \r\n
Reading Central is a highly educated, younger, and tenant-heavy constituency (45.2% of residents have a degree; over half rent privately or through social housing). This demographic mix is proving incredibly fertile ground for the Green Party.
\r\nThis isn't just hypothetical national polling data leaking in. Local council election data shows this shift happening live on our doorsteps. In the recent local ballots, wards like Park, Redlands, and Katesgrove saw massive swings away from Labour to elect Green councillors. Even central wards like Abbey and Coley flipped from Labour to Green. Reading Central is rapidly transforming from a Labour-Conservative battleground into a high-stakes Labour-Green progressive showdown.
\r\n\r\n
Current MP: Olivia Bailey (Labour)
\r\n2024 General Election Result: Labour gain from Conservative by just 1,361 votes.
\r\nIf Reading Central is a battle of ideas on the left, Reading West and Mid Berkshire is absolute political chaos. This vast, sprawling seat mixes working class suburban Tilehurst, Kentwood, and Norcot with affluent West Berkshire villages like Pangbourne, Bradfield, and Theale.
\r\nOlivia Bailey scraped a narrow 3.0% victory here, but current tracking indicates the seat has completely fractured into a three-way tie where tactical voting on the right may play a part int he electorcal outcome.
\r\n| Party | \r\n2024 Actual Vote | \r\nCurrent PollCheck Projection | \r\nChange | \r\n
| Labour | \r\n35.0% | \r\n24.3% | \r\n-10.7% | \r\n
| Reform UK | \r\n13.4% | \r\n24.1% | \r\n+10.7% | \r\n
| Conservative | \r\n32.0% | \r\n22.5% | \r\n-9.5% | \r\n
| Green | \r\n6.8% | \r\n17.5% | \r\n+10.7% | \r\n
| Lib Dem | \r\n11.0% | \r\n10.0% | \r\n-1.0% | \r\n
With 70.2% of homes being owner-occupied and a much higher median age (nearly 43), this seat naturally leans further right than its urban neighbor. However, traditional Conservative voters are fracturing.
\r\nAccording to PollCheck, Reform UK has surged into a statistical dead-heat with Labour, trailing by a microscopic 0.2 percentage points. At the same time, the Greens have nearly tripled their projected share to 17.5%, tearing into Labour’s left flank in suburban estates.
\r\nLocal council voting patterns emphasize this breakdown. In recent local elections, Labour’s vote share plummeted by 13.5 points in Kentwood and nearly 17 points in Norcot. Meanwhile, Tilehurst voters defected en masse to the Liberal Democrats, while Reform UK put up strong second-place finishes across the suburban wards.
\r\nThis is one of the most unpredictable marginal seats in the entire UK. A shift of just a few hundred voters could hand the seat to Labour, Reform UK, or the Conservatives.
\r\nCurrent MP: Yuan Yang (Labour)
\r\n2024 General Election Result: Labour historic win (40.4%), Conservatives second (31.7%).
\r\nThe creation of Earley and Woodley was the biggest surprise of the boundary review, pulling together distinct suburbs from Wokingham Borough with parts of East Reading (like Church ward) to form a brand-new entity. Yuan Yang took the historic first win for Labour with a majority of 4,374.
\r\nBecause this seat is built from disparate pieces across different local authorities, tracking it is notoriously difficult. Nationally, seats with this specific profile—graduate-heavy, middle-class suburban professionals with young families—are seeing intense tug-of-war dynamics.
\r\nWhile specific data access for this sub-profile is tighter, the broader trends impacting its surrounding neighbors apply directly here. The massive squeeze on the Labour vote seen in Central and West Reading means Yuan Yang will be playing serious defense.
\r\nThe outcome here rests entirely on a multi-directional split: Can the Conservatives win back the traditional, affluent suburban voters in Earley and Sonning? How deeply will the Lib Dems (who traditionally perform exceptionally well in Wokingham local elections) squeeze the centrist vote? Will the progressive, university-adjacent voters in the Reading end of the seat stay loyal to Labour or drift Green?
\r\nEarley and Woodley remains a highly volatile suburban wildcard. If the opposition vote remains fractured between the Conservatives, Lib Dems, and Reform, Labour could hold on through the middle. If any single opposition party consolidates that suburban discontent, it will go down to the wire.
\r\n\r\n
Infrastructure and Housing: The Unspoken Election Deciders
\r\nEven as immigration falls back and housebuilding slows, the single most contentious issue across both Reading and Wokingham remains the relentless pace of development. The three political constituencies by now represent one urban sprawl of high rise modern blocks and suburban identikit houses. Planning policy is the now the frontline of politics. The dog whistle politics of Reform UK and its social media supporters have somehow managed to instill the idea that immigrants not Thatecherite policies are responsible for the lack of social and affordable housing. Meanwhile, in the few remaining green belts such as the area around the proposed massive Loddon Valley 'new village' backed by the University, NIMBYism raises its head with voiciferous local opposition to even small scale developments.
\r\nLocal councillors have found themselves caught in a vice: the mandate to deliver housing quotas imposed by Westminster versus the vociferous opposition of existing residents who fear the erosion of their local character and this may well reflect results in the future national election.
\r\n\r\n
Demographic Shifts and the Changing Voter Profile
\r\nThe demographic composition of the Reading area is not what it was twenty, or even ten years ago. The influx of young professionals working in the tech sector, combined with the migration of families from London seeking more space and a considerable ethnic population has created a voter profile that is younger, more diverse, and less loyal to the traditional parties. Traditionally these were left leaning Labour supporters, but a combination of economic factors (these communities are getting wealthier), perceived Labour support for Israel against Palestine and an increase in more conservative orientated immigrants from India and Hong Kong
\r\nThis demographic is less concerned with the historical party allegiances of their parents and more focused on issues like environmental sustainability, public transport connectivity, and the cost of childcare. The local elections in Wokingham, in particular, showed a marked shift in voting patterns among younger demographics who are traditionally hard to reach but highly influential when they do turn out. Politicians who continue to focus their messaging on the 'traditional voter' are fundamentally misunderstanding the population they represent. The future of Reading’s politics belongs to those who can capture the imagination of this new, pragmatic, and highly mobile constituency that is quick to punish incompetence and slow to offer loyalty.
\r\n\r\n
Looking At The Bottom Line
\r\nBeyond the ideological battles, there is a simmering resentment regarding the fiscal management of our local councils across the UK - Reading and Workingham are reasonably solvent, but Slough and Windsor and Maindehead are in dire straits.
\r\nSlough Borough Council remains under the direct control of government-appointed commissioners, an intervention that was officially extended following its catastrophic Section 114 notice. Slough's crisis was originally triggered by historic financial mismanagement and a severe commercial debt portfolio. However, its ongoing instability is compounded by an acute budget gap driven by spiralling costs in temporary accommodation and adult social care.
\r\nJust a few miles away, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) has spent months on the absolute precipice of issuing its own Section 114 notice. RBWM's financial distress stems from a decade of keeping council tax artificially low alongside heavy borrowing, which completely eroded its financial resilience.
\r\nMeanwhile reading is spending over 70% of its budget on social care, leaving little left for other issues that voters see as important. This is being seized upon by Reform UK whodespite their racist policies and lack of any fundamental new vision for the country according to Electoral Calculus seem to be on course to be the majority party at the next election:
\r\n
Coalitions and the Fragility of Power
\r\nPerhaps the most compelling outcome and take away from the recent elections is the advent of the era of European like coallitions from the top to the bottom of government.
\r\nThe era of comfortable majorities is over, replaced by the need for negotiation, compromise, and constant political horse-trading. Arguably this is, in many ways, a return to a healthier, more deliberative form of democracy, but it is also one that is prone to gridlock and indecision. Ironically, the electoral imperitive for greater change will result in less.
\r\nThe ability to work across party lines is now a required skill set for any aspiring MP. Those who cannot build consensus will find it impossible to govern effectively in an environment where no single party holds all the cards. The Reading area is becoming a microcosm of a new national political reality: one where the messy business of compromise is the only way forward.
\r\n\r\n
", "description": "Recent local elections have reshaped the Thames Valley\u2019s political landscape, cementing Labour's hold on Reading while signaling a historic collapse of the Conservative stronghold in Wokingham.", "dateModified": "2026-06-01T08:02:54.459458+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-06-01T08:00:00+00:00", "articleSection": "News", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-thames-valley-tectonic-shift-decoding-reading-and-wokinghams-political-earthquake/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "434", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/many-vessels/", "title": "Many Vessels", "content_html": "
It was the day after Easter Monday and a rousing end of The Village Easter Festival gig that saw a bunch of Brits dance to African music at a Polish club. What better time to celebrate more of our town's African affiliations ?
\nThe Limpop Grove gig at Piwnicia was joyful and exhilarating at a time when so many people are trying to divide our communities. In my younger days I promoted African bands in London and all over the country and I look back fondly on those days.
\nSo it was with anticipation that I headed to the Biscuit Factory for a catch up with the wider inReading team.
\nI love the Biscuit Factory but do think that it is not very competently run. It suffers from 'Starbucks Syndrome' whereby students sit here for hours with a cold or empty coffee cup or Pok\u00e9mon players gather and consume a single drink.
\nThia wonderful communal space needs some plants and a lick of paint and some TLC from someone who cares. Instead you feel that the people running it are just under the cosh, or couldn't care less...
\nIt should be the perfect place for modern going out entertainment for the 'experential' works we now live in - a Blue Collar Corner indoors and with screen and stage based entertainment
\nBut it's actually a rather depressing space that demands someonw who cares. A dreadful website, lack of publicity and a sparse offering, with the rather incongruous presence of a record store. How about a weekly farmers' market. a weekly crafter's fair ? Showing sports and opera and theatre live ?
\nAnd of late crisps or popcorn are the best you can hope for as good.
\nNow, please indulge me here. I stopped going to the cinema because I HATE the smell of popcorn. It disgusts me. And then the phones, the talking. why would you bother when I have a 75\" telly and all the choice in the world at home.
\nSo this is where my confession comes in. I was a film student. Ye, not only did I watch movies but I actually got an honours degree in watching movies (and writing about them).
\nWith Vue about to close the perilous fate of the Biscuit Factory may be the last enclave for publicly watching movies in a town that used to have eleven cinemas with over ten thousand seats.
\nSince Sarv's Slice departed some months ago, it has lacked eating options beyond crisps and the dreadful popcorn, so it's good to see a new incumbent take up residence.
\nMany Vessels (at least that's what I think they are called - they have no website and no branding beyond an MV sign) offers largely Nigerian/Caribbean food.\u00a0
\nNow, this is my area of expertise. After spending my uni years and early time in London with a Nigerian girlfriend I learnt to seek out the few places where African food was available in the UK in the 80s (shout out to Balogums in Earl's Court and the Africa Center in Covent Garden). I also learnt to cook many Nigerian dishes competently. The cuisine is, not surprisingly, a cousin of Caribbean cooking which is probably better known in the UK, and more recently has been 'elevated' by establishments such as the Michelin starred Chishuru in London's Fitzrovia, nearby Akoko and Reading's own Avilah.
\nToday there are at least five African restaurants in Reading, reflecting the increase in the number of people from the world's fastest growing continent who have selected our town as their home. Many work in caring and the NHS professions and without them it is unlikely that we would have anything close to the standards of care we benefit from in our area. But some have obviously taken up catering as a route to a livelihood in our country like Jews, Chinese, Bangladeshis and many other before them.
\nNow, be warned that this is not fine dining - it is pre-prepared packages that are microwaved or heated.
\nWe didn't try the many snacks and pies on offer which might be perfect for a film viewing or to accompany a Camden ale from the bar, and went straight to the main meals, selecting the oxtail and jolof rice, chicken and rice and dodo.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/5853b6f02246.jpg\")
It is a shame that there are no stews on offer - chicken pepper soup, groundnut stew or egusi would have been welcomed.
\nThe oxtail was somewhat paltry, but delicious - three bone pieces with gelatinous beef falling off it, the accompanying jolof rice was OK, but not great. The basmati rice used did not suck up enough of the pepper/tomato sauce for my liking. I always prefer my jolof with long grain and not the more delicate basmati rice and the microwaving did not help.
\nLikewise the chicken rice was fine, even if the chicken was a bit dry and the rice, flavoured with tumeric and other spices, with a few corn kernels and pieces of veg was plenty and unremarkable and tasted like nothing I have ever eaten in Nigeria.
\nIndeed, I kept on thinking this was Nigerian food done by way of the Caribbean. The cuisines are similar, but this had food been blown off course.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/72ea392e4642.jpg\")
The dishes came with what I know as dodo - salted slivers of plantain deep fried. But here the dodo meal was a delicious veg dish in a pepper spice and onion sauce with plantain cubes. It was fab - the tartness of the pepper offset by the sweet plantain.
\nBut there was a lot of bland rice and very little anything else. over the past few years. Have worked with a couple of Caribbean restaurants in Reading and this kind of cuisine is easy to do much better than this.
\nMany Vessels is a home cooking tryout masquerading as a cafe and is just totally wrong in this space.
\nThe server saw us using the takeaway lids as plates and brought us a couple of proper plates, and then a spoon. Otherwise it's wooden forks like you find in fish and chip shops and takeaway containers. It's somwhat ironic that they do not really have many vessels..\u00a0 Low cost and low maintenance but probably wrong for this context. The Biscuit Factory people need to visit the various Market Halls in London (there's even one half an hour away at Paddington now).
\nThe place soon filled up with after school students each with a bottle of pop to last them the next few hours and open laptops. No one else seems to be eating from plastic trays.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/55d9575389f1.jpg\")
We had some Camden ale and a bottle of decent white from the somewhat depleted looking bar. (Being a member gets you a discount on the booze and some free tickets.)
\nLike the Biscuit Factory, this food could have been so much more. No one else was eating, and even sitting on the outside balcony in the sunshine the whole experience was a bit miserable. Everything needed to be levelled up.
\nI couldn't help thinking that Glen and Tim and the Blue Collar team could really make something of this space as we wandered around the corner to The Rising Sun, contemplating the massive changes coming to this part of Reading .
", "content_text": "It was the day after Easter Monday and a rousing end of The Village Easter Festival gig that saw a bunch of Brits dance to African music at a Polish club. What better time to celebrate more of our town's African affiliations ?\nThe Limpop Grove gig at Piwnicia was joyful and exhilarating at a time when so many people are trying to divide our communities. In my younger days I promoted African bands in London and all over the country and I look back fondly on those days.\nSo it was with anticipation that I headed to the Biscuit Factory for a catch up with the wider inReading team.\nI love the Biscuit Factory but do think that it is not very competently run. It suffers from 'Starbucks Syndrome' whereby students sit here for hours with a cold or empty coffee cup or Pok\u00e9mon players gather and consume a single drink.\nThia wonderful communal space needs some plants and a lick of paint and some TLC from someone who cares. Instead you feel that the people running it are just under the cosh, or couldn't care less...\nIt should be the perfect place for modern going out entertainment for the 'experential' works we now live in - a Blue Collar Corner indoors and with screen and stage based entertainment\nBut it's actually a rather depressing space that demands someonw who cares. A dreadful website, lack of publicity and a sparse offering, with the rather incongruous presence of a record store. How about a weekly farmers' market. a weekly crafter's fair ? Showing sports and opera and theatre live ?\nAnd of late crisps or popcorn are the best you can hope for as good.\nNow, please indulge me here. I stopped going to the cinema because I HATE the smell of popcorn. It disgusts me. And then the phones, the talking. why would you bother when I have a 75\" telly and all the choice in the world at home.\nSo this is where my confession comes in. I was a film student. Ye, not only did I watch movies but I actually got an honours degree in watching movies (and writing about them).\nWith Vue about to close the perilous fate of the Biscuit Factory may be the last enclave for publicly watching movies in a town that used to have eleven cinemas with over ten thousand seats.\nSince Sarv's Slice departed some months ago, it has lacked eating options beyond crisps and the dreadful popcorn, so it's good to see a new incumbent take up residence.\nMany Vessels (at least that's what I think they are called - they have no website and no branding beyond an MV sign) offers largely Nigerian/Caribbean food.\u00a0\nNow, this is my area of expertise. After spending my uni years and early time in London with a Nigerian girlfriend I learnt to seek out the few places where African food was available in the UK in the 80s (shout out to Balogums in Earl's Court and the Africa Center in Covent Garden). I also learnt to cook many Nigerian dishes competently. The cuisine is, not surprisingly, a cousin of Caribbean cooking which is probably better known in the UK, and more recently has been 'elevated' by establishments such as the Michelin starred Chishuru in London's Fitzrovia, nearby Akoko and Reading's own Avilah.\nToday there are at least five African restaurants in Reading, reflecting the increase in the number of people from the world's fastest growing continent who have selected our town as their home. Many work in caring and the NHS professions and without them it is unlikely that we would have anything close to the standards of care we benefit from in our area. But some have obviously taken up catering as a route to a livelihood in our country like Jews, Chinese, Bangladeshis and many other before them.\nNow, be warned that this is not fine dining - it is pre-prepared packages that are microwaved or heated.\nWe didn't try the many snacks and pies on offer which might be perfect for a film viewing or to accompany a Camden ale from the bar, and went straight to the main meals, selecting the oxtail and jolof rice, chicken and rice and dodo.\n\nIt is a shame that there are no stews on offer - chicken pepper soup, groundnut stew or egusi would have been welcomed.\nThe oxtail was somewhat paltry, but delicious - three bone pieces with gelatinous beef falling off it, the accompanying jolof rice was OK, but not great. The basmati rice used did not suck up enough of the pepper/tomato sauce for my liking. I always prefer my jolof with long grain and not the more delicate basmati rice and the microwaving did not help.\nLikewise the chicken rice was fine, even if the chicken was a bit dry and the rice, flavoured with tumeric and other spices, with a few corn kernels and pieces of veg was plenty and unremarkable and tasted like nothing I have ever eaten in Nigeria.\nIndeed, I kept on thinking this was Nigerian food done by way of the Caribbean. The cuisines are similar, but this had food been blown off course.\n\nThe dishes came with what I know as dodo - salted slivers of plantain deep fried. But here the dodo meal was a delicious veg dish in a pepper spice and onion sauce with plantain cubes. It was fab - the tartness of the pepper offset by the sweet plantain.\nBut there was a lot of bland rice and very little anything else. over the past few years. Have worked with a couple of Caribbean restaurants in Reading and this kind of cuisine is easy to do much better than this.\nMany Vessels is a home cooking tryout masquerading as a cafe and is just totally wrong in this space.\nThe server saw us using the takeaway lids as plates and brought us a couple of proper plates, and then a spoon. Otherwise it's wooden forks like you find in fish and chip shops and takeaway containers. It's somwhat ironic that they do not really have many vessels..\u00a0 Low cost and low maintenance but probably wrong for this context. The Biscuit Factory people need to visit the various Market Halls in London (there's even one half an hour away at Paddington now).\nThe place soon filled up with after school students each with a bottle of pop to last them the next few hours and open laptops. No one else seems to be eating from plastic trays.\n\nWe had some Camden ale and a bottle of decent white from the somewhat depleted looking bar. (Being a member gets you a discount on the booze and some free tickets.)\nLike the Biscuit Factory, this food could have been so much more. No one else was eating, and even sitting on the outside balcony in the sunshine the whole experience was a bit miserable. Everything needed to be levelled up.\nI couldn't help thinking that Glen and Tim and the Blue Collar team could really make something of this space as we wandered around the corner to The Rising Sun, contemplating the massive changes coming to this part of Reading .", "summary": "The new Afro-Caribbean food outlet at The Biscuit Factory doesn't quite float our boat.", "date_published": "2026-05-01T11:26:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:41:49.738377+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/bf0a2ba8.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/bf0a2ba8.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Many Vessels", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1258, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "It was the day after Easter Monday and a rousing end of The Village Easter Festival gig that saw a bunch of Brits dance to African music at a Polish club. What better time to celebrate more of our town's African affiliations ?
\nThe Limpop Grove gig at Piwnicia was joyful and exhilarating at a time when so many people are trying to divide our communities. In my younger days I promoted African bands in London and all over the country and I look back fondly on those days.
\nSo it was with anticipation that I headed to the Biscuit Factory for a catch up with the wider inReading team.
\nI love the Biscuit Factory but do think that it is not very competently run. It suffers from 'Starbucks Syndrome' whereby students sit here for hours with a cold or empty coffee cup or Pok\u00e9mon players gather and consume a single drink.
\nThia wonderful communal space needs some plants and a lick of paint and some TLC from someone who cares. Instead you feel that the people running it are just under the cosh, or couldn't care less...
\nIt should be the perfect place for modern going out entertainment for the 'experential' works we now live in - a Blue Collar Corner indoors and with screen and stage based entertainment
\nBut it's actually a rather depressing space that demands someonw who cares. A dreadful website, lack of publicity and a sparse offering, with the rather incongruous presence of a record store. How about a weekly farmers' market. a weekly crafter's fair ? Showing sports and opera and theatre live ?
\nAnd of late crisps or popcorn are the best you can hope for as good.
\nNow, please indulge me here. I stopped going to the cinema because I HATE the smell of popcorn. It disgusts me. And then the phones, the talking. why would you bother when I have a 75\" telly and all the choice in the world at home.
\nSo this is where my confession comes in. I was a film student. Ye, not only did I watch movies but I actually got an honours degree in watching movies (and writing about them).
\nWith Vue about to close the perilous fate of the Biscuit Factory may be the last enclave for publicly watching movies in a town that used to have eleven cinemas with over ten thousand seats.
\nSince Sarv's Slice departed some months ago, it has lacked eating options beyond crisps and the dreadful popcorn, so it's good to see a new incumbent take up residence.
\nMany Vessels (at least that's what I think they are called - they have no website and no branding beyond an MV sign) offers largely Nigerian/Caribbean food.\u00a0
\nNow, this is my area of expertise. After spending my uni years and early time in London with a Nigerian girlfriend I learnt to seek out the few places where African food was available in the UK in the 80s (shout out to Balogums in Earl's Court and the Africa Center in Covent Garden). I also learnt to cook many Nigerian dishes competently. The cuisine is, not surprisingly, a cousin of Caribbean cooking which is probably better known in the UK, and more recently has been 'elevated' by establishments such as the Michelin starred Chishuru in London's Fitzrovia, nearby Akoko and Reading's own Avilah.
\nToday there are at least five African restaurants in Reading, reflecting the increase in the number of people from the world's fastest growing continent who have selected our town as their home. Many work in caring and the NHS professions and without them it is unlikely that we would have anything close to the standards of care we benefit from in our area. But some have obviously taken up catering as a route to a livelihood in our country like Jews, Chinese, Bangladeshis and many other before them.
\nNow, be warned that this is not fine dining - it is pre-prepared packages that are microwaved or heated.
\nWe didn't try the many snacks and pies on offer which might be perfect for a film viewing or to accompany a Camden ale from the bar, and went straight to the main meals, selecting the oxtail and jolof rice, chicken and rice and dodo.
\n
It is a shame that there are no stews on offer - chicken pepper soup, groundnut stew or egusi would have been welcomed.
\nThe oxtail was somewhat paltry, but delicious - three bone pieces with gelatinous beef falling off it, the accompanying jolof rice was OK, but not great. The basmati rice used did not suck up enough of the pepper/tomato sauce for my liking. I always prefer my jolof with long grain and not the more delicate basmati rice and the microwaving did not help.
\nLikewise the chicken rice was fine, even if the chicken was a bit dry and the rice, flavoured with tumeric and other spices, with a few corn kernels and pieces of veg was plenty and unremarkable and tasted like nothing I have ever eaten in Nigeria.
\nIndeed, I kept on thinking this was Nigerian food done by way of the Caribbean. The cuisines are similar, but this had food been blown off course.
\n
The dishes came with what I know as dodo - salted slivers of plantain deep fried. But here the dodo meal was a delicious veg dish in a pepper spice and onion sauce with plantain cubes. It was fab - the tartness of the pepper offset by the sweet plantain.
\nBut there was a lot of bland rice and very little anything else. over the past few years. Have worked with a couple of Caribbean restaurants in Reading and this kind of cuisine is easy to do much better than this.
\nMany Vessels is a home cooking tryout masquerading as a cafe and is just totally wrong in this space.
\nThe server saw us using the takeaway lids as plates and brought us a couple of proper plates, and then a spoon. Otherwise it's wooden forks like you find in fish and chip shops and takeaway containers. It's somwhat ironic that they do not really have many vessels..\u00a0 Low cost and low maintenance but probably wrong for this context. The Biscuit Factory people need to visit the various Market Halls in London (there's even one half an hour away at Paddington now).
\nThe place soon filled up with after school students each with a bottle of pop to last them the next few hours and open laptops. No one else seems to be eating from plastic trays.
\n
We had some Camden ale and a bottle of decent white from the somewhat depleted looking bar. (Being a member gets you a discount on the booze and some free tickets.)
\nLike the Biscuit Factory, this food could have been so much more. No one else was eating, and even sitting on the outside balcony in the sunshine the whole experience was a bit miserable. Everything needed to be levelled up.
\nI couldn't help thinking that Glen and Tim and the Blue Collar team could really make something of this space as we wandered around the corner to The Rising Sun, contemplating the massive changes coming to this part of Reading .
", "description": "The new Afro-Caribbean food outlet at The Biscuit Factory doesn't quite float our boat.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:41:49.738377+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-05-01T11:26:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/many-vessels/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "433", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/on-home-territory/", "title": "On Home Territory", "content_html": "You might think that after releasing 39 albums, Dennis Siggery would have run out of things to say, but far from it. The frontman of The Eric Street Band is discussing Home Territory, a Reading-inspired collection of tracks that peel back the layers of heavy blues-rock to reveal something far more atmospheric and intimate.
\nIt is an album that trades high-octane guitar riffs for a more nuanced approach, while remaining very Reading in its outlook. Dennis is Newtown born and bred, and his memories from growing up, his life and the town itself are something that runs strongly through his work. But don\u2019t expect more of the same old, same old.
\n\"This is completely different because we didn't want to follow the traditional blues albums,\u00a0 with the heavy guitar riffs and all that. With this, we just get a softer sound for it,\" Dennis explains.
\nThe shift in direction was entirely intentional, created from a desire to create a soundtrack for those quiet, reflective moments at the end of a difficult shift in the office.\u00a0
\n\"There are times when you get a really bad day and things are going really wrong. You want to put on some nice music, pour a glass of wine and just chill out. I wanted to make an album like that,\" he\u00a0says adding\u00a0that it was a co-creation with long-time collaborator Gordon Vaughan. \"We\u2019re both songwriters and we put our heads together to write this album. It\u2019s really a very different album and I didn't want to follow other blues albums - they basically sound just the same. This is still blues-based, but it's got a different feel to it.\u201d
\nThe process was a patient one, spanning roughly a year. The pair were prolific, originally penning 17 songs before whittling them down to the 10 that best fit the new, soulful vision they had for the band. They\u2019re based on things that Dennis recalls.
\n\u201cIt took us about a year to do this. We may have written 17 songs, but we only put 10 on there, so there are seven we didn\u2019t use as they didn\u2019t fit in with what we\u2019re trying to do,\u201d he continues.
\nWhile the musical influences on Home Territory lean into modern jazz and the soul-searching style of John Coltrane, the lyrical heart of the album is firmly rooted in the streets of Reading. Dennis, who was born just after the Second World War, in 1946, has used this record to document a world that has largely vanished, and yet traces of which are still visible, particularly in the part of Newtown where he spent his formative years. The track 12 Sun Street is a recollection of a childhood spent without electricity, where gas lamps flickered, and the modern comforts we take for granted were non-existent.
\n\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/e1fcb78cd866.jpg\")
\"I was born just after the war, we lived in Newtown, and we didn't have electricity until I was about five,\" Dennis recalls. \"We had gas lamps and a coal fire, and the toilet was\u00a0down the\u00a0garden. Sun Street was a very working-class sort of area, but nice people \u2013 really nice kind people. If you had a problem,\u00a0a door\u00a0was always open and you weren't turned away.
\n\u201cIt was a great,\u00a0every close\u00a0neighbourhood where everybody knew each other. It was a great place to live as a kid.\u201d
\nHe admits Newtown could be \"a bit rough\" and that he \"was rough\" himself, but he maintains a deep respect for his roots: \u201cI respect where I came from because that\u2019s why I am. I had to write that song (12 Sun Street) because it meant so much to me. It's about life, just how it was then,\" he says. \u201cMy mum brought up us four kids, it was quite tough \u2013 she had to work as well. But that was just the way it was, we didn\u2019t know any different.\u201d
\nThis connection to the town is even reflected in the album's cover: Dennis was thrilled to find an old picture of Jackson\u2019s Corner - a real Reading landmark that evokes the \"good old days\" of Reading. Even though the Ding has changed significantly - becoming a \"huge place\" that lacks the old \"feel\" - his loyalty to his home remains.\u00a0
\nHe is still a dedicated follower of Reading FC, having attended his first game seven decades ago.
\nDespite his extensive career, which included a stint as a DJ in an R&B club and years spent playing the pub circuit, Dennis has never been motivated by the traditional markers of success. He walked away from a steady job years ago to pursue music, a decision that meant giving up financial security for a life he actually wanted to lead.
\nHe is candid about the reality of the modern music industry, noting that while his music is played worldwide, the financial rewards are often secondary to the creative satisfaction. For Dennis, the true value lies in the permanence of the work.
\n\"I'm not gonna leave a big house, and I'm not gonna leave loads of money, but I am gonna leave my music behind, because it's being played worldwide,\" Dennis says. \"And that was my aim: to leave something behind that other people can't. That's why I've done it. I didn't do it to get famous. I didn't do it to get rich; I just wanted people to hear my songs and the stories that I got to tell. When I die, I\u2019m not going to leave a big house or loads of money, but I am going to leave my music behind: it\u2019s being played worldwide. That\u2019s been my aim: to leave something behind that other people aren\u2019t doing. I\u2019ve given up a lot to do it, but the songs just keep coming to me. Where from, I don\u2019t know, but I\u2019ve just got a gift for writing songs.\u201d
\nThere is a sense of immense pride when he discusses the reception of Home Territory, particularly from fans who find a deep emotional connection to the music. He refuses to copy others, fronting an original sound that is purely his own.
\n\"Every song I listen to, one of my songs, you know, and I listen to my voice and I think, yeah, that's a unique voice,\" he says. \"I haven't gone out to copy anybody. I haven't gone out to be in a tribute band. It's just me. And when you hear the album for the first time, you get a buzz that you can't buy, you know, because you know, you put all that hard work in, and then when it's all finished, and you listen to it, you just think, yeah, that was worth it.\u201d
\nAnd while this is number 39, Dennis feels the best could still be yet to come.\u00a0
\nI want to make an album I feel is my best one. I\u2019ve made so many, but I haven\u2019t made one yet that I felt was my Dark Side of the Moon, my top album. This is very\u00a0close it\u00a0\u2013 and it could be my last, I don\u2019t know yet. It\u2019s the best one I\u2019ve ever made.\u201d
\nHome Territory is a Southside Music production, recorded by Matt Bew at Whitehouse Studios in Reading and mastered by Henry Smithson. The album features the full Eric Street Band line-up: Dennis on lead vocals, Gordon Vaughan on acoustic guitars, Henry Smithson on bass, and Julian Bown on drums. They are supported by guest musicians Dave Raphael on harmonica, Andy (Drew) Taylor on violin, and Gillian Tunley on backing vocals.
\nWhile Dennis has left the hard graft of the pub circuit behind, he remains open to larger local performances. The band may return to the Wokingham Festival in the future, an event Dennis describes as a highlight of the local calendar.
\n\"There's a possibility that we might get a gig there,\" Dennis says. \"It's great playing there, because I do love the festival. You know, I just think it's one of the best things that ever happened in the town.\u201d
\nFor those looking to hear the new material immediately, the album is available for download on Bandcamp and can be streamed on YouTube. Physical CDs can also be purchased directly through the official website.
\nTo stay updated on live dates and to purchase the album, visit:\u00a0https://ericstreetband.com
You might think that after releasing 39 albums, Dennis Siggery would have run out of things to say, but far from it. The frontman of The Eric Street Band is discussing Home Territory, a Reading-inspired collection of tracks that peel back the layers of heavy blues-rock to reveal something far more atmospheric and intimate.
\nIt is an album that trades high-octane guitar riffs for a more nuanced approach, while remaining very Reading in its outlook. Dennis is Newtown born and bred, and his memories from growing up, his life and the town itself are something that runs strongly through his work. But don\u2019t expect more of the same old, same old.
\n\"This is completely different because we didn't want to follow the traditional blues albums,\u00a0 with the heavy guitar riffs and all that. With this, we just get a softer sound for it,\" Dennis explains.
\nThe shift in direction was entirely intentional, created from a desire to create a soundtrack for those quiet, reflective moments at the end of a difficult shift in the office.\u00a0
\n\"There are times when you get a really bad day and things are going really wrong. You want to put on some nice music, pour a glass of wine and just chill out. I wanted to make an album like that,\" he\u00a0says adding\u00a0that it was a co-creation with long-time collaborator Gordon Vaughan. \"We\u2019re both songwriters and we put our heads together to write this album. It\u2019s really a very different album and I didn't want to follow other blues albums - they basically sound just the same. This is still blues-based, but it's got a different feel to it.\u201d
\nThe process was a patient one, spanning roughly a year. The pair were prolific, originally penning 17 songs before whittling them down to the 10 that best fit the new, soulful vision they had for the band. They\u2019re based on things that Dennis recalls.
\n\u201cIt took us about a year to do this. We may have written 17 songs, but we only put 10 on there, so there are seven we didn\u2019t use as they didn\u2019t fit in with what we\u2019re trying to do,\u201d he continues.
\nWhile the musical influences on Home Territory lean into modern jazz and the soul-searching style of John Coltrane, the lyrical heart of the album is firmly rooted in the streets of Reading. Dennis, who was born just after the Second World War, in 1946, has used this record to document a world that has largely vanished, and yet traces of which are still visible, particularly in the part of Newtown where he spent his formative years. The track 12 Sun Street is a recollection of a childhood spent without electricity, where gas lamps flickered, and the modern comforts we take for granted were non-existent.
\n\u00a0
\n
\"I was born just after the war, we lived in Newtown, and we didn't have electricity until I was about five,\" Dennis recalls. \"We had gas lamps and a coal fire, and the toilet was\u00a0down the\u00a0garden. Sun Street was a very working-class sort of area, but nice people \u2013 really nice kind people. If you had a problem,\u00a0a door\u00a0was always open and you weren't turned away.
\n\u201cIt was a great,\u00a0every close\u00a0neighbourhood where everybody knew each other. It was a great place to live as a kid.\u201d
\nHe admits Newtown could be \"a bit rough\" and that he \"was rough\" himself, but he maintains a deep respect for his roots: \u201cI respect where I came from because that\u2019s why I am. I had to write that song (12 Sun Street) because it meant so much to me. It's about life, just how it was then,\" he says. \u201cMy mum brought up us four kids, it was quite tough \u2013 she had to work as well. But that was just the way it was, we didn\u2019t know any different.\u201d
\nThis connection to the town is even reflected in the album's cover: Dennis was thrilled to find an old picture of Jackson\u2019s Corner - a real Reading landmark that evokes the \"good old days\" of Reading. Even though the Ding has changed significantly - becoming a \"huge place\" that lacks the old \"feel\" - his loyalty to his home remains.\u00a0
\nHe is still a dedicated follower of Reading FC, having attended his first game seven decades ago.
\nDespite his extensive career, which included a stint as a DJ in an R&B club and years spent playing the pub circuit, Dennis has never been motivated by the traditional markers of success. He walked away from a steady job years ago to pursue music, a decision that meant giving up financial security for a life he actually wanted to lead.
\nHe is candid about the reality of the modern music industry, noting that while his music is played worldwide, the financial rewards are often secondary to the creative satisfaction. For Dennis, the true value lies in the permanence of the work.
\n\"I'm not gonna leave a big house, and I'm not gonna leave loads of money, but I am gonna leave my music behind, because it's being played worldwide,\" Dennis says. \"And that was my aim: to leave something behind that other people can't. That's why I've done it. I didn't do it to get famous. I didn't do it to get rich; I just wanted people to hear my songs and the stories that I got to tell. When I die, I\u2019m not going to leave a big house or loads of money, but I am going to leave my music behind: it\u2019s being played worldwide. That\u2019s been my aim: to leave something behind that other people aren\u2019t doing. I\u2019ve given up a lot to do it, but the songs just keep coming to me. Where from, I don\u2019t know, but I\u2019ve just got a gift for writing songs.\u201d
\nThere is a sense of immense pride when he discusses the reception of Home Territory, particularly from fans who find a deep emotional connection to the music. He refuses to copy others, fronting an original sound that is purely his own.
\n\"Every song I listen to, one of my songs, you know, and I listen to my voice and I think, yeah, that's a unique voice,\" he says. \"I haven't gone out to copy anybody. I haven't gone out to be in a tribute band. It's just me. And when you hear the album for the first time, you get a buzz that you can't buy, you know, because you know, you put all that hard work in, and then when it's all finished, and you listen to it, you just think, yeah, that was worth it.\u201d
\nAnd while this is number 39, Dennis feels the best could still be yet to come.\u00a0
\nI want to make an album I feel is my best one. I\u2019ve made so many, but I haven\u2019t made one yet that I felt was my Dark Side of the Moon, my top album. This is very\u00a0close it\u00a0\u2013 and it could be my last, I don\u2019t know yet. It\u2019s the best one I\u2019ve ever made.\u201d
\nHome Territory is a Southside Music production, recorded by Matt Bew at Whitehouse Studios in Reading and mastered by Henry Smithson. The album features the full Eric Street Band line-up: Dennis on lead vocals, Gordon Vaughan on acoustic guitars, Henry Smithson on bass, and Julian Bown on drums. They are supported by guest musicians Dave Raphael on harmonica, Andy (Drew) Taylor on violin, and Gillian Tunley on backing vocals.
\nWhile Dennis has left the hard graft of the pub circuit behind, he remains open to larger local performances. The band may return to the Wokingham Festival in the future, an event Dennis describes as a highlight of the local calendar.
\n\"There's a possibility that we might get a gig there,\" Dennis says. \"It's great playing there, because I do love the festival. You know, I just think it's one of the best things that ever happened in the town.\u201d
\nFor those looking to hear the new material immediately, the album is available for download on Bandcamp and can be streamed on YouTube. Physical CDs can also be purchased directly through the official website.
\nTo stay updated on live dates and to purchase the album, visit:\u00a0https://ericstreetband.com
As the latest local elections loom, we take a look at how Reading has been governed down the years, from the shadow of a medieval abbey to the meeting rooms of our revamped twenty-first-century civic offices.
\nThere is a moment, repeated across the long bureaucratic history of Reading, that captures something essential about the relationship between our town and the idea of self-government. It comes in different guises down the centuries \u2014 as a monastic dispute, a parliamentary charter, a cholera outbreak, an election night count \u2014 but its substance is always the same: Reading its right to decide its own affairs.
\nAs most readers will know, Reading today is the largest town in England without city status, a distinction it wears with a mixture of civic pride and mild grievance. Sitting at the confluence of the Thames and the Kennet, roughly equidistant between London and Bristol, its geography that has made it commercially important since the early medieval period and politically contested for just as long.
\nThe current population of roughly 183,000 is served by an unitary authority \u2014 Reading Borough Council \u2014 that has been under Labour majority control since 2012 and is headquartered in the recently revamped Civic Offices on Bridge Street. Although large parts of the town\u2019s suburbs are split out into other boroughs \u2013 Wokingham and West Berkshire.
\nTo understand how Reading Borough Council came to have its present form, you have to go back considerably further than 2012. All the way to the foundation of Reading Abbey.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Abbey and the Borough: Governance Before Democracy
\nReading was described as a borough in the Domesday Book of 1086, which places its civic identity among the oldest in England. William the Conqueror had given land in and around the town to his foundation at Battle Abbey in Sussex, and the presence of six mills \u2014 four on royal land, two on Battle Abbey's \u2014 suggests a settlement of some commercial complexity. But the decisive event in Reading's medieval governance came in 1121, when Henry I founded Reading Abbey as a Cluniac Benedictine monastery, and with it granted the abbey lordship over the entire town.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/5c8a7c145d5d.png\")
This was not merely a spiritual arrangement. The abbey's control was comprehensive: abbots regulated commerce, relocated markets to the Forbury area near the abbey precinct, and hosted annual fairs that drew merchants from across Berkshire and beyond. The offices of reeve and bailiff \u2014 the town's earliest administrative roles \u2014 were appointments of the abbot, not of the townspeople. A document from the reign of Henry II records the names of Warin the Reeve and Walter the Reeve as witnesses to a grant by one of the abbots; they were, almost certainly, officials serving at the pleasure of the monastery. For well over a century after its foundation, Reading was, in all practical terms, governed by an ecclesiastical corporation.
\nThe town began to assert itself gradually from the thirteenth century onwards. At the beginning of Henry III's reign, Reading appears to have been in danger of losing its burghal status altogether, so complete was the abbot's dominion. The struggle that followed \u2014 between the commercial interests of the town's merchant class and the institutional authority of the abbey \u2014 is poorly documented but unmistakable in its outlines. Royal charters, including one from Henry III in 1253 that confirmed burgess rights to regulate markets, collect tolls, and administer local justice, gave the townspeople an incremental legal foothold against the abbey's dominance, but the tension was never fully resolved before the more drastic resolution came in the sixteenth century.
\nHenry VIII's dissolution of Reading Abbey in 1538 was, among its many consequences, a convulsive moment in the town's governance. The last abbot, Hugh Faringdon \u2014 also known as Hugh Cook \u2014 refused to surrender peacefully. He was charged with high treason for allegedly concealing participants in the Pilgrimage of Grace and denying the King's supremacy over the Church. He was attainted without formal trial and executed in November 1539 in the Forbury, the open ground before the abbey gates, becoming one of only three abbots to die in this way during the dissolution. With the abbey gone, the institutional framework that had governed Reading for four centuries was simply abolished, and for a brief period the town was administered by the King's officers managing the dismemberment of the abbey's properties.
\nThe solution came in 1542, when Henry VIII granted the town's Guild a new charter that permitted the burgesses to elect their own mayor \u2014 a fundamental shift. For the first time in its history, Reading had a genuinely elected civic head, albeit elected from the \u2018middle class\u2019 members of the town\u2019s guilds.
\nThen, Elizabeth I's charter of 1560 set out the borough's boundaries with some precision, encompassing the whole of the parish of St Laurence and parts of the parishes of St Giles and St Mary. Those boundaries, remarkably, would not be substantially altered until 1887. The body that governed within them was formally known as the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of the borough of Reading \u2014 a formulation that would persist, with modifications, for nearly three hundred years.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Civil War and the Cost of Geography
\nReading's misfortune in the seventeenth century was topographical. Sitting precisely halfway between Royalist Oxford and Parliamentarian London, on the main road connecting both, it was the kind of place that every army needed to control and no army wanted to inhabit. The consequences for the town's population \u2014 roughly five thousand people at the time \u2014 were severe.
\nKing Charles I entered Reading in November 1642, following his inconclusive engagement at Edgehill, and left behind a garrison of some two thousand soldiers under the command of Sir Arthur Aston, a veteran of the Thirty Years' War who combined military competence with an apparently limitless talent for making enemies of the people he was supposed to protect. The town was required to house the garrison, fund its fortifications, and cover Aston's salary \u2014 which was so disproportionate that he reportedly loaned money back to the town at interest. Stuart Hylton's 2017 history of the town names Aston as one of the most unpopular figures in Reading's recorded past, and contemporary accounts make it easy to understand why. So, before complaining about our current local politicians, take a beat !
\nThe Parliamentarian response came in April 1643. The Earl of Essex marched an army of over nineteen thousand men from Windsor \u2014 sixteen thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry, plus artillery \u2014 and arrived before Reading on the fourteenth. He feinted as though bound for Oxford, then swung his forces around to the south and west of the town, where the defensive earthworks were weakest, and seized Caversham Bridge, cutting Reading off from Royalist relief. By the sixteenth, the artillery was positioned and the bombardment began. On the nineteenth, an extraordinary thing happened: Aston was struck by debris dislodged by cannon fire and rendered, apparently, literally speechless. Command passed to his deputy, Colonel Richard Feilding.
\nOn the morning of the twenty-fifth of April, Feilding displayed a white flag and sought terms. That same afternoon, a relief force commanded by Charles I himself and Prince Rupert attacked the Parliamentarian positions at Caversham Bridge. Feilding's officers urged him to break the truce and join the battle. He refused, saying that he would not do so \"if the king himself should come and knock at the gate, and command him to do it\" \u2014 a statement of personal honour that effectively ended his military career. The Royalists were repulsed. The surrender terms were agreed on the twenty-sixth of April, and the garrison marched out the following day with flying colours and four pieces of ordnance, bound for Oxford. Feilding, for his probity, was court-martialled within days of reaching the city, convicted of treason, and sentenced to death. Charles I eventually pardoned him but stripped him of his rank.
\nAston, meanwhile, discovered that he had recovered his voice during the march to Oxford. The war's toll on Reading was severe in ways that outlasted the fighting itself. The town changed hands repeatedly \u2014 Parliamentary forces occupied it from April 1643, lost it to a Royalist incursion that September when typhoid devastated the garrison, then held it again from 1644 until the war's end. The fortifications built under Aston, sections of which remain partially visible in Forbury Gardens, were among the most elaborate constructed in any English provincial town during the conflict. The earthworks absorbed the labour of the townspeople and the funds of the corporation, neither of which were willingly given. What the Civil War left behind was not simply a traumatised population but a deeply ingrained civic suspicion of being pressed into service for causes decided elsewhere \u2014 a disposition that would resurface, in more democratic forms, throughout the centuries that followed.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Age Of The Aldermen
\nIn the centuries between the upheaval of the English Civil War and the sweeping reforms of the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, Reading was governed in a way that would feel strikingly unfamiliar today. Power did not rest with voters or a broad electorate, but with a small, self-selecting group of local figures who effectively ran the town as a private club.
\nAt the heart of this system was Reading\u2019s municipal corporation, an institution rooted in royal charters dating back to the Tudor period. Its structure appeared formal enough\u2014a mayor presided over a body of aldermen and burgesses\u2014but beneath that formality lay a tightly controlled network. Membership of the corporation was not open to the public. Instead, existing members chose their successors, ensuring continuity of influence among a narrow circle of merchants, landowners and established families. The wider population had little say in who governed them, and even the right to vote in borough matters was restricted to freemen, a small and often exclusive group.
\nDespite its limited accountability, the corporation exercised broad authority over everyday life in Reading. It regulated markets and trade, maintained streets and public buildings, managed town property, and oversaw local justice through the mayor\u2019s role as a magistrate. In many respects, it functioned as both council and court, shaping the economic and civic life of the town in ways that touched nearly every resident.
\nThe political turbulence of the later 17th century did not leave Reading untouched. In the years following the Civil War, central government took a keen interest in borough corporations, recognising their importance in securing loyalty and influence. Under monarchs such as Charles II and James II, charters were sometimes revised or reissued, allowing the Crown to reshape local leadership. Yet these interventions rarely altered the fundamental character of governance. The corporation remained a closed body, resistant to broader participation.
\nBy the early 19th century, this system was beginning to look increasingly outdated. Across England, municipal corporations faced growing criticism for their lack of transparency and democratic legitimacy. Investigations by bodies such as the Royal Commission on Municipal Corporations revealed patterns of patronage, inefficiency and, in some cases, outright corruption. Reading was not alone in this; it was part of a wider national picture in which historic institutions had failed to keep pace with social and economic change.
\n\u00a0
\nReform, Railways, and the Victorian Corporation
\nThe Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 was, in theory, the great rationalising moment of English local government. It swept away the often corrupt and self-perpetuating corporations of the unreformed boroughs and replaced them with standardised municipal structures elected by ratepaying male householders. In Reading, it produced a body formally constituted as a municipal borough, an improvement \u2014 at least in terms of formal democratic accountability \u2014 over what had preceded it. In practice, the reforms took some time to generate genuinely contested politics; the new council was initially dominated by Whig and later Liberal figures drawn from the same commercial and professional classes that had always run the town.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/39dd7d0108b0.webp\")
What transformed Reading's civic life in the mid-nineteenth century was not political theory but the railway. The Great Western Railway arrived in 1841, the South Eastern in 1849, and the London and South Western in 1856. Reading became, almost overnight, a junction town \u2014 a place where goods, capital, and people moved through at velocity. The population, which stood at around fifteen thousand in 1831, would reach fifty-nine thousand by 1900. This growth created the classic Victorian municipal imperative: the need to govern a rapidly expanding industrial town whose infrastructure, including water, gas, sewers, roads, housing was entirely inadequate to its new demands.
\nThe borough council responded with the ambition typical of Victorian civic authority at its most energetic. By the second half of the nineteenth century, it was exercising powers over water supply, public health, street improvement, and what would now be called \u2018planning\u2019. The expansion of the borough boundaries in 1887 \u2014 taking in Southcote, Whitley, the north-western parts of Earley, and the eastern end of Tilehurst \u2014 was itself a political act: an assertion that the industrial and residential hinterland being absorbed into the town's economy should also fall under its civic jurisdiction and something that is familiar in today\u2019s debates about civic boundaries.
\nThe physical expression of this ambition was the Town Hall on Blagrave Street, built in phases between 1786 and 1897, which served as the headquarters of the borough council until 1976. It is a building that tells the story of Victorian municipal self-confidence in its very fabric: expanded and improved as the council's sense of its own importance grew, its final Victorian phase completed just as Reading was about to achieve its most significant administrative status. The Summer Assizes had been moved from Abingdon to Reading in 1867, and the Privy Council formally recognised Reading as the sole county town of Berkshire in 1869 \u2014 a designation that carried both practical and symbolic weight, settling a long-running rivalry between the two towns.
\nThe boroughs summoned to the Model Parliament of 1295 included Reading, which had elected two Members of Parliament continuously from that date. The Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885 reduced this to one, and the constituency thereafter changed hands repeatedly between Conservatives and Liberals before the Labour Party began to make it genuinely competitive. The pre-reform parliamentary history of the borough was often scandalous in the manner common to English rotten boroughs: the electorate was small, the influence of local magnates considerable, and the temptation to bribery endemic. The Great Reform Act of 1832 had somewhat broadened the franchise, and the population of the borough was recorded as fifteen thousand nine hundred and thirty-five in 1831, with three thousand three hundred and seven houses \u2014 numbers that give some sense of the concentrated, crowded nature of the pre-Victorian town.
\n\u00a0
\nCounty Borough: The Era of Independence
\nThe Local Government Act of 1888 conferred upon Reading the status of county borough. This was not simply administrative nomenclature; it meant that Reading was deemed large enough to govern itself at county level, becoming entirely independent of the newly formed Berkshire County Council that came into being on the first of April 1889 \u2014 itself holding its inaugural meeting at Reading Assizes Court, which had been completed in 1861. Reading's corporation would provide all services for its population: education, highways, public health, and later housing, without reference to the county at all. This independence would last, with significant political consequences, for eighty-five years.
\nThe county borough era was the period in which party politics properly entered Reading's local government. Before the 1890s, councillors had typically stood as independents representing ward interests or professional identities. The emergence of organised Liberal and Conservative caucuses, and eventually the Labour Party's rise after the First World War, transformed the corporation from a body of civic worthies into a genuinely partisan institution. The pattern of control that emerged was broadly Conservative for much of the first half of the twentieth century, with Labour making inroads during periods of national Labour strength \u2014 particularly after 1945 \u2014 and the Liberals occupying a persistent but rarely decisive third-party role.
\nThe most consequential work of the county borough council in the twentieth century's first decades was housing. Reading's rapid Victorian expansion had left behind a substantial stock of overcrowded and structurally inadequate housing in the older parts of the town, particularly in the area between the Kennet and the commercial centre. The council's responses to this \u2014 slum clearance programmes, council house building on the town's expanding edges, the absorption of former agricultural land into residential use \u2014 shaped the physical geography of modern Reading as completely as the railway had shaped its Victorian predecessor. The annexation of Caversham from Oxfordshire in 1911 \u2014 adding the suburb on the north bank of the Thames to the borough \u2014 was perhaps the most politically striking of these expansions, requiring as it did the agreement of a neighbouring county to relinquish territory. Again, a familiar theme for us in 2026.
\nThe political dynamics of the inter-war period were further complicated by the rise of the Labour movement in the town's factories and railways. H & G Simonds, the brewery that had operated since 1785; Huntley and Palmers, the biscuit manufacturers who from 1822 had made Reading's name synonymous with a particular kind of mass-produced consumer food; and Suttons Seeds, established in 1837 \u2014 these were the Three Bs (beer, biscuits, and bulbs) that dominated the local economy and generated the organised working-class communities that Labour organisers sought to mobilise. The biscuit factory in particular, at its peak employing thousands, was a defining institution of Reading's social geography \u2014 its demolition in 1976 after the factory's closure a year earlier marked the end of something irreplaceable in the town's industrial identity and the move to a more modern, information technology dependent era that we are still inhabiting today.
\n\u00a0
\n1974: The End of Independence
\nThe Local Government Act of 1972, introduced by Ted Heath\u2019s Tories, was a profound humiliation for Reading \u2014 or at any rate was experienced as one. The reorganisation that came into effect on the first of April 1974 abolished county borough status across England and Wales, abolishing the administrative independence that Reading had exercised since 1889 and placing it, for the first time, under the authority of Berkshire County Council.
\nThis was felt as a demotion. The borough council had campaigned vigorously to have its boundaries enlarged before the reforms took effect \u2014 seeking to incorporate Earley, Woodley, Purley on Thames, and other suburban areas that had grown up around the town and were functionally part of it \u2014 but the government declined to make any changes. Reading entered the new era within the same boundaries it had held since 1911, now sharing county functions with a tier of government it had not previously had to answer to.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/a0969e25b6a0.jpg\")
The county council's new headquarters was itself a source of some controversy. Shire Hall, the county's administrative base, was in Reading \u2014 but in 1981 it moved to new premises at Shinfield Park on the southern outskirts of the town. Crucially, the new building sat just outside the borough boundaries, in the neighbouring parish of Shinfield. The county council, in other words, had built its new \u00a327.5 million headquarters in one authority's territory while serving another's. This was the kind of jurisdictional absurdity that British local government seems uniquely capable of generating then and now.
\nThe 1974 reforms also introduced the party-political organisation of the county council itself. Before the 1974 reorganisation, candidates for Berkshire County Council had typically stood as independents; party affiliations were not even printed on ballot papers until 1970. The new structure rapidly produced the familiar landscape of party whipping, group discipline, and ideological contest and increasing influence from central government. The Conservatives held a clear majority on the reconstituted county council for the first decade after 1974, with Labour establishing a persistent presence and the Liberal Democrats \u2014 particularly in the later years \u2014 emerging as a force particularly in suburban and rural areas.
\nAt the district level, Reading Borough Council in the immediate post-1974 period was genuinely three-way marginal. After the addition of parts of parishes from South Oxfordshire in 1977 \u2014 the Caversham Park area and parts of Mapledurham \u2014 the council stood at twenty-three Conservatives, thirteen Labour, and thirteen Liberals. This was not a comfortable majority for anyone, and political control shifted with some frequency through the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Conservatives held the upper hand for much of this period, but the demographic changes that were reshaping Reading \u2014 the decline of traditional manufacturing, the growth of the service economy and the technology sector, increasing diversity in the population \u2014 were slowly altering the electoral landscape.
\n\u00a0
\n1998: The Restoration of Unitary Status
\nThe abolition of Berkshire County Council in 1998 was a remarkable piece of administrative history. The council had been established in 1889 and it was now to be dissolved just over a century later - its functions distributed among six successor unitary authorities. The process had been fractious. The independent Local Government Commission, convened to consider reform of local government across England, again by the Cobservatives, had in its December 1994 report initially recommended five unitary authorities for Berkshire rather than six; the Environment Secretary John Gummer overrode this recommendation, approving six separate councils in response to local representations emphasising distinct community identities. Berkshire County Council mounted a legal challenge in the High Court, arguing that Gummer's decision exceeded the permissible scope of modifications to the Commission's report. The High Court initially ruled in the council's favour; on the twenty-fourth of January 1996, the Court of Appeal overturned that judgment.
\nThe county council's last day was the thirty-first of March 1998. From the first of April, Reading Borough Council became a unitary authority once again \u2014 responsible for all local government functions in the borough, with no county tier above it. This was, in effect, a restoration. The powers Reading had exercised from 1889 to 1974 as a county borough were returned to it, albeit without the boundary expansion that the council had repeatedly sought. The town's built-up area had long since spread well beyond the borough's southern boundary \u2014 fixed since 1911 \u2014 into West Berkshire and Wokingham, a territorial anomaly that continues to generate friction over planning, transport, and school catchments. Cross-boundary working between Reading and its neighbours is, as one commentator drily notes, \"sometimes criticised.\"
\nThe political impact of the abolition was also significant in a broader sense. Berkshire, unlike most other ceremonial counties, ceased to have any elected body speaking for the whole of it. The six successor authorities operate jointly on specific matters \u2014 the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, for example, is administered by a joint committee \u2014 but there is no Berkshire-wide forum for strategic planning or democratic accountability. The county exists as a ceremonial entity, its name preserved on road signs and in official designations, but without the institutional reality that had underpinned it since 1889.
\n\u00a0
\nLabour's Reading: Politics Since 2000
\nThe early years of the twenty-first century brought a period of sustained Labour strength in Reading. The council had been under various forms of control \u2014 sometimes Labour, sometimes Conservative, sometimes no overall \u2014 through the 1990s, but the 2000s saw Labour consolidate and eventually dominate. By 2012, the council passed into Labour majority control, a position it has maintained without interruption since. This longevity is significant in a town that, at the parliamentary level, remains genuinely competitive: the 2024 general election divided the borough's parliamentary representation between three constituencies \u2014 Reading Central, Reading West and Mid Berkshire, and Earley and Woodley \u2014 reflecting the complex political geography of a town whose different neighbourhoods have quite different political characters.
\nThe council's recent history has been dominated by the perennial tension of English local government in the austerity era: trying to maintain services under conditions of severely constrained central government funding. Between 2010 and 2019, non-ringfenced government grants to local authorities fell by extraordinary amounts \u2014 a reduction in the Revenue Support Grant from nearly \u00a310 billion nationally in 2015-16 to \u00a32.3 billion by 2019-20, representing a direct transfer of fiscal pain from Westminster to town halls. Reading Borough Council, like all English councils, was required to absorb these reductions while meeting rising demand for adult social care, children's services, and housing support.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/021b1954b702.png\")
The council moved its headquarters from the Victorian Town Hall on Blagrave Street \u2014 which had served as the centre of borough administration since 1786 \u2014 to the new Civic Offices on Bridge Street in 2014, a relocation that was both practical and symbolic: a break from the dense civic historicism of the old building towards a more functional, corporate administrative culture. (The Town Hall's annual mayoral meeting remains at the old building, a concession to ceremony if not to daily governance.)
\nThe council leader at the time of writing, Liz Terry, has spoken in terms that illustrate the frustrations of running a Labour authority in an era of constrained central government funding. In a February 2026 budget debate, in response to opposition criticism of rising council tax and service reductions, she contrasted Reading's record with the situations of neighbouring West Berkshire and Windsor and Maidenhead \u2014 both of which had, by that point, required Exceptional Financial Support from the government, having declined to raise council tax in earlier years. \"I'll make no apology for the hard work we've done to set a balanced budget,\" she told the chamber, in language that captures the basic tension of modern English local government: the near-impossibility of doing what the law requires without either raising taxes or cutting services, usually both.
\nHowever, the election of a Labour government in Westminster has seen reallocation of funding to Reading\u2019s benefit (and Wokingham\u2019s detreiment).
\nReading's opposition parties have been equally exercised about the state of the council's finances. Green councillors argued that some of the savings in the 2026 budget represented false economies that would cost more over the medium term. Conservative group leader Raj Singh drew a comparison \u2014 gasps from across the chamber suggesting its hyperbole was widely noted \u2014 between the Labour administration and Robert Clive. The Liberal Democrats have established a presence in the outlying wards. The political temperature in Reading's council chamber, while not exceptional by national standards, reflects a town in which the old industrial certainties that once grounded Labour's electoral base have been replaced by a more volatile mix of demographic change, economic anxiety, and the politics of housing and planning.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Boundary Problem and the Shape of Modern Reading
\nThe most persistent structural failure of Reading's local governance is the mismatch between the administrative borough and the actual city. Reading's boundaries to the south of the Thames have not changed since 1911. The urban area has expanded dramatically beyond those boundaries into West Berkshire and Wokingham \u2014 suburbs like Earley, Woodley, Tilehurst, and Purley on Thames function as extensions of Reading in every practical sense, sharing its labour markets, transport networks, and social infrastructure, but falling under different local authorities with different political complexions and service priorities.
\nThis boundary problem has been raised repeatedly. Before the 1974 reforms, the borough council sought to expand to include Earley, Woodley, and other areas; the government declined. Before the 1998 unitary reforms, the Local Government Commission recommended expanding Reading's boundaries to include the same communities; the decision was again made to leave them unchanged. The consequence is an urban governance failure of some significance: a town that cannot plan strategically for its own hinterland, whose transport policy must be negotiated across three authority boundaries, whose housing supply is partly determined by councils that prioritise the interests of existing residents in the surrounding areas over the needs of the regional centre.
\nThe proposal for a conurbation between Reading and Basingstoke \u2014 dubbed \"Readingstoke\" by a coalition of opponents who formed CRAG (Readingstoke Action Group, later merged with the CPRE) \u2014 was defeated partly through the advocacy of former members of the abolished Berkshire County Council; the terminology may have been fanciful, but the underlying planning pressures were real.
\nReading has been represented in every Parliament since 1295. That continuity of representation coexists, somewhat ironically, with a chronic inability to sort out where, precisely, its administrative boundaries should lie, with three MPs and three authorities currently representing the town under different borders, remits and political priorities.
\n\u00a0
\nA Town Still Evolving
\nThe unbroken thread of governance in Reading stretching back to an age when its own market stalls were regulated by an abbot who had the King's ear, and its burgesses were beginning, slowly and carefully, to insist that they had something to say about that remain visible in our town, if you know where to look. The Abbey Ward of Reading Borough Council takes its name from the institution whose dissolution created the conditions for democratic borough government in the first place. The Forbury Gardens, where families eat lunch and office workers take their breaks, occupy the ground where Hugh Faringdon was executed for refusing to surrender. The civic offices on Bridge Street sit a short walk from the site of the medieval bridge over the Kennet where, in the winter of 1643, Parliamentarian scouts were halted by floodwaters and could not cross.
\nIt reminds us that history is still being written, so who know what the latest election and local boundary changes will bring to the future story of Reading\u2019s governance ?
\n\u00a0
", "content_text": "As the latest local elections loom, we take a look at how Reading has been governed down the years, from the shadow of a medieval abbey to the meeting rooms of our revamped twenty-first-century civic offices.\nThere is a moment, repeated across the long bureaucratic history of Reading, that captures something essential about the relationship between our town and the idea of self-government. It comes in different guises down the centuries \u2014 as a monastic dispute, a parliamentary charter, a cholera outbreak, an election night count \u2014 but its substance is always the same: Reading its right to decide its own affairs.\nAs most readers will know, Reading today is the largest town in England without city status, a distinction it wears with a mixture of civic pride and mild grievance. Sitting at the confluence of the Thames and the Kennet, roughly equidistant between London and Bristol, its geography that has made it commercially important since the early medieval period and politically contested for just as long.\nThe current population of roughly 183,000 is served by an unitary authority \u2014 Reading Borough Council \u2014 that has been under Labour majority control since 2012 and is headquartered in the recently revamped Civic Offices on Bridge Street. Although large parts of the town\u2019s suburbs are split out into other boroughs \u2013 Wokingham and West Berkshire.\nTo understand how Reading Borough Council came to have its present form, you have to go back considerably further than 2012. All the way to the foundation of Reading Abbey.\n\u00a0\nThe Abbey and the Borough: Governance Before Democracy\nReading was described as a borough in the Domesday Book of 1086, which places its civic identity among the oldest in England. William the Conqueror had given land in and around the town to his foundation at Battle Abbey in Sussex, and the presence of six mills \u2014 four on royal land, two on Battle Abbey's \u2014 suggests a settlement of some commercial complexity. But the decisive event in Reading's medieval governance came in 1121, when Henry I founded Reading Abbey as a Cluniac Benedictine monastery, and with it granted the abbey lordship over the entire town.\n\nThis was not merely a spiritual arrangement. The abbey's control was comprehensive: abbots regulated commerce, relocated markets to the Forbury area near the abbey precinct, and hosted annual fairs that drew merchants from across Berkshire and beyond. The offices of reeve and bailiff \u2014 the town's earliest administrative roles \u2014 were appointments of the abbot, not of the townspeople. A document from the reign of Henry II records the names of Warin the Reeve and Walter the Reeve as witnesses to a grant by one of the abbots; they were, almost certainly, officials serving at the pleasure of the monastery. For well over a century after its foundation, Reading was, in all practical terms, governed by an ecclesiastical corporation.\nThe town began to assert itself gradually from the thirteenth century onwards. At the beginning of Henry III's reign, Reading appears to have been in danger of losing its burghal status altogether, so complete was the abbot's dominion. The struggle that followed \u2014 between the commercial interests of the town's merchant class and the institutional authority of the abbey \u2014 is poorly documented but unmistakable in its outlines. Royal charters, including one from Henry III in 1253 that confirmed burgess rights to regulate markets, collect tolls, and administer local justice, gave the townspeople an incremental legal foothold against the abbey's dominance, but the tension was never fully resolved before the more drastic resolution came in the sixteenth century.\nHenry VIII's dissolution of Reading Abbey in 1538 was, among its many consequences, a convulsive moment in the town's governance. The last abbot, Hugh Faringdon \u2014 also known as Hugh Cook \u2014 refused to surrender peacefully. He was charged with high treason for allegedly concealing participants in the Pilgrimage of Grace and denying the King's supremacy over the Church. He was attainted without formal trial and executed in November 1539 in the Forbury, the open ground before the abbey gates, becoming one of only three abbots to die in this way during the dissolution. With the abbey gone, the institutional framework that had governed Reading for four centuries was simply abolished, and for a brief period the town was administered by the King's officers managing the dismemberment of the abbey's properties.\nThe solution came in 1542, when Henry VIII granted the town's Guild a new charter that permitted the burgesses to elect their own mayor \u2014 a fundamental shift. For the first time in its history, Reading had a genuinely elected civic head, albeit elected from the \u2018middle class\u2019 members of the town\u2019s guilds.\nThen, Elizabeth I's charter of 1560 set out the borough's boundaries with some precision, encompassing the whole of the parish of St Laurence and parts of the parishes of St Giles and St Mary. Those boundaries, remarkably, would not be substantially altered until 1887. The body that governed within them was formally known as the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of the borough of Reading \u2014 a formulation that would persist, with modifications, for nearly three hundred years.\n\u00a0\nThe Civil War and the Cost of Geography\nReading's misfortune in the seventeenth century was topographical. Sitting precisely halfway between Royalist Oxford and Parliamentarian London, on the main road connecting both, it was the kind of place that every army needed to control and no army wanted to inhabit. The consequences for the town's population \u2014 roughly five thousand people at the time \u2014 were severe.\nKing Charles I entered Reading in November 1642, following his inconclusive engagement at Edgehill, and left behind a garrison of some two thousand soldiers under the command of Sir Arthur Aston, a veteran of the Thirty Years' War who combined military competence with an apparently limitless talent for making enemies of the people he was supposed to protect. The town was required to house the garrison, fund its fortifications, and cover Aston's salary \u2014 which was so disproportionate that he reportedly loaned money back to the town at interest. Stuart Hylton's 2017 history of the town names Aston as one of the most unpopular figures in Reading's recorded past, and contemporary accounts make it easy to understand why. So, before complaining about our current local politicians, take a beat !\nThe Parliamentarian response came in April 1643. The Earl of Essex marched an army of over nineteen thousand men from Windsor \u2014 sixteen thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry, plus artillery \u2014 and arrived before Reading on the fourteenth. He feinted as though bound for Oxford, then swung his forces around to the south and west of the town, where the defensive earthworks were weakest, and seized Caversham Bridge, cutting Reading off from Royalist relief. By the sixteenth, the artillery was positioned and the bombardment began. On the nineteenth, an extraordinary thing happened: Aston was struck by debris dislodged by cannon fire and rendered, apparently, literally speechless. Command passed to his deputy, Colonel Richard Feilding.\nOn the morning of the twenty-fifth of April, Feilding displayed a white flag and sought terms. That same afternoon, a relief force commanded by Charles I himself and Prince Rupert attacked the Parliamentarian positions at Caversham Bridge. Feilding's officers urged him to break the truce and join the battle. He refused, saying that he would not do so \"if the king himself should come and knock at the gate, and command him to do it\" \u2014 a statement of personal honour that effectively ended his military career. The Royalists were repulsed. The surrender terms were agreed on the twenty-sixth of April, and the garrison marched out the following day with flying colours and four pieces of ordnance, bound for Oxford. Feilding, for his probity, was court-martialled within days of reaching the city, convicted of treason, and sentenced to death. Charles I eventually pardoned him but stripped him of his rank.\nAston, meanwhile, discovered that he had recovered his voice during the march to Oxford. The war's toll on Reading was severe in ways that outlasted the fighting itself. The town changed hands repeatedly \u2014 Parliamentary forces occupied it from April 1643, lost it to a Royalist incursion that September when typhoid devastated the garrison, then held it again from 1644 until the war's end. The fortifications built under Aston, sections of which remain partially visible in Forbury Gardens, were among the most elaborate constructed in any English provincial town during the conflict. The earthworks absorbed the labour of the townspeople and the funds of the corporation, neither of which were willingly given. What the Civil War left behind was not simply a traumatised population but a deeply ingrained civic suspicion of being pressed into service for causes decided elsewhere \u2014 a disposition that would resurface, in more democratic forms, throughout the centuries that followed.\n\u00a0\nThe Age Of The Aldermen\nIn the centuries between the upheaval of the English Civil War and the sweeping reforms of the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, Reading was governed in a way that would feel strikingly unfamiliar today. Power did not rest with voters or a broad electorate, but with a small, self-selecting group of local figures who effectively ran the town as a private club.\nAt the heart of this system was Reading\u2019s municipal corporation, an institution rooted in royal charters dating back to the Tudor period. Its structure appeared formal enough\u2014a mayor presided over a body of aldermen and burgesses\u2014but beneath that formality lay a tightly controlled network. Membership of the corporation was not open to the public. Instead, existing members chose their successors, ensuring continuity of influence among a narrow circle of merchants, landowners and established families. The wider population had little say in who governed them, and even the right to vote in borough matters was restricted to freemen, a small and often exclusive group.\nDespite its limited accountability, the corporation exercised broad authority over everyday life in Reading. It regulated markets and trade, maintained streets and public buildings, managed town property, and oversaw local justice through the mayor\u2019s role as a magistrate. In many respects, it functioned as both council and court, shaping the economic and civic life of the town in ways that touched nearly every resident.\nThe political turbulence of the later 17th century did not leave Reading untouched. In the years following the Civil War, central government took a keen interest in borough corporations, recognising their importance in securing loyalty and influence. Under monarchs such as Charles II and James II, charters were sometimes revised or reissued, allowing the Crown to reshape local leadership. Yet these interventions rarely altered the fundamental character of governance. The corporation remained a closed body, resistant to broader participation.\nBy the early 19th century, this system was beginning to look increasingly outdated. Across England, municipal corporations faced growing criticism for their lack of transparency and democratic legitimacy. Investigations by bodies such as the Royal Commission on Municipal Corporations revealed patterns of patronage, inefficiency and, in some cases, outright corruption. Reading was not alone in this; it was part of a wider national picture in which historic institutions had failed to keep pace with social and economic change.\n\u00a0\nReform, Railways, and the Victorian Corporation\nThe Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 was, in theory, the great rationalising moment of English local government. It swept away the often corrupt and self-perpetuating corporations of the unreformed boroughs and replaced them with standardised municipal structures elected by ratepaying male householders. In Reading, it produced a body formally constituted as a municipal borough, an improvement \u2014 at least in terms of formal democratic accountability \u2014 over what had preceded it. In practice, the reforms took some time to generate genuinely contested politics; the new council was initially dominated by Whig and later Liberal figures drawn from the same commercial and professional classes that had always run the town.\n\nWhat transformed Reading's civic life in the mid-nineteenth century was not political theory but the railway. The Great Western Railway arrived in 1841, the South Eastern in 1849, and the London and South Western in 1856. Reading became, almost overnight, a junction town \u2014 a place where goods, capital, and people moved through at velocity. The population, which stood at around fifteen thousand in 1831, would reach fifty-nine thousand by 1900. This growth created the classic Victorian municipal imperative: the need to govern a rapidly expanding industrial town whose infrastructure, including water, gas, sewers, roads, housing was entirely inadequate to its new demands.\nThe borough council responded with the ambition typical of Victorian civic authority at its most energetic. By the second half of the nineteenth century, it was exercising powers over water supply, public health, street improvement, and what would now be called \u2018planning\u2019. The expansion of the borough boundaries in 1887 \u2014 taking in Southcote, Whitley, the north-western parts of Earley, and the eastern end of Tilehurst \u2014 was itself a political act: an assertion that the industrial and residential hinterland being absorbed into the town's economy should also fall under its civic jurisdiction and something that is familiar in today\u2019s debates about civic boundaries.\nThe physical expression of this ambition was the Town Hall on Blagrave Street, built in phases between 1786 and 1897, which served as the headquarters of the borough council until 1976. It is a building that tells the story of Victorian municipal self-confidence in its very fabric: expanded and improved as the council's sense of its own importance grew, its final Victorian phase completed just as Reading was about to achieve its most significant administrative status. The Summer Assizes had been moved from Abingdon to Reading in 1867, and the Privy Council formally recognised Reading as the sole county town of Berkshire in 1869 \u2014 a designation that carried both practical and symbolic weight, settling a long-running rivalry between the two towns.\nThe boroughs summoned to the Model Parliament of 1295 included Reading, which had elected two Members of Parliament continuously from that date. The Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885 reduced this to one, and the constituency thereafter changed hands repeatedly between Conservatives and Liberals before the Labour Party began to make it genuinely competitive. The pre-reform parliamentary history of the borough was often scandalous in the manner common to English rotten boroughs: the electorate was small, the influence of local magnates considerable, and the temptation to bribery endemic. The Great Reform Act of 1832 had somewhat broadened the franchise, and the population of the borough was recorded as fifteen thousand nine hundred and thirty-five in 1831, with three thousand three hundred and seven houses \u2014 numbers that give some sense of the concentrated, crowded nature of the pre-Victorian town.\n\u00a0\nCounty Borough: The Era of Independence\nThe Local Government Act of 1888 conferred upon Reading the status of county borough. This was not simply administrative nomenclature; it meant that Reading was deemed large enough to govern itself at county level, becoming entirely independent of the newly formed Berkshire County Council that came into being on the first of April 1889 \u2014 itself holding its inaugural meeting at Reading Assizes Court, which had been completed in 1861. Reading's corporation would provide all services for its population: education, highways, public health, and later housing, without reference to the county at all. This independence would last, with significant political consequences, for eighty-five years.\nThe county borough era was the period in which party politics properly entered Reading's local government. Before the 1890s, councillors had typically stood as independents representing ward interests or professional identities. The emergence of organised Liberal and Conservative caucuses, and eventually the Labour Party's rise after the First World War, transformed the corporation from a body of civic worthies into a genuinely partisan institution. The pattern of control that emerged was broadly Conservative for much of the first half of the twentieth century, with Labour making inroads during periods of national Labour strength \u2014 particularly after 1945 \u2014 and the Liberals occupying a persistent but rarely decisive third-party role.\nThe most consequential work of the county borough council in the twentieth century's first decades was housing. Reading's rapid Victorian expansion had left behind a substantial stock of overcrowded and structurally inadequate housing in the older parts of the town, particularly in the area between the Kennet and the commercial centre. The council's responses to this \u2014 slum clearance programmes, council house building on the town's expanding edges, the absorption of former agricultural land into residential use \u2014 shaped the physical geography of modern Reading as completely as the railway had shaped its Victorian predecessor. The annexation of Caversham from Oxfordshire in 1911 \u2014 adding the suburb on the north bank of the Thames to the borough \u2014 was perhaps the most politically striking of these expansions, requiring as it did the agreement of a neighbouring county to relinquish territory. Again, a familiar theme for us in 2026.\nThe political dynamics of the inter-war period were further complicated by the rise of the Labour movement in the town's factories and railways. H & G Simonds, the brewery that had operated since 1785; Huntley and Palmers, the biscuit manufacturers who from 1822 had made Reading's name synonymous with a particular kind of mass-produced consumer food; and Suttons Seeds, established in 1837 \u2014 these were the Three Bs (beer, biscuits, and bulbs) that dominated the local economy and generated the organised working-class communities that Labour organisers sought to mobilise. The biscuit factory in particular, at its peak employing thousands, was a defining institution of Reading's social geography \u2014 its demolition in 1976 after the factory's closure a year earlier marked the end of something irreplaceable in the town's industrial identity and the move to a more modern, information technology dependent era that we are still inhabiting today.\n\u00a0\n1974: The End of Independence\nThe Local Government Act of 1972, introduced by Ted Heath\u2019s Tories, was a profound humiliation for Reading \u2014 or at any rate was experienced as one. The reorganisation that came into effect on the first of April 1974 abolished county borough status across England and Wales, abolishing the administrative independence that Reading had exercised since 1889 and placing it, for the first time, under the authority of Berkshire County Council.\nThis was felt as a demotion. The borough council had campaigned vigorously to have its boundaries enlarged before the reforms took effect \u2014 seeking to incorporate Earley, Woodley, Purley on Thames, and other suburban areas that had grown up around the town and were functionally part of it \u2014 but the government declined to make any changes. Reading entered the new era within the same boundaries it had held since 1911, now sharing county functions with a tier of government it had not previously had to answer to.\n\nThe county council's new headquarters was itself a source of some controversy. Shire Hall, the county's administrative base, was in Reading \u2014 but in 1981 it moved to new premises at Shinfield Park on the southern outskirts of the town. Crucially, the new building sat just outside the borough boundaries, in the neighbouring parish of Shinfield. The county council, in other words, had built its new \u00a327.5 million headquarters in one authority's territory while serving another's. This was the kind of jurisdictional absurdity that British local government seems uniquely capable of generating then and now.\nThe 1974 reforms also introduced the party-political organisation of the county council itself. Before the 1974 reorganisation, candidates for Berkshire County Council had typically stood as independents; party affiliations were not even printed on ballot papers until 1970. The new structure rapidly produced the familiar landscape of party whipping, group discipline, and ideological contest and increasing influence from central government. The Conservatives held a clear majority on the reconstituted county council for the first decade after 1974, with Labour establishing a persistent presence and the Liberal Democrats \u2014 particularly in the later years \u2014 emerging as a force particularly in suburban and rural areas.\nAt the district level, Reading Borough Council in the immediate post-1974 period was genuinely three-way marginal. After the addition of parts of parishes from South Oxfordshire in 1977 \u2014 the Caversham Park area and parts of Mapledurham \u2014 the council stood at twenty-three Conservatives, thirteen Labour, and thirteen Liberals. This was not a comfortable majority for anyone, and political control shifted with some frequency through the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Conservatives held the upper hand for much of this period, but the demographic changes that were reshaping Reading \u2014 the decline of traditional manufacturing, the growth of the service economy and the technology sector, increasing diversity in the population \u2014 were slowly altering the electoral landscape.\n\u00a0\n1998: The Restoration of Unitary Status\nThe abolition of Berkshire County Council in 1998 was a remarkable piece of administrative history. The council had been established in 1889 and it was now to be dissolved just over a century later - its functions distributed among six successor unitary authorities. The process had been fractious. The independent Local Government Commission, convened to consider reform of local government across England, again by the Cobservatives, had in its December 1994 report initially recommended five unitary authorities for Berkshire rather than six; the Environment Secretary John Gummer overrode this recommendation, approving six separate councils in response to local representations emphasising distinct community identities. Berkshire County Council mounted a legal challenge in the High Court, arguing that Gummer's decision exceeded the permissible scope of modifications to the Commission's report. The High Court initially ruled in the council's favour; on the twenty-fourth of January 1996, the Court of Appeal overturned that judgment.\nThe county council's last day was the thirty-first of March 1998. From the first of April, Reading Borough Council became a unitary authority once again \u2014 responsible for all local government functions in the borough, with no county tier above it. This was, in effect, a restoration. The powers Reading had exercised from 1889 to 1974 as a county borough were returned to it, albeit without the boundary expansion that the council had repeatedly sought. The town's built-up area had long since spread well beyond the borough's southern boundary \u2014 fixed since 1911 \u2014 into West Berkshire and Wokingham, a territorial anomaly that continues to generate friction over planning, transport, and school catchments. Cross-boundary working between Reading and its neighbours is, as one commentator drily notes, \"sometimes criticised.\"\nThe political impact of the abolition was also significant in a broader sense. Berkshire, unlike most other ceremonial counties, ceased to have any elected body speaking for the whole of it. The six successor authorities operate jointly on specific matters \u2014 the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, for example, is administered by a joint committee \u2014 but there is no Berkshire-wide forum for strategic planning or democratic accountability. The county exists as a ceremonial entity, its name preserved on road signs and in official designations, but without the institutional reality that had underpinned it since 1889.\n\u00a0\nLabour's Reading: Politics Since 2000\nThe early years of the twenty-first century brought a period of sustained Labour strength in Reading. The council had been under various forms of control \u2014 sometimes Labour, sometimes Conservative, sometimes no overall \u2014 through the 1990s, but the 2000s saw Labour consolidate and eventually dominate. By 2012, the council passed into Labour majority control, a position it has maintained without interruption since. This longevity is significant in a town that, at the parliamentary level, remains genuinely competitive: the 2024 general election divided the borough's parliamentary representation between three constituencies \u2014 Reading Central, Reading West and Mid Berkshire, and Earley and Woodley \u2014 reflecting the complex political geography of a town whose different neighbourhoods have quite different political characters.\nThe council's recent history has been dominated by the perennial tension of English local government in the austerity era: trying to maintain services under conditions of severely constrained central government funding. Between 2010 and 2019, non-ringfenced government grants to local authorities fell by extraordinary amounts \u2014 a reduction in the Revenue Support Grant from nearly \u00a310 billion nationally in 2015-16 to \u00a32.3 billion by 2019-20, representing a direct transfer of fiscal pain from Westminster to town halls. Reading Borough Council, like all English councils, was required to absorb these reductions while meeting rising demand for adult social care, children's services, and housing support.\n\nThe council moved its headquarters from the Victorian Town Hall on Blagrave Street \u2014 which had served as the centre of borough administration since 1786 \u2014 to the new Civic Offices on Bridge Street in 2014, a relocation that was both practical and symbolic: a break from the dense civic historicism of the old building towards a more functional, corporate administrative culture. (The Town Hall's annual mayoral meeting remains at the old building, a concession to ceremony if not to daily governance.)\nThe council leader at the time of writing, Liz Terry, has spoken in terms that illustrate the frustrations of running a Labour authority in an era of constrained central government funding. In a February 2026 budget debate, in response to opposition criticism of rising council tax and service reductions, she contrasted Reading's record with the situations of neighbouring West Berkshire and Windsor and Maidenhead \u2014 both of which had, by that point, required Exceptional Financial Support from the government, having declined to raise council tax in earlier years. \"I'll make no apology for the hard work we've done to set a balanced budget,\" she told the chamber, in language that captures the basic tension of modern English local government: the near-impossibility of doing what the law requires without either raising taxes or cutting services, usually both.\nHowever, the election of a Labour government in Westminster has seen reallocation of funding to Reading\u2019s benefit (and Wokingham\u2019s detreiment).\nReading's opposition parties have been equally exercised about the state of the council's finances. Green councillors argued that some of the savings in the 2026 budget represented false economies that would cost more over the medium term. Conservative group leader Raj Singh drew a comparison \u2014 gasps from across the chamber suggesting its hyperbole was widely noted \u2014 between the Labour administration and Robert Clive. The Liberal Democrats have established a presence in the outlying wards. The political temperature in Reading's council chamber, while not exceptional by national standards, reflects a town in which the old industrial certainties that once grounded Labour's electoral base have been replaced by a more volatile mix of demographic change, economic anxiety, and the politics of housing and planning.\n\u00a0\nThe Boundary Problem and the Shape of Modern Reading\nThe most persistent structural failure of Reading's local governance is the mismatch between the administrative borough and the actual city. Reading's boundaries to the south of the Thames have not changed since 1911. The urban area has expanded dramatically beyond those boundaries into West Berkshire and Wokingham \u2014 suburbs like Earley, Woodley, Tilehurst, and Purley on Thames function as extensions of Reading in every practical sense, sharing its labour markets, transport networks, and social infrastructure, but falling under different local authorities with different political complexions and service priorities.\nThis boundary problem has been raised repeatedly. Before the 1974 reforms, the borough council sought to expand to include Earley, Woodley, and other areas; the government declined. Before the 1998 unitary reforms, the Local Government Commission recommended expanding Reading's boundaries to include the same communities; the decision was again made to leave them unchanged. The consequence is an urban governance failure of some significance: a town that cannot plan strategically for its own hinterland, whose transport policy must be negotiated across three authority boundaries, whose housing supply is partly determined by councils that prioritise the interests of existing residents in the surrounding areas over the needs of the regional centre.\nThe proposal for a conurbation between Reading and Basingstoke \u2014 dubbed \"Readingstoke\" by a coalition of opponents who formed CRAG (Readingstoke Action Group, later merged with the CPRE) \u2014 was defeated partly through the advocacy of former members of the abolished Berkshire County Council; the terminology may have been fanciful, but the underlying planning pressures were real.\nReading has been represented in every Parliament since 1295. That continuity of representation coexists, somewhat ironically, with a chronic inability to sort out where, precisely, its administrative boundaries should lie, with three MPs and three authorities currently representing the town under different borders, remits and political priorities.\n\u00a0\nA Town Still Evolving\nThe unbroken thread of governance in Reading stretching back to an age when its own market stalls were regulated by an abbot who had the King's ear, and its burgesses were beginning, slowly and carefully, to insist that they had something to say about that remain visible in our town, if you know where to look. The Abbey Ward of Reading Borough Council takes its name from the institution whose dissolution created the conditions for democratic borough government in the first place. The Forbury Gardens, where families eat lunch and office workers take their breaks, occupy the ground where Hugh Faringdon was executed for refusing to surrender. The civic offices on Bridge Street sit a short walk from the site of the medieval bridge over the Kennet where, in the winter of 1643, Parliamentarian scouts were halted by floodwaters and could not cross.\nIt reminds us that history is still being written, so who know what the latest election and local boundary changes will bring to the future story of Reading\u2019s governance ?\n\u00a0", "summary": "Discover the centuries-old struggle for self-governance in Reading, tracing its evolution from medieval monastic rule to the modern-day borough council.", "date_published": "2026-05-01T10:43:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:41:51.977623+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/3f16681a.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/3f16681a.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "The Town That Governed Itself", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 5012, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "As the latest local elections loom, we take a look at how Reading has been governed down the years, from the shadow of a medieval abbey to the meeting rooms of our revamped twenty-first-century civic offices.
\nThere is a moment, repeated across the long bureaucratic history of Reading, that captures something essential about the relationship between our town and the idea of self-government. It comes in different guises down the centuries \u2014 as a monastic dispute, a parliamentary charter, a cholera outbreak, an election night count \u2014 but its substance is always the same: Reading its right to decide its own affairs.
\nAs most readers will know, Reading today is the largest town in England without city status, a distinction it wears with a mixture of civic pride and mild grievance. Sitting at the confluence of the Thames and the Kennet, roughly equidistant between London and Bristol, its geography that has made it commercially important since the early medieval period and politically contested for just as long.
\nThe current population of roughly 183,000 is served by an unitary authority \u2014 Reading Borough Council \u2014 that has been under Labour majority control since 2012 and is headquartered in the recently revamped Civic Offices on Bridge Street. Although large parts of the town\u2019s suburbs are split out into other boroughs \u2013 Wokingham and West Berkshire.
\nTo understand how Reading Borough Council came to have its present form, you have to go back considerably further than 2012. All the way to the foundation of Reading Abbey.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Abbey and the Borough: Governance Before Democracy
\nReading was described as a borough in the Domesday Book of 1086, which places its civic identity among the oldest in England. William the Conqueror had given land in and around the town to his foundation at Battle Abbey in Sussex, and the presence of six mills \u2014 four on royal land, two on Battle Abbey's \u2014 suggests a settlement of some commercial complexity. But the decisive event in Reading's medieval governance came in 1121, when Henry I founded Reading Abbey as a Cluniac Benedictine monastery, and with it granted the abbey lordship over the entire town.
\n
This was not merely a spiritual arrangement. The abbey's control was comprehensive: abbots regulated commerce, relocated markets to the Forbury area near the abbey precinct, and hosted annual fairs that drew merchants from across Berkshire and beyond. The offices of reeve and bailiff \u2014 the town's earliest administrative roles \u2014 were appointments of the abbot, not of the townspeople. A document from the reign of Henry II records the names of Warin the Reeve and Walter the Reeve as witnesses to a grant by one of the abbots; they were, almost certainly, officials serving at the pleasure of the monastery. For well over a century after its foundation, Reading was, in all practical terms, governed by an ecclesiastical corporation.
\nThe town began to assert itself gradually from the thirteenth century onwards. At the beginning of Henry III's reign, Reading appears to have been in danger of losing its burghal status altogether, so complete was the abbot's dominion. The struggle that followed \u2014 between the commercial interests of the town's merchant class and the institutional authority of the abbey \u2014 is poorly documented but unmistakable in its outlines. Royal charters, including one from Henry III in 1253 that confirmed burgess rights to regulate markets, collect tolls, and administer local justice, gave the townspeople an incremental legal foothold against the abbey's dominance, but the tension was never fully resolved before the more drastic resolution came in the sixteenth century.
\nHenry VIII's dissolution of Reading Abbey in 1538 was, among its many consequences, a convulsive moment in the town's governance. The last abbot, Hugh Faringdon \u2014 also known as Hugh Cook \u2014 refused to surrender peacefully. He was charged with high treason for allegedly concealing participants in the Pilgrimage of Grace and denying the King's supremacy over the Church. He was attainted without formal trial and executed in November 1539 in the Forbury, the open ground before the abbey gates, becoming one of only three abbots to die in this way during the dissolution. With the abbey gone, the institutional framework that had governed Reading for four centuries was simply abolished, and for a brief period the town was administered by the King's officers managing the dismemberment of the abbey's properties.
\nThe solution came in 1542, when Henry VIII granted the town's Guild a new charter that permitted the burgesses to elect their own mayor \u2014 a fundamental shift. For the first time in its history, Reading had a genuinely elected civic head, albeit elected from the \u2018middle class\u2019 members of the town\u2019s guilds.
\nThen, Elizabeth I's charter of 1560 set out the borough's boundaries with some precision, encompassing the whole of the parish of St Laurence and parts of the parishes of St Giles and St Mary. Those boundaries, remarkably, would not be substantially altered until 1887. The body that governed within them was formally known as the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of the borough of Reading \u2014 a formulation that would persist, with modifications, for nearly three hundred years.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Civil War and the Cost of Geography
\nReading's misfortune in the seventeenth century was topographical. Sitting precisely halfway between Royalist Oxford and Parliamentarian London, on the main road connecting both, it was the kind of place that every army needed to control and no army wanted to inhabit. The consequences for the town's population \u2014 roughly five thousand people at the time \u2014 were severe.
\nKing Charles I entered Reading in November 1642, following his inconclusive engagement at Edgehill, and left behind a garrison of some two thousand soldiers under the command of Sir Arthur Aston, a veteran of the Thirty Years' War who combined military competence with an apparently limitless talent for making enemies of the people he was supposed to protect. The town was required to house the garrison, fund its fortifications, and cover Aston's salary \u2014 which was so disproportionate that he reportedly loaned money back to the town at interest. Stuart Hylton's 2017 history of the town names Aston as one of the most unpopular figures in Reading's recorded past, and contemporary accounts make it easy to understand why. So, before complaining about our current local politicians, take a beat !
\nThe Parliamentarian response came in April 1643. The Earl of Essex marched an army of over nineteen thousand men from Windsor \u2014 sixteen thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry, plus artillery \u2014 and arrived before Reading on the fourteenth. He feinted as though bound for Oxford, then swung his forces around to the south and west of the town, where the defensive earthworks were weakest, and seized Caversham Bridge, cutting Reading off from Royalist relief. By the sixteenth, the artillery was positioned and the bombardment began. On the nineteenth, an extraordinary thing happened: Aston was struck by debris dislodged by cannon fire and rendered, apparently, literally speechless. Command passed to his deputy, Colonel Richard Feilding.
\nOn the morning of the twenty-fifth of April, Feilding displayed a white flag and sought terms. That same afternoon, a relief force commanded by Charles I himself and Prince Rupert attacked the Parliamentarian positions at Caversham Bridge. Feilding's officers urged him to break the truce and join the battle. He refused, saying that he would not do so \"if the king himself should come and knock at the gate, and command him to do it\" \u2014 a statement of personal honour that effectively ended his military career. The Royalists were repulsed. The surrender terms were agreed on the twenty-sixth of April, and the garrison marched out the following day with flying colours and four pieces of ordnance, bound for Oxford. Feilding, for his probity, was court-martialled within days of reaching the city, convicted of treason, and sentenced to death. Charles I eventually pardoned him but stripped him of his rank.
\nAston, meanwhile, discovered that he had recovered his voice during the march to Oxford. The war's toll on Reading was severe in ways that outlasted the fighting itself. The town changed hands repeatedly \u2014 Parliamentary forces occupied it from April 1643, lost it to a Royalist incursion that September when typhoid devastated the garrison, then held it again from 1644 until the war's end. The fortifications built under Aston, sections of which remain partially visible in Forbury Gardens, were among the most elaborate constructed in any English provincial town during the conflict. The earthworks absorbed the labour of the townspeople and the funds of the corporation, neither of which were willingly given. What the Civil War left behind was not simply a traumatised population but a deeply ingrained civic suspicion of being pressed into service for causes decided elsewhere \u2014 a disposition that would resurface, in more democratic forms, throughout the centuries that followed.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Age Of The Aldermen
\nIn the centuries between the upheaval of the English Civil War and the sweeping reforms of the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, Reading was governed in a way that would feel strikingly unfamiliar today. Power did not rest with voters or a broad electorate, but with a small, self-selecting group of local figures who effectively ran the town as a private club.
\nAt the heart of this system was Reading\u2019s municipal corporation, an institution rooted in royal charters dating back to the Tudor period. Its structure appeared formal enough\u2014a mayor presided over a body of aldermen and burgesses\u2014but beneath that formality lay a tightly controlled network. Membership of the corporation was not open to the public. Instead, existing members chose their successors, ensuring continuity of influence among a narrow circle of merchants, landowners and established families. The wider population had little say in who governed them, and even the right to vote in borough matters was restricted to freemen, a small and often exclusive group.
\nDespite its limited accountability, the corporation exercised broad authority over everyday life in Reading. It regulated markets and trade, maintained streets and public buildings, managed town property, and oversaw local justice through the mayor\u2019s role as a magistrate. In many respects, it functioned as both council and court, shaping the economic and civic life of the town in ways that touched nearly every resident.
\nThe political turbulence of the later 17th century did not leave Reading untouched. In the years following the Civil War, central government took a keen interest in borough corporations, recognising their importance in securing loyalty and influence. Under monarchs such as Charles II and James II, charters were sometimes revised or reissued, allowing the Crown to reshape local leadership. Yet these interventions rarely altered the fundamental character of governance. The corporation remained a closed body, resistant to broader participation.
\nBy the early 19th century, this system was beginning to look increasingly outdated. Across England, municipal corporations faced growing criticism for their lack of transparency and democratic legitimacy. Investigations by bodies such as the Royal Commission on Municipal Corporations revealed patterns of patronage, inefficiency and, in some cases, outright corruption. Reading was not alone in this; it was part of a wider national picture in which historic institutions had failed to keep pace with social and economic change.
\n\u00a0
\nReform, Railways, and the Victorian Corporation
\nThe Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 was, in theory, the great rationalising moment of English local government. It swept away the often corrupt and self-perpetuating corporations of the unreformed boroughs and replaced them with standardised municipal structures elected by ratepaying male householders. In Reading, it produced a body formally constituted as a municipal borough, an improvement \u2014 at least in terms of formal democratic accountability \u2014 over what had preceded it. In practice, the reforms took some time to generate genuinely contested politics; the new council was initially dominated by Whig and later Liberal figures drawn from the same commercial and professional classes that had always run the town.
\n
What transformed Reading's civic life in the mid-nineteenth century was not political theory but the railway. The Great Western Railway arrived in 1841, the South Eastern in 1849, and the London and South Western in 1856. Reading became, almost overnight, a junction town \u2014 a place where goods, capital, and people moved through at velocity. The population, which stood at around fifteen thousand in 1831, would reach fifty-nine thousand by 1900. This growth created the classic Victorian municipal imperative: the need to govern a rapidly expanding industrial town whose infrastructure, including water, gas, sewers, roads, housing was entirely inadequate to its new demands.
\nThe borough council responded with the ambition typical of Victorian civic authority at its most energetic. By the second half of the nineteenth century, it was exercising powers over water supply, public health, street improvement, and what would now be called \u2018planning\u2019. The expansion of the borough boundaries in 1887 \u2014 taking in Southcote, Whitley, the north-western parts of Earley, and the eastern end of Tilehurst \u2014 was itself a political act: an assertion that the industrial and residential hinterland being absorbed into the town's economy should also fall under its civic jurisdiction and something that is familiar in today\u2019s debates about civic boundaries.
\nThe physical expression of this ambition was the Town Hall on Blagrave Street, built in phases between 1786 and 1897, which served as the headquarters of the borough council until 1976. It is a building that tells the story of Victorian municipal self-confidence in its very fabric: expanded and improved as the council's sense of its own importance grew, its final Victorian phase completed just as Reading was about to achieve its most significant administrative status. The Summer Assizes had been moved from Abingdon to Reading in 1867, and the Privy Council formally recognised Reading as the sole county town of Berkshire in 1869 \u2014 a designation that carried both practical and symbolic weight, settling a long-running rivalry between the two towns.
\nThe boroughs summoned to the Model Parliament of 1295 included Reading, which had elected two Members of Parliament continuously from that date. The Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885 reduced this to one, and the constituency thereafter changed hands repeatedly between Conservatives and Liberals before the Labour Party began to make it genuinely competitive. The pre-reform parliamentary history of the borough was often scandalous in the manner common to English rotten boroughs: the electorate was small, the influence of local magnates considerable, and the temptation to bribery endemic. The Great Reform Act of 1832 had somewhat broadened the franchise, and the population of the borough was recorded as fifteen thousand nine hundred and thirty-five in 1831, with three thousand three hundred and seven houses \u2014 numbers that give some sense of the concentrated, crowded nature of the pre-Victorian town.
\n\u00a0
\nCounty Borough: The Era of Independence
\nThe Local Government Act of 1888 conferred upon Reading the status of county borough. This was not simply administrative nomenclature; it meant that Reading was deemed large enough to govern itself at county level, becoming entirely independent of the newly formed Berkshire County Council that came into being on the first of April 1889 \u2014 itself holding its inaugural meeting at Reading Assizes Court, which had been completed in 1861. Reading's corporation would provide all services for its population: education, highways, public health, and later housing, without reference to the county at all. This independence would last, with significant political consequences, for eighty-five years.
\nThe county borough era was the period in which party politics properly entered Reading's local government. Before the 1890s, councillors had typically stood as independents representing ward interests or professional identities. The emergence of organised Liberal and Conservative caucuses, and eventually the Labour Party's rise after the First World War, transformed the corporation from a body of civic worthies into a genuinely partisan institution. The pattern of control that emerged was broadly Conservative for much of the first half of the twentieth century, with Labour making inroads during periods of national Labour strength \u2014 particularly after 1945 \u2014 and the Liberals occupying a persistent but rarely decisive third-party role.
\nThe most consequential work of the county borough council in the twentieth century's first decades was housing. Reading's rapid Victorian expansion had left behind a substantial stock of overcrowded and structurally inadequate housing in the older parts of the town, particularly in the area between the Kennet and the commercial centre. The council's responses to this \u2014 slum clearance programmes, council house building on the town's expanding edges, the absorption of former agricultural land into residential use \u2014 shaped the physical geography of modern Reading as completely as the railway had shaped its Victorian predecessor. The annexation of Caversham from Oxfordshire in 1911 \u2014 adding the suburb on the north bank of the Thames to the borough \u2014 was perhaps the most politically striking of these expansions, requiring as it did the agreement of a neighbouring county to relinquish territory. Again, a familiar theme for us in 2026.
\nThe political dynamics of the inter-war period were further complicated by the rise of the Labour movement in the town's factories and railways. H & G Simonds, the brewery that had operated since 1785; Huntley and Palmers, the biscuit manufacturers who from 1822 had made Reading's name synonymous with a particular kind of mass-produced consumer food; and Suttons Seeds, established in 1837 \u2014 these were the Three Bs (beer, biscuits, and bulbs) that dominated the local economy and generated the organised working-class communities that Labour organisers sought to mobilise. The biscuit factory in particular, at its peak employing thousands, was a defining institution of Reading's social geography \u2014 its demolition in 1976 after the factory's closure a year earlier marked the end of something irreplaceable in the town's industrial identity and the move to a more modern, information technology dependent era that we are still inhabiting today.
\n\u00a0
\n1974: The End of Independence
\nThe Local Government Act of 1972, introduced by Ted Heath\u2019s Tories, was a profound humiliation for Reading \u2014 or at any rate was experienced as one. The reorganisation that came into effect on the first of April 1974 abolished county borough status across England and Wales, abolishing the administrative independence that Reading had exercised since 1889 and placing it, for the first time, under the authority of Berkshire County Council.
\nThis was felt as a demotion. The borough council had campaigned vigorously to have its boundaries enlarged before the reforms took effect \u2014 seeking to incorporate Earley, Woodley, Purley on Thames, and other suburban areas that had grown up around the town and were functionally part of it \u2014 but the government declined to make any changes. Reading entered the new era within the same boundaries it had held since 1911, now sharing county functions with a tier of government it had not previously had to answer to.
\n
The county council's new headquarters was itself a source of some controversy. Shire Hall, the county's administrative base, was in Reading \u2014 but in 1981 it moved to new premises at Shinfield Park on the southern outskirts of the town. Crucially, the new building sat just outside the borough boundaries, in the neighbouring parish of Shinfield. The county council, in other words, had built its new \u00a327.5 million headquarters in one authority's territory while serving another's. This was the kind of jurisdictional absurdity that British local government seems uniquely capable of generating then and now.
\nThe 1974 reforms also introduced the party-political organisation of the county council itself. Before the 1974 reorganisation, candidates for Berkshire County Council had typically stood as independents; party affiliations were not even printed on ballot papers until 1970. The new structure rapidly produced the familiar landscape of party whipping, group discipline, and ideological contest and increasing influence from central government. The Conservatives held a clear majority on the reconstituted county council for the first decade after 1974, with Labour establishing a persistent presence and the Liberal Democrats \u2014 particularly in the later years \u2014 emerging as a force particularly in suburban and rural areas.
\nAt the district level, Reading Borough Council in the immediate post-1974 period was genuinely three-way marginal. After the addition of parts of parishes from South Oxfordshire in 1977 \u2014 the Caversham Park area and parts of Mapledurham \u2014 the council stood at twenty-three Conservatives, thirteen Labour, and thirteen Liberals. This was not a comfortable majority for anyone, and political control shifted with some frequency through the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Conservatives held the upper hand for much of this period, but the demographic changes that were reshaping Reading \u2014 the decline of traditional manufacturing, the growth of the service economy and the technology sector, increasing diversity in the population \u2014 were slowly altering the electoral landscape.
\n\u00a0
\n1998: The Restoration of Unitary Status
\nThe abolition of Berkshire County Council in 1998 was a remarkable piece of administrative history. The council had been established in 1889 and it was now to be dissolved just over a century later - its functions distributed among six successor unitary authorities. The process had been fractious. The independent Local Government Commission, convened to consider reform of local government across England, again by the Cobservatives, had in its December 1994 report initially recommended five unitary authorities for Berkshire rather than six; the Environment Secretary John Gummer overrode this recommendation, approving six separate councils in response to local representations emphasising distinct community identities. Berkshire County Council mounted a legal challenge in the High Court, arguing that Gummer's decision exceeded the permissible scope of modifications to the Commission's report. The High Court initially ruled in the council's favour; on the twenty-fourth of January 1996, the Court of Appeal overturned that judgment.
\nThe county council's last day was the thirty-first of March 1998. From the first of April, Reading Borough Council became a unitary authority once again \u2014 responsible for all local government functions in the borough, with no county tier above it. This was, in effect, a restoration. The powers Reading had exercised from 1889 to 1974 as a county borough were returned to it, albeit without the boundary expansion that the council had repeatedly sought. The town's built-up area had long since spread well beyond the borough's southern boundary \u2014 fixed since 1911 \u2014 into West Berkshire and Wokingham, a territorial anomaly that continues to generate friction over planning, transport, and school catchments. Cross-boundary working between Reading and its neighbours is, as one commentator drily notes, \"sometimes criticised.\"
\nThe political impact of the abolition was also significant in a broader sense. Berkshire, unlike most other ceremonial counties, ceased to have any elected body speaking for the whole of it. The six successor authorities operate jointly on specific matters \u2014 the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, for example, is administered by a joint committee \u2014 but there is no Berkshire-wide forum for strategic planning or democratic accountability. The county exists as a ceremonial entity, its name preserved on road signs and in official designations, but without the institutional reality that had underpinned it since 1889.
\n\u00a0
\nLabour's Reading: Politics Since 2000
\nThe early years of the twenty-first century brought a period of sustained Labour strength in Reading. The council had been under various forms of control \u2014 sometimes Labour, sometimes Conservative, sometimes no overall \u2014 through the 1990s, but the 2000s saw Labour consolidate and eventually dominate. By 2012, the council passed into Labour majority control, a position it has maintained without interruption since. This longevity is significant in a town that, at the parliamentary level, remains genuinely competitive: the 2024 general election divided the borough's parliamentary representation between three constituencies \u2014 Reading Central, Reading West and Mid Berkshire, and Earley and Woodley \u2014 reflecting the complex political geography of a town whose different neighbourhoods have quite different political characters.
\nThe council's recent history has been dominated by the perennial tension of English local government in the austerity era: trying to maintain services under conditions of severely constrained central government funding. Between 2010 and 2019, non-ringfenced government grants to local authorities fell by extraordinary amounts \u2014 a reduction in the Revenue Support Grant from nearly \u00a310 billion nationally in 2015-16 to \u00a32.3 billion by 2019-20, representing a direct transfer of fiscal pain from Westminster to town halls. Reading Borough Council, like all English councils, was required to absorb these reductions while meeting rising demand for adult social care, children's services, and housing support.
\n
The council moved its headquarters from the Victorian Town Hall on Blagrave Street \u2014 which had served as the centre of borough administration since 1786 \u2014 to the new Civic Offices on Bridge Street in 2014, a relocation that was both practical and symbolic: a break from the dense civic historicism of the old building towards a more functional, corporate administrative culture. (The Town Hall's annual mayoral meeting remains at the old building, a concession to ceremony if not to daily governance.)
\nThe council leader at the time of writing, Liz Terry, has spoken in terms that illustrate the frustrations of running a Labour authority in an era of constrained central government funding. In a February 2026 budget debate, in response to opposition criticism of rising council tax and service reductions, she contrasted Reading's record with the situations of neighbouring West Berkshire and Windsor and Maidenhead \u2014 both of which had, by that point, required Exceptional Financial Support from the government, having declined to raise council tax in earlier years. \"I'll make no apology for the hard work we've done to set a balanced budget,\" she told the chamber, in language that captures the basic tension of modern English local government: the near-impossibility of doing what the law requires without either raising taxes or cutting services, usually both.
\nHowever, the election of a Labour government in Westminster has seen reallocation of funding to Reading\u2019s benefit (and Wokingham\u2019s detreiment).
\nReading's opposition parties have been equally exercised about the state of the council's finances. Green councillors argued that some of the savings in the 2026 budget represented false economies that would cost more over the medium term. Conservative group leader Raj Singh drew a comparison \u2014 gasps from across the chamber suggesting its hyperbole was widely noted \u2014 between the Labour administration and Robert Clive. The Liberal Democrats have established a presence in the outlying wards. The political temperature in Reading's council chamber, while not exceptional by national standards, reflects a town in which the old industrial certainties that once grounded Labour's electoral base have been replaced by a more volatile mix of demographic change, economic anxiety, and the politics of housing and planning.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Boundary Problem and the Shape of Modern Reading
\nThe most persistent structural failure of Reading's local governance is the mismatch between the administrative borough and the actual city. Reading's boundaries to the south of the Thames have not changed since 1911. The urban area has expanded dramatically beyond those boundaries into West Berkshire and Wokingham \u2014 suburbs like Earley, Woodley, Tilehurst, and Purley on Thames function as extensions of Reading in every practical sense, sharing its labour markets, transport networks, and social infrastructure, but falling under different local authorities with different political complexions and service priorities.
\nThis boundary problem has been raised repeatedly. Before the 1974 reforms, the borough council sought to expand to include Earley, Woodley, and other areas; the government declined. Before the 1998 unitary reforms, the Local Government Commission recommended expanding Reading's boundaries to include the same communities; the decision was again made to leave them unchanged. The consequence is an urban governance failure of some significance: a town that cannot plan strategically for its own hinterland, whose transport policy must be negotiated across three authority boundaries, whose housing supply is partly determined by councils that prioritise the interests of existing residents in the surrounding areas over the needs of the regional centre.
\nThe proposal for a conurbation between Reading and Basingstoke \u2014 dubbed \"Readingstoke\" by a coalition of opponents who formed CRAG (Readingstoke Action Group, later merged with the CPRE) \u2014 was defeated partly through the advocacy of former members of the abolished Berkshire County Council; the terminology may have been fanciful, but the underlying planning pressures were real.
\nReading has been represented in every Parliament since 1295. That continuity of representation coexists, somewhat ironically, with a chronic inability to sort out where, precisely, its administrative boundaries should lie, with three MPs and three authorities currently representing the town under different borders, remits and political priorities.
\n\u00a0
\nA Town Still Evolving
\nThe unbroken thread of governance in Reading stretching back to an age when its own market stalls were regulated by an abbot who had the King's ear, and its burgesses were beginning, slowly and carefully, to insist that they had something to say about that remain visible in our town, if you know where to look. The Abbey Ward of Reading Borough Council takes its name from the institution whose dissolution created the conditions for democratic borough government in the first place. The Forbury Gardens, where families eat lunch and office workers take their breaks, occupy the ground where Hugh Faringdon was executed for refusing to surrender. The civic offices on Bridge Street sit a short walk from the site of the medieval bridge over the Kennet where, in the winter of 1643, Parliamentarian scouts were halted by floodwaters and could not cross.
\nIt reminds us that history is still being written, so who know what the latest election and local boundary changes will bring to the future story of Reading\u2019s governance ?
\n\u00a0
", "description": "Discover the centuries-old struggle for self-governance in Reading, tracing its evolution from medieval monastic rule to the modern-day borough council.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:41:51.977623+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-05-01T10:43:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-town-that-governed-itself/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "431", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/ballot-box-berkshire/", "title": "Ballot Box Berkshire", "content_html": "\r\n
On Thursday 7 May 2026, voters in Reading and Wokingham head to the polls in what may be the most turbulent local elections in a generation. Labour faces the erosion of a dominance built since 2012, Reform UK contests wards it never previously entered, the Greens press their case as the progressive alternative, and the Liberal Democrats quietly consolidate across Wokingham's leafier precincts. And West Berkshire? It doesn't vote at all this year. We explain why — and what's really at stake everywhere else.
\r\nWest Berkshire is not voting in 2026
Despite being listed in some national election round-ups alongside Reading and Wokingham, West Berkshire Council has no elections this May. Their next district and parish council elections are scheduled for Thursday 6 May 2027, subject to potential changes from government local government reorganisation. West Berkshire currently has 28 Liberal Democrats, 11 Conservatives, 2 Greens, 1 Labour and 1 Independent councillor. If you live in Newbury, Thatcham or anywhere in between — you're not going to the polls this spring.
Reading Borough Council: A Unitary Authority
\r\nReading Borough Council is a unitary authority — meaning it does everything in one tier. Since Berkshire County Council was abolished in 1998, Reading has been responsible for the full gamut of local services: schools, social care, planning, housing, roads, libraries, waste, and more. This election — the last before the council is abolished and replaced by a successor authority in 2027 — decides who runs those services until reorganisation takes effect.
\r\nWokingham Borough Council: Another Unitary Authority
\r\nWokingham Borough Council is likewise a full unitary authority covering a large semi-rural area stretching from the suburban fringes of Reading (Earley, Woodley) through to the country towns of Wokingham and the rural parishes of Finchampstead and Remenham. It will not be affected by the current round of local government reorganisation — so the council elected on 7 May will govern for a full four-year cycle.
\r\n\r\n
What Are You Actually Voting For?
\r\nBefore we run through the candidates, let's deal with a persistent confusion on the doorstep: what does your council actually control? This matters enormously when candidates — particularly from Reform UK — campaign on immigration and small boats, because those powers sit emphatically with Westminster, not the civic offices in Bridge Street or Shute End.
\r\n\u2713 What Reading & Wokingham BC Control
\r\n\u2717 What Reading & Wokingham BC Do NOT Control
\r\nThe immigration question: When a candidate campaigns on stopping small boats or reducing migration numbers at a local election, they are — to be direct about it — making a promise they cannot keep. Immigration policy, border control, and asylum accommodation contracts are all national government functions. What councils can do is influence how asylum seekers placed in local hotels by the Home Office interact with community services, and how quickly refugee integration happens locally. These are real and legitimate questions — but they are not the same as stopping the boats.
\r\n\r\n
What Voters Are Actually Talking About
\r\nHousing: The Crisis on Your Doorstep
\r\nReading Borough Council is grappling with one of the most acute housing pressures in the South East. The borough's population reached 182,907 in mid-2024, a 1.8% annual increase driven primarily by net international migration — putting intense pressure on social housing allocation, homelessness services, and school places. Reading BC's housing allocation scheme gives priority based on local need and connection; people subject to immigration control without leave to remain are explicitly ineligible for social housing allocation.
\r\nIn Wokingham, the central housing tension is different but no less fierce: the borough faces mandatory housing targets from central government requiring thousands of new homes in an area whose residents often fiercely resist high-density development on greenfield sites. Lib Dems and Conservatives have both sought to push back against government targets; Labour nationally is the party actually setting those targets, creating an awkward dynamic for Wokingham Labour candidates.
\r\nSEND: The Budget Black Hole No-one Wants to Talk About
\r\nSpecial Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision is one of the most severe financial pressures on councils nationally. The Institute for Government estimated England's cumulative SEND deficit would reach between £4.6bn and £5.2bn by March 2026. Reading BC has faced its own SEND overspend. The national \"statutory override\" that protects councils from declaring bankruptcy over SEND deficits has been extended to March 2028 — kicking the problem down the road rather than solving it. Any party promising to fix SEND without naming where the money comes from should be pressed on specifics.
\r\nCouncil Tax: The Annual Squeeze
\r\nBoth Reading and Wokingham have applied council tax increases at or near the maximum permitted (currently 3% general plus 2% adult social care precept) in recent years. Reform UK and Conservative candidates will point to this as evidence of Labour and Lib Dem waste; Labour and Lib Dem incumbents will point to austerity-era underfunding from the previous Conservative national government. Both arguments contain real truth.
\r\nAntisocial Behaviour: The Visible Issue
\r\nAntisocial behaviour — particularly in Reading town centre, Whitley and parts of south Reading — is a genuine and recurring concern. The council can deploy Public Spaces Protection Orders (Reading BC recently launched a new PSPO) and fund community wardens. But police numbers, court resources, and the underlying social drivers (mental health, addiction, housing insecurity) are largely outside council control. Candidates who promise to \"fix\" antisocial behaviour by winning a council seat are over-promising.
\r\nPlanning and Green Spaces
\r\nIn Wokingham, planning is perhaps the defining political question. The borough sits in one of the most development-pressured parts of England. The National Planning Policy Framework requires Wokingham BC to accept significant housing growth; the council's response — how it manages that growth, where it directs it, and what infrastructure it negotiates from developers — is entirely within its gift. This is where voting in Wokingham genuinely shapes the character of the borough.
\r\n\r\n
What Each Party is Promising
\r\nCandidates are required to campaign on matters within local government's remit. Here is what each party is offering — both in terms of local promises and the national backdrop they're trailing behind them.
\r\nLabour
\r\nNational Labour polling: ~18–20%. Local incumbency provides some insulation but not immunity.
\r\nConservative
\r\nReal risk of losing several Wokingham wards to both Lib Dems and Reform.
\r\nLiberal Democrats
\r\nStrong structural advantage in Wokingham. National LD polling: ~11–15%.
\r\nGreen Party
\r\nThe progressive challenger to Labour in Reading. Could pick up protest votes from disillusioned Labour supporters.
\r\nReform UK
\r\nThe disruptive force. In five-party splits, they can win wards with 25% or less of the vote. Watch Emmer Green, Thames and Abbey in Reading.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
Local Government Reorganisation: The Elephant in the Room
\r\nReading Borough Council is being abolished. This election is the last to the current authority, which will be replaced by a successor unitary authority in 2027. Reading BC is simultaneously trying to propose expanded boundaries — its July 2025 proposal to incorporate five West Berkshire wards including Tilehurst and Theale was described by West Berkshire Council as a \"hostile land grab.\" Voters in Reading deserve to know that the councillors they elect in May will be governing during the transition to a new institutional structure. Wokingham BC, already a unitary authority, is unaffected by reorganisation.
\r\n\r\n
The National Picture — How It Lands in Reading
\r\nThese local elections take place against one of the most volatile national political landscapes in living memory. Labour is polling around 17–20% — down from the 33.8% it won the 2024 general election with — amid unhappiness over welfare benefit cuts, employer National Insurance increases that hit local businesses hard, and various controversies. The party goes in defending over 2,500 council seats won in 2022 when it was polling at 35%.
\r\nReform UK is polling 24–28% nationally, having received a £9 million donation from Christopher Harborne in August 2025. Nigel Farage committed more than £5 million to local campaigns. Reform is standing in over 95% of English wards for the first time.
\r\nThe Greens, under new leader Zack Polanski, are at 12–16% nationally — the highest in their history — and have five MPs. In Reading, where the Greens are the official opposition with 8 council seats, they are genuine challengers rather than also-rans.
\r\nThe Lib Dems at 11–15% nationally are holding their own, particularly in their southern England heartland which includes Wokingham.
\r\nConservatives at 18% face a classic two-front war: Reform takes votes to their right in Leave-voting areas like south Wokingham and parts of Reading; Lib Dems squeeze them from the progressive centre in the affluent suburbs they've held for decades.
\r\nThe five-party problem: Under first-past-the-post, a ward with five serious candidates can be won with as little as 22% of the vote. This means Reform could win seats in Reading where they receive less than a quarter of votes cast — not because most people support them, but because the other four parties split the remainder. Tactical voting — and its absence — will determine several results making the ballot a lottery...
\r\n\r\n
Reading Borough Council — The Wards & The Candidates
\r\nReading Borough Council has 48 seats across 16 wards, each represented by three councillors. This year, 17 seats are up for election — one per ward in the regular cycle, plus an additional vacancy in Caversham Heights following Cllr Sam Juthani's decision to stand down. The council has been under Labour majority control since 2012. Going into this election Labour holds 32 seats; the Greens hold 8; the Liberal Democrats 3; Conservatives 3; Reform UK 1; and one Independent.
\r\nA total of 96 candidates are standing across the 16 wards. Reform UK is standing in every ward for the first time. The Green Party is defending incumbent seats in Katesgrove, Park and Redlands, and making a push in others. The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) fields two candidates.
\r\nFour seats are guaranteed to change hands — in Battle, Norcot, Southcote (all Labour retirements) and Caversham Heights (by-election) — meaning new councillors are certain in each of those wards regardless of the result.
\r\nAbbey
Incumbent: Karen Rowland (Lab)
Battle (Open Seat)
Incumbent: Sarah Hacker (Ind) — not standing
Caversham
Incumbent: Jacopo Lanzoni (Lab)
Caversham Heights (2 Seats)
Isobel Ballsdon (Con) + vacancy (S. Juthani resigned)
Church
Incumbent: Ruth McEwan (Lab)
Coley
Incumbent: Ellie Emberson (Lab)
Emmer Green
Incumbent: Clarence Mitchell (Ref, formerly Con)
Katesgrove
Incumbent: Louise Keane (Grn)
Kentwood
Incumbent: Glenn Dennis (Lab)
Norcot (Open Seat)
Incumbent: Jo Lovelock (Lab) — not standing
Park
Incumbent: Rob White (Grn)
Redlands
Incumbent: Kathryn McCann (Grn)
Southcote (Open Seat)
Incumbent: Deborah Edwards (Lab) — not standing
Thames (Key Battleground)
Incumbent: Adele Barnett-Ward (Lab)
Tilehurst
Incumbent: Meri O'Connell (LD)
Whitley
Incumbent: Rachel Eden (Lab)
Reading Council — Projected Outcome (PollCheck, April 2026)
\r\nBased on national polling data and ward-level modelling. Individual ward results will vary. Source: pollcheck.co.uk. The model projects Labour retaining majority control with approximately 30 of 48 seats across the full council.
\r\nMajority threshold: 25 seats. Probability of Labour losing control: ~1%. Key battlegrounds where seat changes are plausible: Caversham Heights, Thames, Coley, Caversham, Abbey.
\r\nKey Battleground Wards in Reading
\r\nEmmer Green — The most dramatic ward in the borough. Clarence Mitchell, elected as a Conservative in 2023, defected to Reform UK in January 2026, becoming the first Reform councillor in Reading. He now defends as the Reform incumbent against Green candidate Hannah Connibear, who publicly predicts a Green-vs-Reform contest, and Conservative Alex Smith who will hope to reclaim the seat for his own party. PollCheck gives Reform a narrow lead here nationally, but Green campaigners are confident.
\r\nCaversham Heights — Two seats are in play: the Conservative seat held by Isobel Ballsdon (seeking re-election) plus the vacancy left by Juthani's resignation. PollCheck calls it Green narrowly leading Reform by 0.7 percentage points for at least one of the seats. With two Conservative candidates, two Greens, two Lib Dems, two Labour and two Reform candidates all competing, tactical voting will be decisive.
\r\nThames — Labour incumbent Adele Barnett-Ward faces a genuine Reform UK challenge in what PollCheck rates as Labour leading by just 1.3 percentage points. A north Reading riverside ward with mixed demographics, it exemplifies the squeeze Labour faces from its right.
\r\nColey & Caversham — Both Labour seats where Reform is projected within striking distance. Coley is an inner-Reading ward with significant social housing; Caversham is more suburban north of the river. Labour margins are narrow enough that a strong Reform night nationally could flip either.
\r\nAbbey — Reform leads Green by 8.2pp according to PollCheck, making this the most likely Labour loss or a place where Reform consolidates its foothold. The incumbent Labour councillor Karen Rowland will need to hold her personal vote against the tide.
\r\nWokingham Borough Council — The Wards & The Candidates
\r\nWokingham Borough Council has 54 seats across 18 wards. This year, 18 seats are up for election — one per ward, plus an additional seat in Wokingham Without where a former councillor stood down, making it the only ward with two seats on offer this cycle.
\r\nThe Liberal Democrats enter this election as the majority administration, having taken mid-term control through a series of by-election wins and Labour defections since 2024. They currently hold 28 seats; Conservatives 19; Labour 5; and 2 Independents. Notably, Labour councillor Majid Nagra quit the party in September 2025, citing Gaza, and now sits as an Independent — and Alex Freeney was suspended from Labour in January 2025.
\r\nFor the first time ever, all five main parties — Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Green and Reform UK — are standing candidates in all 18 wards. There are also two TUSC candidates and one Independent, making 98 candidates in total. This is a genuinely different political landscape from any previous Wokingham election.
\r\nBarkham & Arborfield
Incumbent: George Evans (Con)
Bulmershe & Coronation
Incumbent: Yusra Salman (Con)
Emmbrook
Incumbent: Basit Alvi (LD)
Evendons
Incumbent: Adrian Mather (LD) — not re-standing
Finchampstead
Incumbent: Peter Harper (Con)
Hawkedon
Incumbent: Melanie De Jong (LD)
Hillside
Incumbent: Caroline Smith (LD)
Loddon (Open Seat)
Incumbent: Alex Freeney (Ind, susp. Lab) — not re-standing
Maiden Erlegh & Whitegates
Incumbent: Andy Ng Siu-Hong (LD)
Norreys
Incumbent: Nagi Nagella (Lab)
Shinfield
Incumbent: Vishal Srinivasan (Con)
South Lake
Incumbent: Carol Jewell (LD)
Spencers Wood & Swallowfield (Open Seat)
Incumbent: Stuart Munro (Con) — not re-standing
Thames (Wokingham)
Incumbent: Katrin Harding (LD)
Twyford, Ruscombe & Hurst
Incumbent: Martijn Andrea (LD)
Wescott
Incumbent: Chris Cooke (LD)
Winnersh
Incumbent: Chetna Jamthe (LD)
Wokingham Without (2 Seats)
Incumbent: Séona Turtle (Con) + by-election vacancy
Wokingham Council — Projected Outcome (PollCheck, April 2026)
\r\nThe Liberal Democrats are projected to hold majority control of Wokingham Council with approximately 33 of 54 seats across the full council. This would be a strengthening of their current position.
\r\nMajority threshold: 28 seats. The Lib Dems already hold 28 mid-term. The biggest question is whether Conservatives can hold their rural wards against Reform in the south of the borough.
\r\n
You can find the location of your local election station on your polling card or here: https://www.reading.gov.uk/the-council-and-democracy/elections-and-voting/how-to-vote/ or https://www.wokingham.gov.uk/council-and-meetings/elections-and-voting/where-vote. Remember to take your photo ID !
", "content_text": "\r\nYour Essential Guide to the May 7th Local Elections in Reading & Wokingham.\r\n\r\n \r\nOn Thursday 7 May 2026, voters in Reading and Wokingham head to the polls in what may be the most turbulent local elections in a generation. Labour faces the erosion of a dominance built since 2012, Reform UK contests wards it never previously entered, the Greens press their case as the progressive alternative, and the Liberal Democrats quietly consolidate across Wokingham's leafier precincts. And West Berkshire? It doesn't vote at all this year. We explain why — and what's really at stake everywhere else.\r\nWest Berkshire is not voting in 2026Despite being listed in some national election round-ups alongside Reading and Wokingham, West Berkshire Council has no elections this May. Their next district and parish council elections are scheduled for Thursday 6 May 2027, subject to potential changes from government local government reorganisation. West Berkshire currently has 28 Liberal Democrats, 11 Conservatives, 2 Greens, 1 Labour and 1 Independent councillor. If you live in Newbury, Thatcham or anywhere in between — you're not going to the polls this spring.\r\nReading Borough Council: A Unitary Authority\r\nReading Borough Council is a unitary authority — meaning it does everything in one tier. Since Berkshire County Council was abolished in 1998, Reading has been responsible for the full gamut of local services: schools, social care, planning, housing, roads, libraries, waste, and more. This election — the last before the council is abolished and replaced by a successor authority in 2027 — decides who runs those services until reorganisation takes effect.\r\nWokingham Borough Council: Another Unitary Authority\r\nWokingham Borough Council is likewise a full unitary authority covering a large semi-rural area stretching from the suburban fringes of Reading (Earley, Woodley) through to the country towns of Wokingham and the rural parishes of Finchampstead and Remenham. It will not be affected by the current round of local government reorganisation — so the council elected on 7 May will govern for a full four-year cycle.\r\n \r\nWhat Are You Actually Voting For?\r\nBefore we run through the candidates, let's deal with a persistent confusion on the doorstep: what does your council actually control? This matters enormously when candidates — particularly from Reform UK — campaign on immigration and small boats, because those powers sit emphatically with Westminster, not the civic offices in Bridge Street or Shute End.\r\n\u2713 What Reading & Wokingham BC Control\r\n\r\nHousing allocation and homelessness duties\r\nPlanning applications and Local Plan\r\nSocial care for adults and children\r\nEducation and school places\r\nRoads and highways within the borough\r\nWaste collection and recycling\r\nCouncil Tax setting and collection\r\nLibraries and leisure centres\r\nEnvironmental health and licensing\r\nLocal economic development\r\nParks and green spaces\r\n\r\n\u2717 What Reading & Wokingham BC Do NOT Control\r\n\r\nImmigration policy or border controls\r\nSmall boat crossings or asylum seeker arrivals\r\nNHS services or GP waiting lists\r\nThames Valley Police operations\r\nNational benefits system (Universal Credit etc.)\r\nInterest rates or national fiscal policy\r\nEnergy prices or utility regulation\r\nNational rail services\r\nFire service (this is a joint Berkshire committee)\r\n\r\nThe immigration question: When a candidate campaigns on stopping small boats or reducing migration numbers at a local election, they are — to be direct about it — making a promise they cannot keep. Immigration policy, border control, and asylum accommodation contracts are all national government functions. What councils can do is influence how asylum seekers placed in local hotels by the Home Office interact with community services, and how quickly refugee integration happens locally. These are real and legitimate questions — but they are not the same as stopping the boats.\r\n \r\nWhat Voters Are Actually Talking About\r\nHousing: The Crisis on Your Doorstep\r\nReading Borough Council is grappling with one of the most acute housing pressures in the South East. The borough's population reached 182,907 in mid-2024, a 1.8% annual increase driven primarily by net international migration — putting intense pressure on social housing allocation, homelessness services, and school places. Reading BC's housing allocation scheme gives priority based on local need and connection; people subject to immigration control without leave to remain are explicitly ineligible for social housing allocation.\r\nIn Wokingham, the central housing tension is different but no less fierce: the borough faces mandatory housing targets from central government requiring thousands of new homes in an area whose residents often fiercely resist high-density development on greenfield sites. Lib Dems and Conservatives have both sought to push back against government targets; Labour nationally is the party actually setting those targets, creating an awkward dynamic for Wokingham Labour candidates.\r\nSEND: The Budget Black Hole No-one Wants to Talk About\r\nSpecial Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision is one of the most severe financial pressures on councils nationally. The Institute for Government estimated England's cumulative SEND deficit would reach between £4.6bn and £5.2bn by March 2026. Reading BC has faced its own SEND overspend. The national \"statutory override\" that protects councils from declaring bankruptcy over SEND deficits has been extended to March 2028 — kicking the problem down the road rather than solving it. Any party promising to fix SEND without naming where the money comes from should be pressed on specifics.\r\nCouncil Tax: The Annual Squeeze\r\nBoth Reading and Wokingham have applied council tax increases at or near the maximum permitted (currently 3% general plus 2% adult social care precept) in recent years. Reform UK and Conservative candidates will point to this as evidence of Labour and Lib Dem waste; Labour and Lib Dem incumbents will point to austerity-era underfunding from the previous Conservative national government. Both arguments contain real truth.\r\nAntisocial Behaviour: The Visible Issue\r\nAntisocial behaviour — particularly in Reading town centre, Whitley and parts of south Reading — is a genuine and recurring concern. The council can deploy Public Spaces Protection Orders (Reading BC recently launched a new PSPO) and fund community wardens. But police numbers, court resources, and the underlying social drivers (mental health, addiction, housing insecurity) are largely outside council control. Candidates who promise to \"fix\" antisocial behaviour by winning a council seat are over-promising.\r\nPlanning and Green Spaces\r\nIn Wokingham, planning is perhaps the defining political question. The borough sits in one of the most development-pressured parts of England. The National Planning Policy Framework requires Wokingham BC to accept significant housing growth; the council's response — how it manages that growth, where it directs it, and what infrastructure it negotiates from developers — is entirely within its gift. This is where voting in Wokingham genuinely shapes the character of the borough.\r\n \r\nWhat Each Party is Promising\r\nCandidates are required to campaign on matters within local government's remit. Here is what each party is offering — both in terms of local promises and the national backdrop they're trailing behind them.\r\nLabour\r\n\r\nDefending Reading's record: 16 years of Labour control have delivered council house building, regeneration in Whitley, the Reading Station Quarter project, and expansions to SEND provision\r\nPromising continued investment in social housing as part of a national housebuilding drive — 1.5 million homes nationally\r\nReading Labour points to its homelessness prevention work and affordable housing targets in its Local Plan\r\nFaces the headwind of a nationally unpopular Labour government amid welfare reform controversy, employer NI increases, and persistently low polling\r\nBudget pressures: Reading BC faced a significant overspend and increasing demand for SEND services, putting strain on council finances\r\n\r\nNational Labour polling: ~18–20%. Local incumbency provides some insulation but not immunity.\r\nConservative\r\n\r\nIn Wokingham, Conservatives are the official opposition and defend several rural and semi-rural seats in Finchampstead, Barkham, Shinfield and Spencers Wood\r\nLocally: opposition to over-development, defence of green belt, criticism of Wokingham BC's handling of housing targets imposed by central government\r\nIn Reading, defending only Caversham Heights (Isobel Ballsdon) and fighting to retain relevance against a five-party squeeze\r\nNationally, Kemi Badenoch faces party in existential struggle against Reform on its right flank and Lib Dems on its left\r\nConservative polling nationally: ~18%, squeezed by Reform in Leave-voting areas exactly like parts of south Wokingham\r\n\r\nReal risk of losing several Wokingham wards to both Lib Dems and Reform.\r\nLiberal Democrats\r\n\r\nIn Wokingham: majority administration defending record on transport (local bus services), planning transparency, and scrutiny of housing development\r\nNationally: Ed Davey launched local election campaign in East Horsley — classic Lib Dem heartland territory, very similar demographically to Wokingham\r\nChampioning resident-led planning, opposition to high-density development without infrastructure, and transparency at Wokingham BC\r\nIn Reading: defending three seats, unlikely to gain but should hold\r\nNationally positioned between Reform and Labour — benefiting from anti-Reform tactical voting in suburban southern England\r\n\r\nStrong structural advantage in Wokingham. National LD polling: ~11–15%.\r\nGreen Party\r\n\r\nIn Reading: defending three incumbents (Louise Keane/Katesgrove, Rob White/Park, Kathryn McCann/Redlands) and pushing for gains in Emmer Green, Caversham Heights and elsewhere\r\nGreen Party leader Zack Polanski (elected 2025) has sharpened left-progressive edge; the party is polling at 12–16% nationally\r\nLocal agenda: council house building, rent controls, green spaces, cycling infrastructure, SEND provision, living wage for council staff\r\nNationally: Greens now have 5 MPs. Party wants to put pressure on Labour from the left on housing, Gaza, and climate\r\nIn Wokingham: standing in all 18 wards for the first time. Unlikely to win seats but will affect Con/LD margins in some wards\r\n\r\nThe progressive challenger to Labour in Reading. Could pick up protest votes from disillusioned Labour supporters.\r\nReform UK\r\n\r\nIn Reading: standing in all 16 wards, defending Emmer Green (Clarence Mitchell, who defected from Conservatives in January 2026)\r\nLocal campaign priorities: anti-social behaviour, planning restrictions on new development, opposition to ULEZ-style charges, council spending efficiency\r\nOn immigration: candidates will campaign on it, but must be honest that council powers here are essentially nil\r\nNationally: Nigel Farage committed £5m+ to local elections; party received £9m donation from billionaire Christopher Harborne; polling 24–28% nationally\r\nIn Wokingham: standing in all 18 wards for the first time. Real prospect of winning seats in Leave-voting south of the borough\r\nBy-election data shows Reform winning seats but also losing more than they defend — \"buyer's remorse\" is a documented pattern\r\n\r\nThe disruptive force. In five-party splits, they can win wards with 25% or less of the vote. Watch Emmer Green, Thames and Abbey in Reading.\r\n \r\n \r\nLocal Government Reorganisation: The Elephant in the Room\r\nReading Borough Council is being abolished. This election is the last to the current authority, which will be replaced by a successor unitary authority in 2027. Reading BC is simultaneously trying to propose expanded boundaries — its July 2025 proposal to incorporate five West Berkshire wards including Tilehurst and Theale was described by West Berkshire Council as a \"hostile land grab.\" Voters in Reading deserve to know that the councillors they elect in May will be governing during the transition to a new institutional structure. Wokingham BC, already a unitary authority, is unaffected by reorganisation.\r\n \r\nThe National Picture — How It Lands in Reading\r\nThese local elections take place against one of the most volatile national political landscapes in living memory. Labour is polling around 17–20% — down from the 33.8% it won the 2024 general election with — amid unhappiness over welfare benefit cuts, employer National Insurance increases that hit local businesses hard, and various controversies. The party goes in defending over 2,500 council seats won in 2022 when it was polling at 35%.\r\nReform UK is polling 24–28% nationally, having received a £9 million donation from Christopher Harborne in August 2025. Nigel Farage committed more than £5 million to local campaigns. Reform is standing in over 95% of English wards for the first time.\r\nThe Greens, under new leader Zack Polanski, are at 12–16% nationally — the highest in their history — and have five MPs. In Reading, where the Greens are the official opposition with 8 council seats, they are genuine challengers rather than also-rans.\r\nThe Lib Dems at 11–15% nationally are holding their own, particularly in their southern England heartland which includes Wokingham.\r\nConservatives at 18% face a classic two-front war: Reform takes votes to their right in Leave-voting areas like south Wokingham and parts of Reading; Lib Dems squeeze them from the progressive centre in the affluent suburbs they've held for decades.\r\nThe five-party problem: Under first-past-the-post, a ward with five serious candidates can be won with as little as 22% of the vote. This means Reform could win seats in Reading where they receive less than a quarter of votes cast — not because most people support them, but because the other four parties split the remainder. Tactical voting — and its absence — will determine several results making the ballot a lottery...\r\n \r\nReading Borough Council — The Wards & The Candidates\r\nReading Borough Council has 48 seats across 16 wards, each represented by three councillors. This year, 17 seats are up for election — one per ward in the regular cycle, plus an additional vacancy in Caversham Heights following Cllr Sam Juthani's decision to stand down. The council has been under Labour majority control since 2012. Going into this election Labour holds 32 seats; the Greens hold 8; the Liberal Democrats 3; Conservatives 3; Reform UK 1; and one Independent.\r\nA total of 96 candidates are standing across the 16 wards. Reform UK is standing in every ward for the first time. The Green Party is defending incumbent seats in Katesgrove, Park and Redlands, and making a push in others. The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) fields two candidates.\r\nFour seats are guaranteed to change hands — in Battle, Norcot, Southcote (all Labour retirements) and Caversham Heights (by-election) — meaning new councillors are certain in each of those wards regardless of the result.\r\nAbbeyIncumbent: Karen Rowland (Lab)\r\n\r\nLab Karen Rowland (inc.)\r\nGrn Jacqueline Dominguez\r\nRef Paul Newton\r\nCon Robert Dalton\r\nLD Henry Wright\r\nTUSC James Morgan\r\n\r\nBattle (Open Seat)Incumbent: Sarah Hacker (Ind) — not standing\r\n\r\nLab Pratikshya Gurung\r\nGrn Zoe Mann\r\nRef Diana Whitehouse\r\nCon Ben Blackmore\r\nLD John Grout\r\n\r\nCavershamIncumbent: Jacopo Lanzoni (Lab)\r\n\r\nLab Jacopo Lanzoni (inc.)\r\nGrn Sam Wild\r\nRef Jeff Lewis\r\nCon Andrew Ballsdon\r\nLD Anthony Martin\r\nSDP Bill Runacre\r\n\r\nCaversham Heights (2 Seats)Isobel Ballsdon (Con) + vacancy (S. Juthani resigned)\r\n\r\nCon Isobel Ballsdon (inc.)\r\nCon Saadia Saadat\r\nGrn Danny McNamara\r\nGrn Adil Khan\r\nLD Vania Costa-Kroll\r\nLD Jo Ramsay\r\nLab Jo Musominari\r\nLab Richard Stainthorp\r\nRef Ilayda Molloy\r\nRef James Stothard\r\n\r\nChurchIncumbent: Ruth McEwan (Lab)\r\n\r\nLab Ruth McEwan (inc.)\r\nGrn Jamie Whitham\r\nRef Matthew Reynolds\r\nCon Adam Phelps\r\nLD Mark Cole\r\n\r\nColeyIncumbent: Ellie Emberson (Lab)\r\n\r\nLab Ellie Emberson (inc.)\r\nGrn Richard Walkem\r\nRef Petru Mereacrel\r\nCon John Angus\r\nLD Christopher Ward\r\n\r\nEmmer GreenIncumbent: Clarence Mitchell (Ref, formerly Con)\r\n\r\nRef Clarence Mitchell (inc.)\r\nGrn Hannah Connibear\r\nLab Ollie White\r\nCon Alex Smith\r\nLD Nishikant Gupta\r\n\r\nKatesgroveIncumbent: Louise Keane (Grn)\r\n\r\nGrn Louise Keane (inc.)\r\nLab Richard Wong\r\nRef Prabhdeep Singh\r\nCon Matthew Callow\r\nLD Sarah Dobson\r\nInd Jean Louis Pascual\r\n\r\nKentwoodIncumbent: Glenn Dennis (Lab)\r\n\r\nLab Glenn Dennis (inc.)\r\nGrn Tim Liddle\r\nRef Stephen Ruston\r\nCon David Milne-Buckley\r\nLD Jibril Al-Nabahani\r\n\r\nNorcot (Open Seat)Incumbent: Jo Lovelock (Lab) — not standing\r\n\r\nLab Alison Foster\r\nGrn Isobel Hoskins\r\nRef Oliver Maunder\r\nCon Kes Williams\r\nLD Brandon Masih\r\nInd Stephen Graham (Your Local Liberal Party)\r\n\r\nParkIncumbent: Rob White (Grn)\r\n\r\nGrn Rob White (inc.)\r\nLab James Cuggy\r\nRef Stephen Ham\r\nCon Kris Lund\r\nLD Jassien Sabri\r\n\r\nRedlandsIncumbent: Kathryn McCann (Grn)\r\n\r\nGrn Kathryn McCann (inc.)\r\nLab Roy Rangarirai\r\nRef Darren Seward\r\nCon Abdoulaye Sow\r\nTUSC Melanie Dent\r\n\r\nSouthcote (Open Seat)Incumbent: Deborah Edwards (Lab) — not standing\r\n\r\nLab Ulrike Magyarosy\r\nGrn Rosemary Croft\r\nRef Bev Hesin\r\nCon Grace Holly Blackmore\r\nLD Benjamin Francis Sims\r\n\r\nThames (Key Battleground)Incumbent: Adele Barnett-Ward (Lab)\r\n\r\nLab Adele Barnett-Ward (inc.)\r\nRef Alexander Kelly\r\nGrn David Clarke\r\nCon Jaykumer Sanatbhai Patel\r\nLD Christoper Burden\r\nSDP James Halls\r\n\r\nTilehurstIncumbent: Meri O'Connell (LD)\r\n\r\nLD Meri O'Connell (inc.)\r\nGrn Caroline Hearst\r\nRef Steven Low\r\nLab Caroline Basden\r\nCon Raihana Rahimi\r\n\r\nWhitleyIncumbent: Rachel Eden (Lab)\r\n\r\nLab Rachel Eden (inc.)\r\nGrn Kathy Smith\r\nRef Richie Sahni\r\nCon Vani Goel\r\nLD Pieter De Boiserie\r\n\r\n\r\nReading Council — Projected Outcome (PollCheck, April 2026)\r\nBased on national polling data and ward-level modelling. Individual ward results will vary. Source: pollcheck.co.uk. The model projects Labour retaining majority control with approximately 30 of 48 seats across the full council.\r\n\r\nLabour ~30 seats (hold)\r\nGreen ~9 seats (+1)\r\nReform UK ~4 seats (+3)\r\nLib Dems ~3 seats (hold)\r\nConservative ~2 seats (-1)\r\n\r\nMajority threshold: 25 seats. Probability of Labour losing control: ~1%. Key battlegrounds where seat changes are plausible: Caversham Heights, Thames, Coley, Caversham, Abbey.\r\n\r\nKey Battleground Wards in Reading\r\nEmmer Green — The most dramatic ward in the borough. Clarence Mitchell, elected as a Conservative in 2023, defected to Reform UK in January 2026, becoming the first Reform councillor in Reading. He now defends as the Reform incumbent against Green candidate Hannah Connibear, who publicly predicts a Green-vs-Reform contest, and Conservative Alex Smith who will hope to reclaim the seat for his own party. PollCheck gives Reform a narrow lead here nationally, but Green campaigners are confident.\r\nCaversham Heights — Two seats are in play: the Conservative seat held by Isobel Ballsdon (seeking re-election) plus the vacancy left by Juthani's resignation. PollCheck calls it Green narrowly leading Reform by 0.7 percentage points for at least one of the seats. With two Conservative candidates, two Greens, two Lib Dems, two Labour and two Reform candidates all competing, tactical voting will be decisive.\r\nThames — Labour incumbent Adele Barnett-Ward faces a genuine Reform UK challenge in what PollCheck rates as Labour leading by just 1.3 percentage points. A north Reading riverside ward with mixed demographics, it exemplifies the squeeze Labour faces from its right.\r\nColey & Caversham — Both Labour seats where Reform is projected within striking distance. Coley is an inner-Reading ward with significant social housing; Caversham is more suburban north of the river. Labour margins are narrow enough that a strong Reform night nationally could flip either.\r\nAbbey — Reform leads Green by 8.2pp according to PollCheck, making this the most likely Labour loss or a place where Reform consolidates its foothold. The incumbent Labour councillor Karen Rowland will need to hold her personal vote against the tide.\r\n\r\nWokingham Borough Council — The Wards & The Candidates\r\nWokingham Borough Council has 54 seats across 18 wards. This year, 18 seats are up for election — one per ward, plus an additional seat in Wokingham Without where a former councillor stood down, making it the only ward with two seats on offer this cycle.\r\nThe Liberal Democrats enter this election as the majority administration, having taken mid-term control through a series of by-election wins and Labour defections since 2024. They currently hold 28 seats; Conservatives 19; Labour 5; and 2 Independents. Notably, Labour councillor Majid Nagra quit the party in September 2025, citing Gaza, and now sits as an Independent — and Alex Freeney was suspended from Labour in January 2025.\r\nFor the first time ever, all five main parties — Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Green and Reform UK — are standing candidates in all 18 wards. There are also two TUSC candidates and one Independent, making 98 candidates in total. This is a genuinely different political landscape from any previous Wokingham election.\r\nBarkham & ArborfieldIncumbent: George Evans (Con)\r\n\r\nCon George Evans (inc.)\r\nLD Mohima Bose\r\nRef Christopher John Bowring\r\nGrn Asad Feroz\r\nCon Sebastian Graabek\r\nLab Isla Emily Sykes\r\n\r\nBulmershe & CoronationIncumbent: Yusra Salman (Con)\r\n\r\nCon Yusra Salman (inc.)\r\nGrn Laurence Paul Beard\r\nLab Andy Croy\r\nLD Sheila Anne Jordan\r\nRef Kai Meade\r\n\r\nEmmbrookIncumbent: Basit Alvi (LD)\r\n\r\nLD Basit Sajjad Alvi (inc.)\r\nRef John Ralph Clarke\r\nLab Gopi Kolluru\r\nGrn Mark Jonathan Vernon\r\nCon James Westhorpe\r\n\r\nEvendonsIncumbent: Adrian Mather (LD) — not re-standing\r\n\r\nRef Jeremy Michael Field\r\nCon Bjorn Graabek\r\nGrn Joe Hughes\r\nLab Annette Laura Medhurst\r\nLD Richa Singh\r\n\r\nFinchampsteadIncumbent: Peter Harper (Con)\r\n\r\nCon Peter Harper (inc.)\r\nGrn Shannon Carter\r\nLab Jac Pluves\r\nLD Laurent Seraphin\r\nRef Stephen Surpless\r\n\r\nHawkedonIncumbent: Melanie De Jong (LD)\r\n\r\nLD Melanie Cheryl De Jong (inc.)\r\nLab Mark Ambrose Craske\r\nCon Michael John Firmager\r\nGrn Tom Milne\r\nRef Sol Villaverde\r\n\r\nHillsideIncumbent: Caroline Smith (LD)\r\n\r\nLD Caroline Smith (inc.)\r\nLab Evan Peter Ainsworth\r\nCon Nick Kilby\r\nRef Amy Louise Robins\r\nGrn Russell Stewart Seymour\r\n\r\nLoddon (Open Seat)Incumbent: Alex Freeney (Ind, susp. Lab) — not re-standing\r\n\r\nCon David Bragg\r\nLD Nigel Stuart Harman\r\nLab Rona Melanie Noble\r\nGrn Stuart Andrew Simpson\r\nRef Lance Tyrrill\r\n\r\nMaiden Erlegh & WhitegatesIncumbent: Andy Ng Siu-Hong (LD)\r\n\r\nLD Andy Ng Siu-Hong (inc.)\r\nRef Lillie Harris\r\nCon Wazir Hussain\r\nGrn Samuel Langlois\r\nLab Mary Elizabeth Morris\r\n\r\nNorreysIncumbent: Nagi Nagella (Lab)\r\n\r\nLab Nagi Nagella (inc.)\r\nCon Phil Cunnington\r\nTUSC Sara Elizabeth Gillman\r\nRef John Anthony Sydney Halsall\r\nLD Alwyn Howard Jones\r\nGrn Kalveer Kaur Lehal\r\n\r\nShinfieldIncumbent: Vishal Srinivasan (Con)\r\n\r\nCon Vishal Srinivasan (inc.)\r\nRef Parry Batth\r\nLab Richard Mark McKenzie\r\nLD Dominic Alain Rider\r\nInd Edward Shaw\r\nGrn Keiron Titus\r\n\r\nSouth LakeIncumbent: Carol Jewell (LD)\r\n\r\nLD Carol Ann Jewell (inc.)\r\nLab William Francis John Gale\r\nRef Andy Harris\r\nCon Michael Kennedy\r\nGrn Gary Shacklady\r\n\r\nSpencers Wood & Swallowfield (Open Seat)Incumbent: Stuart Munro (Con) — not re-standing\r\n\r\nRef Gerry Allan\r\nTUSC Kathryn Jane Allman\r\nGrn Tom Blomley\r\nLD Chris Johnson\r\nCon Anthony Pollock\r\nLab Jacky Steele\r\n\r\nThames (Wokingham)Incumbent: Katrin Harding (LD)\r\n\r\nLD Katrin Harding (inc.)\r\nGrn Salma Baker\r\nCon Leon Cook\r\nLab Stuart George Crainer\r\nRef Andrew James McLaren\r\n\r\nTwyford, Ruscombe & HurstIncumbent: Martijn Andrea (LD)\r\n\r\nLD Martijn Andrea (inc.)\r\nGrn Merv Boniface\r\nRef Darren James Grant\r\nLab Stuart Ashley Hooper\r\nCon Graham Howe\r\n\r\nWescottIncumbent: Chris Cooke (LD)\r\n\r\nLD Chris Cooke (inc.)\r\nGrn David Chapman\r\nCon Stephen Clubley\r\nLab Tom Mayers\r\nRef James Pigott\r\n\r\nWinnershIncumbent: Chetna Jamthe (LD)\r\n\r\nLD Chetna Jamthe (inc.)\r\nRef Jim Fife\r\nLab Tim Jinkerson\r\nGrn Laura Titchiner\r\nCon Martyn Washbourne\r\n\r\nWokingham Without (2 Seats)Incumbent: Séona Turtle (Con) + by-election vacancy\r\n\r\nCon Séona Turtle (inc.)\r\nCon David Owen Howell Davies\r\nLD Roberta Brooks\r\nLD Jerry Percy\r\nLab Tom Clark\r\nLab Colin Heath\r\nRef Carl Andrew Bond\r\nRef Colin Wright\r\nGrn Henry Newbury\r\nGrn Guy Zilberman\r\n\r\n\r\nWokingham Council — Projected Outcome (PollCheck, April 2026)\r\nThe Liberal Democrats are projected to hold majority control of Wokingham Council with approximately 33 of 54 seats across the full council. This would be a strengthening of their current position.\r\n\r\nLiberal Democrats ~33 seats (hold)\r\nConservative ~13 seats (-6)\r\nLabour ~4 seats (-1)\r\nIndependent ~1 seat\r\nReform UK ~0–2 seats (new)\r\nGreen ~0–1 seats (new)\r\n\r\nMajority threshold: 28 seats. The Lib Dems already hold 28 mid-term. The biggest question is whether Conservatives can hold their rural wards against Reform in the south of the borough.\r\nYou can find the location of your local election station on your polling card or here: https://www.reading.gov.uk/the-council-and-democracy/elections-and-voting/how-to-vote/ or https://www.wokingham.gov.uk/council-and-meetings/elections-and-voting/where-vote. Remember to take your photo ID !\r\n ", "summary": "Heading to the polls on May 7th? We break down everything you need to know about the Reading and Wokingham local elections, from what your council controls to the truth about national campaign promises.", "date_published": "2026-05-01T10:38:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-28T07:01:50.243414+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/d329d52e.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/d329d52e.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Ballot Box Berkshire", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 3638, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
\r\n
On Thursday 7 May 2026, voters in Reading and Wokingham head to the polls in what may be the most turbulent local elections in a generation. Labour faces the erosion of a dominance built since 2012, Reform UK contests wards it never previously entered, the Greens press their case as the progressive alternative, and the Liberal Democrats quietly consolidate across Wokingham's leafier precincts. And West Berkshire? It doesn't vote at all this year. We explain why — and what's really at stake everywhere else.
\r\nWest Berkshire is not voting in 2026
Despite being listed in some national election round-ups alongside Reading and Wokingham, West Berkshire Council has no elections this May. Their next district and parish council elections are scheduled for Thursday 6 May 2027, subject to potential changes from government local government reorganisation. West Berkshire currently has 28 Liberal Democrats, 11 Conservatives, 2 Greens, 1 Labour and 1 Independent councillor. If you live in Newbury, Thatcham or anywhere in between — you're not going to the polls this spring.
Reading Borough Council: A Unitary Authority
\r\nReading Borough Council is a unitary authority — meaning it does everything in one tier. Since Berkshire County Council was abolished in 1998, Reading has been responsible for the full gamut of local services: schools, social care, planning, housing, roads, libraries, waste, and more. This election — the last before the council is abolished and replaced by a successor authority in 2027 — decides who runs those services until reorganisation takes effect.
\r\nWokingham Borough Council: Another Unitary Authority
\r\nWokingham Borough Council is likewise a full unitary authority covering a large semi-rural area stretching from the suburban fringes of Reading (Earley, Woodley) through to the country towns of Wokingham and the rural parishes of Finchampstead and Remenham. It will not be affected by the current round of local government reorganisation — so the council elected on 7 May will govern for a full four-year cycle.
\r\n\r\n
What Are You Actually Voting For?
\r\nBefore we run through the candidates, let's deal with a persistent confusion on the doorstep: what does your council actually control? This matters enormously when candidates — particularly from Reform UK — campaign on immigration and small boats, because those powers sit emphatically with Westminster, not the civic offices in Bridge Street or Shute End.
\r\n\u2713 What Reading & Wokingham BC Control
\r\n\u2717 What Reading & Wokingham BC Do NOT Control
\r\nThe immigration question: When a candidate campaigns on stopping small boats or reducing migration numbers at a local election, they are — to be direct about it — making a promise they cannot keep. Immigration policy, border control, and asylum accommodation contracts are all national government functions. What councils can do is influence how asylum seekers placed in local hotels by the Home Office interact with community services, and how quickly refugee integration happens locally. These are real and legitimate questions — but they are not the same as stopping the boats.
\r\n\r\n
What Voters Are Actually Talking About
\r\nHousing: The Crisis on Your Doorstep
\r\nReading Borough Council is grappling with one of the most acute housing pressures in the South East. The borough's population reached 182,907 in mid-2024, a 1.8% annual increase driven primarily by net international migration — putting intense pressure on social housing allocation, homelessness services, and school places. Reading BC's housing allocation scheme gives priority based on local need and connection; people subject to immigration control without leave to remain are explicitly ineligible for social housing allocation.
\r\nIn Wokingham, the central housing tension is different but no less fierce: the borough faces mandatory housing targets from central government requiring thousands of new homes in an area whose residents often fiercely resist high-density development on greenfield sites. Lib Dems and Conservatives have both sought to push back against government targets; Labour nationally is the party actually setting those targets, creating an awkward dynamic for Wokingham Labour candidates.
\r\nSEND: The Budget Black Hole No-one Wants to Talk About
\r\nSpecial Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision is one of the most severe financial pressures on councils nationally. The Institute for Government estimated England's cumulative SEND deficit would reach between £4.6bn and £5.2bn by March 2026. Reading BC has faced its own SEND overspend. The national \"statutory override\" that protects councils from declaring bankruptcy over SEND deficits has been extended to March 2028 — kicking the problem down the road rather than solving it. Any party promising to fix SEND without naming where the money comes from should be pressed on specifics.
\r\nCouncil Tax: The Annual Squeeze
\r\nBoth Reading and Wokingham have applied council tax increases at or near the maximum permitted (currently 3% general plus 2% adult social care precept) in recent years. Reform UK and Conservative candidates will point to this as evidence of Labour and Lib Dem waste; Labour and Lib Dem incumbents will point to austerity-era underfunding from the previous Conservative national government. Both arguments contain real truth.
\r\nAntisocial Behaviour: The Visible Issue
\r\nAntisocial behaviour — particularly in Reading town centre, Whitley and parts of south Reading — is a genuine and recurring concern. The council can deploy Public Spaces Protection Orders (Reading BC recently launched a new PSPO) and fund community wardens. But police numbers, court resources, and the underlying social drivers (mental health, addiction, housing insecurity) are largely outside council control. Candidates who promise to \"fix\" antisocial behaviour by winning a council seat are over-promising.
\r\nPlanning and Green Spaces
\r\nIn Wokingham, planning is perhaps the defining political question. The borough sits in one of the most development-pressured parts of England. The National Planning Policy Framework requires Wokingham BC to accept significant housing growth; the council's response — how it manages that growth, where it directs it, and what infrastructure it negotiates from developers — is entirely within its gift. This is where voting in Wokingham genuinely shapes the character of the borough.
\r\n\r\n
What Each Party is Promising
\r\nCandidates are required to campaign on matters within local government's remit. Here is what each party is offering — both in terms of local promises and the national backdrop they're trailing behind them.
\r\nLabour
\r\nNational Labour polling: ~18–20%. Local incumbency provides some insulation but not immunity.
\r\nConservative
\r\nReal risk of losing several Wokingham wards to both Lib Dems and Reform.
\r\nLiberal Democrats
\r\nStrong structural advantage in Wokingham. National LD polling: ~11–15%.
\r\nGreen Party
\r\nThe progressive challenger to Labour in Reading. Could pick up protest votes from disillusioned Labour supporters.
\r\nReform UK
\r\nThe disruptive force. In five-party splits, they can win wards with 25% or less of the vote. Watch Emmer Green, Thames and Abbey in Reading.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n
Local Government Reorganisation: The Elephant in the Room
\r\nReading Borough Council is being abolished. This election is the last to the current authority, which will be replaced by a successor unitary authority in 2027. Reading BC is simultaneously trying to propose expanded boundaries — its July 2025 proposal to incorporate five West Berkshire wards including Tilehurst and Theale was described by West Berkshire Council as a \"hostile land grab.\" Voters in Reading deserve to know that the councillors they elect in May will be governing during the transition to a new institutional structure. Wokingham BC, already a unitary authority, is unaffected by reorganisation.
\r\n\r\n
The National Picture — How It Lands in Reading
\r\nThese local elections take place against one of the most volatile national political landscapes in living memory. Labour is polling around 17–20% — down from the 33.8% it won the 2024 general election with — amid unhappiness over welfare benefit cuts, employer National Insurance increases that hit local businesses hard, and various controversies. The party goes in defending over 2,500 council seats won in 2022 when it was polling at 35%.
\r\nReform UK is polling 24–28% nationally, having received a £9 million donation from Christopher Harborne in August 2025. Nigel Farage committed more than £5 million to local campaigns. Reform is standing in over 95% of English wards for the first time.
\r\nThe Greens, under new leader Zack Polanski, are at 12–16% nationally — the highest in their history — and have five MPs. In Reading, where the Greens are the official opposition with 8 council seats, they are genuine challengers rather than also-rans.
\r\nThe Lib Dems at 11–15% nationally are holding their own, particularly in their southern England heartland which includes Wokingham.
\r\nConservatives at 18% face a classic two-front war: Reform takes votes to their right in Leave-voting areas like south Wokingham and parts of Reading; Lib Dems squeeze them from the progressive centre in the affluent suburbs they've held for decades.
\r\nThe five-party problem: Under first-past-the-post, a ward with five serious candidates can be won with as little as 22% of the vote. This means Reform could win seats in Reading where they receive less than a quarter of votes cast — not because most people support them, but because the other four parties split the remainder. Tactical voting — and its absence — will determine several results making the ballot a lottery...
\r\n\r\n
Reading Borough Council — The Wards & The Candidates
\r\nReading Borough Council has 48 seats across 16 wards, each represented by three councillors. This year, 17 seats are up for election — one per ward in the regular cycle, plus an additional vacancy in Caversham Heights following Cllr Sam Juthani's decision to stand down. The council has been under Labour majority control since 2012. Going into this election Labour holds 32 seats; the Greens hold 8; the Liberal Democrats 3; Conservatives 3; Reform UK 1; and one Independent.
\r\nA total of 96 candidates are standing across the 16 wards. Reform UK is standing in every ward for the first time. The Green Party is defending incumbent seats in Katesgrove, Park and Redlands, and making a push in others. The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) fields two candidates.
\r\nFour seats are guaranteed to change hands — in Battle, Norcot, Southcote (all Labour retirements) and Caversham Heights (by-election) — meaning new councillors are certain in each of those wards regardless of the result.
\r\nAbbey
Incumbent: Karen Rowland (Lab)
Battle (Open Seat)
Incumbent: Sarah Hacker (Ind) — not standing
Caversham
Incumbent: Jacopo Lanzoni (Lab)
Caversham Heights (2 Seats)
Isobel Ballsdon (Con) + vacancy (S. Juthani resigned)
Church
Incumbent: Ruth McEwan (Lab)
Coley
Incumbent: Ellie Emberson (Lab)
Emmer Green
Incumbent: Clarence Mitchell (Ref, formerly Con)
Katesgrove
Incumbent: Louise Keane (Grn)
Kentwood
Incumbent: Glenn Dennis (Lab)
Norcot (Open Seat)
Incumbent: Jo Lovelock (Lab) — not standing
Park
Incumbent: Rob White (Grn)
Redlands
Incumbent: Kathryn McCann (Grn)
Southcote (Open Seat)
Incumbent: Deborah Edwards (Lab) — not standing
Thames (Key Battleground)
Incumbent: Adele Barnett-Ward (Lab)
Tilehurst
Incumbent: Meri O'Connell (LD)
Whitley
Incumbent: Rachel Eden (Lab)
Reading Council — Projected Outcome (PollCheck, April 2026)
\r\nBased on national polling data and ward-level modelling. Individual ward results will vary. Source: pollcheck.co.uk. The model projects Labour retaining majority control with approximately 30 of 48 seats across the full council.
\r\nMajority threshold: 25 seats. Probability of Labour losing control: ~1%. Key battlegrounds where seat changes are plausible: Caversham Heights, Thames, Coley, Caversham, Abbey.
\r\nKey Battleground Wards in Reading
\r\nEmmer Green — The most dramatic ward in the borough. Clarence Mitchell, elected as a Conservative in 2023, defected to Reform UK in January 2026, becoming the first Reform councillor in Reading. He now defends as the Reform incumbent against Green candidate Hannah Connibear, who publicly predicts a Green-vs-Reform contest, and Conservative Alex Smith who will hope to reclaim the seat for his own party. PollCheck gives Reform a narrow lead here nationally, but Green campaigners are confident.
\r\nCaversham Heights — Two seats are in play: the Conservative seat held by Isobel Ballsdon (seeking re-election) plus the vacancy left by Juthani's resignation. PollCheck calls it Green narrowly leading Reform by 0.7 percentage points for at least one of the seats. With two Conservative candidates, two Greens, two Lib Dems, two Labour and two Reform candidates all competing, tactical voting will be decisive.
\r\nThames — Labour incumbent Adele Barnett-Ward faces a genuine Reform UK challenge in what PollCheck rates as Labour leading by just 1.3 percentage points. A north Reading riverside ward with mixed demographics, it exemplifies the squeeze Labour faces from its right.
\r\nColey & Caversham — Both Labour seats where Reform is projected within striking distance. Coley is an inner-Reading ward with significant social housing; Caversham is more suburban north of the river. Labour margins are narrow enough that a strong Reform night nationally could flip either.
\r\nAbbey — Reform leads Green by 8.2pp according to PollCheck, making this the most likely Labour loss or a place where Reform consolidates its foothold. The incumbent Labour councillor Karen Rowland will need to hold her personal vote against the tide.
\r\nWokingham Borough Council — The Wards & The Candidates
\r\nWokingham Borough Council has 54 seats across 18 wards. This year, 18 seats are up for election — one per ward, plus an additional seat in Wokingham Without where a former councillor stood down, making it the only ward with two seats on offer this cycle.
\r\nThe Liberal Democrats enter this election as the majority administration, having taken mid-term control through a series of by-election wins and Labour defections since 2024. They currently hold 28 seats; Conservatives 19; Labour 5; and 2 Independents. Notably, Labour councillor Majid Nagra quit the party in September 2025, citing Gaza, and now sits as an Independent — and Alex Freeney was suspended from Labour in January 2025.
\r\nFor the first time ever, all five main parties — Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Green and Reform UK — are standing candidates in all 18 wards. There are also two TUSC candidates and one Independent, making 98 candidates in total. This is a genuinely different political landscape from any previous Wokingham election.
\r\nBarkham & Arborfield
Incumbent: George Evans (Con)
Bulmershe & Coronation
Incumbent: Yusra Salman (Con)
Emmbrook
Incumbent: Basit Alvi (LD)
Evendons
Incumbent: Adrian Mather (LD) — not re-standing
Finchampstead
Incumbent: Peter Harper (Con)
Hawkedon
Incumbent: Melanie De Jong (LD)
Hillside
Incumbent: Caroline Smith (LD)
Loddon (Open Seat)
Incumbent: Alex Freeney (Ind, susp. Lab) — not re-standing
Maiden Erlegh & Whitegates
Incumbent: Andy Ng Siu-Hong (LD)
Norreys
Incumbent: Nagi Nagella (Lab)
Shinfield
Incumbent: Vishal Srinivasan (Con)
South Lake
Incumbent: Carol Jewell (LD)
Spencers Wood & Swallowfield (Open Seat)
Incumbent: Stuart Munro (Con) — not re-standing
Thames (Wokingham)
Incumbent: Katrin Harding (LD)
Twyford, Ruscombe & Hurst
Incumbent: Martijn Andrea (LD)
Wescott
Incumbent: Chris Cooke (LD)
Winnersh
Incumbent: Chetna Jamthe (LD)
Wokingham Without (2 Seats)
Incumbent: Séona Turtle (Con) + by-election vacancy
Wokingham Council — Projected Outcome (PollCheck, April 2026)
\r\nThe Liberal Democrats are projected to hold majority control of Wokingham Council with approximately 33 of 54 seats across the full council. This would be a strengthening of their current position.
\r\nMajority threshold: 28 seats. The Lib Dems already hold 28 mid-term. The biggest question is whether Conservatives can hold their rural wards against Reform in the south of the borough.
\r\n
You can find the location of your local election station on your polling card or here: https://www.reading.gov.uk/the-council-and-democracy/elections-and-voting/how-to-vote/ or https://www.wokingham.gov.uk/council-and-meetings/elections-and-voting/where-vote. Remember to take your photo ID !
", "description": "Heading to the polls on May 7th? We break down everything you need to know about the Reading and Wokingham local elections, from what your council controls to the truth about national campaign promises.", "dateModified": "2026-05-28T07:01:50.243414+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-05-01T10:38:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/ballot-box-berkshire/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "337", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/eating-out-comptoir-libanais/", "title": "Comptoir Libanais", "content_html": "
I have a soft spot for Lebanon despite never having been there. Many of my best friend's best friends when I first moved to London after uni were Lebanese. They were rich and glamorous and kind and funny. Some became my friends and their stories of a perfect country at the end of the Mediterranean with its castles and coast and wine and olive groves and beaches and mountains was alluring.
\nI longed to visit, but the country was then, and remains, in a perpetual state of war.\u00a0 There aren't enough bits and bytes left on my computer to explain why, but suffice to say that the Brits screwed up Palestine and the French screwed up Lebanon.
\nA couple of weeks previously my wife and I booked the trip of a lifetime to Jordan and Egypt with some of her Dubai based colleagues. My wife has always wanted to visit Petra and the Pyramids (I have seen both before meeting her). On a previous business trip to Israel she had booked and paid for the trip into Jordan before fate and the Israeli military intervened.
\nThese are the risks you take in engaging at all with this very broken part of the world.
\nBut it seemed that the least you can do is support the Lebanese in any way you can as they are caught between the murderous Hezbollah and the genocidal Israeli-US military machine.
\nLebanon is known for its cuisine and its wine, so no further excuse was needed as G and I headed through the gloom to Oracle Riverside once more.
\nFor a town with so many ethnic restaurants from Romanian to Afghan, from Polish to Cuban (for now) we have some glaring gaps. There is no tapas, no Mexican, only C\u00f4te as a 'French' restaurants. No Spanish or Portuguese (any more). No Turkish, no Syrian nor Moroccan. There is no Israeli restaurant nor Egyptian. The Mediterranean is badly represented in Reading.
\nBut we have four Lebanese restaurants - Lebanese Flavours (previously Bakery House) in London Road, Hala Lebanese on Wokingham Road, Lebanese Village in Caversham and Comptoir Libanais, which, this being Reading, is part of a chain of eighteen UK and four international restaurants.
\nI had visited this branch once before and was totally underwhelmed so never bothered to revisit until now.
\nWe decided to go all in with the 'Feast' which is hardly a bargain at \u00a337.50 per head.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/810af8163290.jpg\")
For that you get a dish of dips - hummus, fatteh, baba ghanoush, tabbouleh salad, a couple of cheese borek and a couple of falafel with two large bouncy soft flatbread slathered in butter.
\nIt was all very pleasant, but nowhere as good as the Greek Souvlaki's mixed starter.
\nNow, I have a thing about falafel having lived near the Jewish quarter in Paris' Marais. (I am also hoping to revisit Felfela's in Cairo if I managed to get out there next month.) The problem with most falafel is that they are made only with chickpeas, but this makes for a dry mix. The trick is to mix the chickpeas with broad beans which makes it moister inside. These were chickpea only although did have a good mix of herbs running through them and were nice and crunchy.
\nIn a vain effort to help the economy of this bedevilled nation we started with a bottle of house white from the Bekka Valley and it was a fine choice, slightly sharp with a flowery tint. Lebanon is known for its reds such as the famous Chateau Mansour, but their white wine making has come along leaps and bounds.
\nAs ever, G and I were caught up in conversations about the latest developments in the tech world and his recent visit to the Florida panhandle. (Apparently tourism to Florida has fallen off a cliff leaving the 'Gulf Of America' to the Statesiders.)
\nThe polite waitress came over a couple of times to ask we were ready for mains, but we weren't, which may be the precursor to how this meal went badly downhill.
\nFor mains, as part of the 'Feast' we ordered and share a mixed grill and a salmon.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/ad98bd6d8edf.jpg\")
They were dreadful. The salmon had been cooked so long that the ends were solid and the middle was dry and nasty. The accompanying chickpeas in tomato sauce was a strange accompaniment and was also pretty horrid. Imagine baked beans made with chickpeas. Some fresh parsley may have helped, but as it stood it was a bad, paltry dish and easily the worst thing I have been served in Reading over the past decade (which is saying something).
\nBy now we had moved onto the house red which is light and quite delicious. We were clearly doing much better with the booze than the food.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/cb9062f4c67e.jpg\")
\u00a0
\nThe mixed grill was three meaty skewers with rice and salad. The lamb and chicken kofta were rubbery and totally underwhelming and the chicken taouk had dried out to be just this side of edible.
\nEven the accompanying chilli and yoghurt sauces, which came in thimbles, were pretty bad.
\nI don't know if this was our 'fault' for taking long over starters, but it was a dreadful meal in a town where there are fifty great places to get better grilled meat. In these difficult times for restaurants the heavy hand of the accountants can be seen everywhere.
\nAt the end of the meal we were served a small piece of baklava each alongside mint tea.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/0455ade8d8d5.jpg\")
It was a bad meal made barrable by the company and the wine. I have always wanted to like this chain but they are not a patch on London's long standing Sofra chain.
\nUnfortunately Comptoir Libanais is as much of a disaster zone as its country of origin. This is a place to avoid - take a stroll up London Road to Lebanese Flavours, or jump on the 17 bus to Hala in Earley. Or if you want perfect kebabs travel up to our erstwhile 'town of culture' and go to our restaurant of the year, Yaprak in Woodley.
\n\u00a0
", "content_text": "I have a soft spot for Lebanon despite never having been there. Many of my best friend's best friends when I first moved to London after uni were Lebanese. They were rich and glamorous and kind and funny. Some became my friends and their stories of a perfect country at the end of the Mediterranean with its castles and coast and wine and olive groves and beaches and mountains was alluring.\nI longed to visit, but the country was then, and remains, in a perpetual state of war.\u00a0 There aren't enough bits and bytes left on my computer to explain why, but suffice to say that the Brits screwed up Palestine and the French screwed up Lebanon.\nA couple of weeks previously my wife and I booked the trip of a lifetime to Jordan and Egypt with some of her Dubai based colleagues. My wife has always wanted to visit Petra and the Pyramids (I have seen both before meeting her). On a previous business trip to Israel she had booked and paid for the trip into Jordan before fate and the Israeli military intervened.\nThese are the risks you take in engaging at all with this very broken part of the world.\nBut it seemed that the least you can do is support the Lebanese in any way you can as they are caught between the murderous Hezbollah and the genocidal Israeli-US military machine.\nLebanon is known for its cuisine and its wine, so no further excuse was needed as G and I headed through the gloom to Oracle Riverside once more.\nFor a town with so many ethnic restaurants from Romanian to Afghan, from Polish to Cuban (for now) we have some glaring gaps. There is no tapas, no Mexican, only C\u00f4te as a 'French' restaurants. No Spanish or Portuguese (any more). No Turkish, no Syrian nor Moroccan. There is no Israeli restaurant nor Egyptian. The Mediterranean is badly represented in Reading.\nBut we have four Lebanese restaurants - Lebanese Flavours (previously Bakery House) in London Road, Hala Lebanese on Wokingham Road, Lebanese Village in Caversham and Comptoir Libanais, which, this being Reading, is part of a chain of eighteen UK and four international restaurants.\nI had visited this branch once before and was totally underwhelmed so never bothered to revisit until now.\nWe decided to go all in with the 'Feast' which is hardly a bargain at \u00a337.50 per head.\n\nFor that you get a dish of dips - hummus, fatteh, baba ghanoush, tabbouleh salad, a couple of cheese borek and a couple of falafel with two large bouncy soft flatbread slathered in butter.\nIt was all very pleasant, but nowhere as good as the Greek Souvlaki's mixed starter.\nNow, I have a thing about falafel having lived near the Jewish quarter in Paris' Marais. (I am also hoping to revisit Felfela's in Cairo if I managed to get out there next month.) The problem with most falafel is that they are made only with chickpeas, but this makes for a dry mix. The trick is to mix the chickpeas with broad beans which makes it moister inside. These were chickpea only although did have a good mix of herbs running through them and were nice and crunchy.\nIn a vain effort to help the economy of this bedevilled nation we started with a bottle of house white from the Bekka Valley and it was a fine choice, slightly sharp with a flowery tint. Lebanon is known for its reds such as the famous Chateau Mansour, but their white wine making has come along leaps and bounds.\nAs ever, G and I were caught up in conversations about the latest developments in the tech world and his recent visit to the Florida panhandle. (Apparently tourism to Florida has fallen off a cliff leaving the 'Gulf Of America' to the Statesiders.)\nThe polite waitress came over a couple of times to ask we were ready for mains, but we weren't, which may be the precursor to how this meal went badly downhill.\nFor mains, as part of the 'Feast' we ordered and share a mixed grill and a salmon.\n\nThey were dreadful. The salmon had been cooked so long that the ends were solid and the middle was dry and nasty. The accompanying chickpeas in tomato sauce was a strange accompaniment and was also pretty horrid. Imagine baked beans made with chickpeas. Some fresh parsley may have helped, but as it stood it was a bad, paltry dish and easily the worst thing I have been served in Reading over the past decade (which is saying something).\nBy now we had moved onto the house red which is light and quite delicious. We were clearly doing much better with the booze than the food.\n\n\u00a0\nThe mixed grill was three meaty skewers with rice and salad. The lamb and chicken kofta were rubbery and totally underwhelming and the chicken taouk had dried out to be just this side of edible.\nEven the accompanying chilli and yoghurt sauces, which came in thimbles, were pretty bad.\nI don't know if this was our 'fault' for taking long over starters, but it was a dreadful meal in a town where there are fifty great places to get better grilled meat. In these difficult times for restaurants the heavy hand of the accountants can be seen everywhere.\nAt the end of the meal we were served a small piece of baklava each alongside mint tea.\n\nIt was a bad meal made barrable by the company and the wine. I have always wanted to like this chain but they are not a patch on London's long standing Sofra chain.\nUnfortunately Comptoir Libanais is as much of a disaster zone as its country of origin. This is a place to avoid - take a stroll up London Road to Lebanese Flavours, or jump on the 17 bus to Hala in Earley. Or if you want perfect kebabs travel up to our erstwhile 'town of culture' and go to our restaurant of the year, Yaprak in Woodley.\n\u00a0", "summary": "Despite a long-held fascination with Lebanon, a recent dining experience in Reading fell short. Explore the highs and lows of Lebanese cuisine, from falafel to a disastrous mixed grill.", "date_published": "2026-04-01T09:49:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:41:51.986761+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/c0edf252.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/c0edf252.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Comptoir Libanais", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1261, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "I have a soft spot for Lebanon despite never having been there. Many of my best friend's best friends when I first moved to London after uni were Lebanese. They were rich and glamorous and kind and funny. Some became my friends and their stories of a perfect country at the end of the Mediterranean with its castles and coast and wine and olive groves and beaches and mountains was alluring.
\nI longed to visit, but the country was then, and remains, in a perpetual state of war.\u00a0 There aren't enough bits and bytes left on my computer to explain why, but suffice to say that the Brits screwed up Palestine and the French screwed up Lebanon.
\nA couple of weeks previously my wife and I booked the trip of a lifetime to Jordan and Egypt with some of her Dubai based colleagues. My wife has always wanted to visit Petra and the Pyramids (I have seen both before meeting her). On a previous business trip to Israel she had booked and paid for the trip into Jordan before fate and the Israeli military intervened.
\nThese are the risks you take in engaging at all with this very broken part of the world.
\nBut it seemed that the least you can do is support the Lebanese in any way you can as they are caught between the murderous Hezbollah and the genocidal Israeli-US military machine.
\nLebanon is known for its cuisine and its wine, so no further excuse was needed as G and I headed through the gloom to Oracle Riverside once more.
\nFor a town with so many ethnic restaurants from Romanian to Afghan, from Polish to Cuban (for now) we have some glaring gaps. There is no tapas, no Mexican, only C\u00f4te as a 'French' restaurants. No Spanish or Portuguese (any more). No Turkish, no Syrian nor Moroccan. There is no Israeli restaurant nor Egyptian. The Mediterranean is badly represented in Reading.
\nBut we have four Lebanese restaurants - Lebanese Flavours (previously Bakery House) in London Road, Hala Lebanese on Wokingham Road, Lebanese Village in Caversham and Comptoir Libanais, which, this being Reading, is part of a chain of eighteen UK and four international restaurants.
\nI had visited this branch once before and was totally underwhelmed so never bothered to revisit until now.
\nWe decided to go all in with the 'Feast' which is hardly a bargain at \u00a337.50 per head.
\n
For that you get a dish of dips - hummus, fatteh, baba ghanoush, tabbouleh salad, a couple of cheese borek and a couple of falafel with two large bouncy soft flatbread slathered in butter.
\nIt was all very pleasant, but nowhere as good as the Greek Souvlaki's mixed starter.
\nNow, I have a thing about falafel having lived near the Jewish quarter in Paris' Marais. (I am also hoping to revisit Felfela's in Cairo if I managed to get out there next month.) The problem with most falafel is that they are made only with chickpeas, but this makes for a dry mix. The trick is to mix the chickpeas with broad beans which makes it moister inside. These were chickpea only although did have a good mix of herbs running through them and were nice and crunchy.
\nIn a vain effort to help the economy of this bedevilled nation we started with a bottle of house white from the Bekka Valley and it was a fine choice, slightly sharp with a flowery tint. Lebanon is known for its reds such as the famous Chateau Mansour, but their white wine making has come along leaps and bounds.
\nAs ever, G and I were caught up in conversations about the latest developments in the tech world and his recent visit to the Florida panhandle. (Apparently tourism to Florida has fallen off a cliff leaving the 'Gulf Of America' to the Statesiders.)
\nThe polite waitress came over a couple of times to ask we were ready for mains, but we weren't, which may be the precursor to how this meal went badly downhill.
\nFor mains, as part of the 'Feast' we ordered and share a mixed grill and a salmon.
\n
They were dreadful. The salmon had been cooked so long that the ends were solid and the middle was dry and nasty. The accompanying chickpeas in tomato sauce was a strange accompaniment and was also pretty horrid. Imagine baked beans made with chickpeas. Some fresh parsley may have helped, but as it stood it was a bad, paltry dish and easily the worst thing I have been served in Reading over the past decade (which is saying something).
\nBy now we had moved onto the house red which is light and quite delicious. We were clearly doing much better with the booze than the food.
\n
\u00a0
\nThe mixed grill was three meaty skewers with rice and salad. The lamb and chicken kofta were rubbery and totally underwhelming and the chicken taouk had dried out to be just this side of edible.
\nEven the accompanying chilli and yoghurt sauces, which came in thimbles, were pretty bad.
\nI don't know if this was our 'fault' for taking long over starters, but it was a dreadful meal in a town where there are fifty great places to get better grilled meat. In these difficult times for restaurants the heavy hand of the accountants can be seen everywhere.
\nAt the end of the meal we were served a small piece of baklava each alongside mint tea.
\n
It was a bad meal made barrable by the company and the wine. I have always wanted to like this chain but they are not a patch on London's long standing Sofra chain.
\nUnfortunately Comptoir Libanais is as much of a disaster zone as its country of origin. This is a place to avoid - take a stroll up London Road to Lebanese Flavours, or jump on the 17 bus to Hala in Earley. Or if you want perfect kebabs travel up to our erstwhile 'town of culture' and go to our restaurant of the year, Yaprak in Woodley.
\n\u00a0
", "description": "Despite a long-held fascination with Lebanon, a recent dining experience in Reading fell short. Explore the highs and lows of Lebanese cuisine, from falafel to a disastrous mixed grill.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:41:51.986761+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-04-01T09:49:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/eating-out-comptoir-libanais/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "336", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-reading-sculpture-trail/", "title": "The Reading Sculpture Trail", "content_html": "Statues have become one of the most visible battlegrounds in contemporary debates about history, identity, and public space. Once largely ignored\u2014part of the architectural background of daily life\u2014they are now being actively questioned: who they represent, why they were erected, and whether they still reflect the values of the society that surrounds them.
\nWalk through London and you will find an abundance of figures cast in bronze or carved in stone: mounted generals, imperial administrators, and colonial figures, many of whom are scarcely recognised by the public. Their prominence, elevated on plinths and placed in key civic locations, suggests a hierarchy of importance that feels increasingly disconnected from modern sensibilities. These are not neutral artefacts - they are deliberate statements about power, legacy, and what a nation chooses to celebrate.
\nThe toppling of Edward Colston\u2019s statue in Bristol marked a turning point. What had stood for over a century as an unchallenged monument was suddenly reinterpreted through a contemporary moral lens. The act was not simply vandalism to some, nor purely justice to others\u2014it was a signal that historical narratives are not fixed, and that public symbols can be renegotiated. Similarly, protests in Oxford colleges have highlighted how institutional spaces are also implicated in these debates, raising questions about tradition, benefaction, and moral accountability.
\nAt the heart of the issue is not whether history should be remembered, but how it should be represented. Statues, by their nature, are celebratory. They confer honour. As such, they are a selective version of history\u2014one that often omits complexity, controversy, or harm. In a more pluralistic and self-critical society, there is growing discomfort with uncritical celebration of figures whose legacies are entangled with exploitation or injustice.
\nThis does not necessarily mean erasing the past. Rather, it opens up a broader conversation about rebalancing public memory. Should new statues be erected to reflect a wider range of contributions\u2014scientists, reformers, artists, and those who advanced social progress? Should existing monuments be contextualised, relocated, or retained as historical artefacts rather than objects of reverence?
\nWhat is clear is that statues matter. They are not just relics; they are active participants in shaping how we see ourselves and our past. As society evolves, so too must the symbols that occupy its public spaces.
\nBeyond politics and history, statues are also a vital form of public art. They shape the visual identity of cities, provide focal points in shared spaces, and offer moments of reflection or inspiration in the flow of everyday life. A well-conceived sculpture can humanise a square, commemorate collective experience, or provoke thought in ways that written history cannot. Unlike art in galleries, public statues are encountered by everyone, consciously or not and therefore carry a unique responsibility to engage a broad audience while enriching the cultural fabric of a place. Or they may just walk on by without noticing, on their way to a train, a meeting or the shops.
\nYou therefore might not have noticed that Reading is rich in sculptures. This month inReading is taking a look at our public art and, as the weather improves, encouraging you to take your own look by embarking on a statue trail through our town.
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/deaca49c7660.jpg\")
The Maiwand Lion
\nPerhaps the best known of all Reading\u2019s statues, the Maiwand Lion is the centrepiece of Forbury Gardens, and is one of the world\u2019s largest cast-iron statues. Unveiled in 1886, the monument was commissioned to honour the 328 officers and men of the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot who died at the Battle of Maiwand and during the wider Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878\u20131880).
\nThe sculpture was designed by Reading-based artist George Blackall Simonds, a member of the famous local brewing family. Simonds spent two years studying lions at London Zoo to ensure anatomical accuracy before the statue was cast in 11 tons of iron by the H. Young & Co. foundry in Pimlico. Standing at approximately 31 feet from the base to the top of the lion\u2019s head, the figure itself measures 16 feet in length.
\nA persistent local urban legend suggests that Simonds died by suicide after being told the lion's gait was anatomically incorrect; however, this is demonstrably false. Simonds lived for many years after the unveiling, and he purposely depicted the lion in a \"stand-at-bay\" posture. Furthermore, a lion\u2019s walk is \"pacing\" (moving both legs on one side simultaneously), which Simonds correctly captured. The names of the fallen soldiers are inscribed on bronze plaques around the plinth, which was significantly restored in 2024 to preserve the masonry and metalwork.
\nOf course, Reading has its statues commemorating historical figures.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/9ae34eb8934f.jpg\")
The Executioner
\nThe Executioner (also known as the Robed Figure) is a bronze work by the renowned British artist Dame Elisabeth Frink, installed in the old Abbey quadrangle in 1988. Positioned within the sunken garden of Abbot\u2019s Walk, the sculpture stands in the shadow of the Reading Abbey ruins and the perimeter of the former Reading Gaol. This piece is a cast of the central figure from Frink\u2019s 1986 Dorset Martyrs memorial in Dorchester. While the original group included those being led to their deaths, the Reading installation features only the lone, monumental figure of the executioner, draped in heavy, anonymous robes that evoke an atmosphere of solemnity and judgment.
\nThe placement of the sculpture is deeply symbolic given its proximity to the site where Abbot Hugh Faringdon, the last Abbot of Reading, was executed for high treason in 1539 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The figure\u2019s imposing, static presence serves as a personification of state-sanctioned punishment and the impersonal nature of death, reflecting the grim history of the nearby Victorian prison. Unlike more dynamic contemporary works in the town, The Executioner acts as a quiet, sombre site for reflection, bridging the gap between the medieval martyrdom of the Abbey\u2019s past and the modern heritage of the Abbey Quarter.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/a5a31f9ea707.jpg\")
Interpretation of Ruins
\nAdjacent to the historic ruins of Reading Abbey at the junction of Abbey Square and Abbey Street, the abstract bronze sculpture by Danish artist Jens-Flemming S\u00f8rensen provides a modern artistic dialogue with the town's medieval past. Installed in 2000 on a raised green mound, the work is often referred to as an Interpretation of Ruins, though it remains officially untitled. The sculpture features smooth, polished spherical forms emerging from or resting upon rugged, fractured blocks of bronze, mimicking the weathered flint and mortar of the neighbouring Reading Abbey walls.
\nThis juxtaposition of refined geometry and raw, decaying textures reflects the process of architectural erosion and the passage of time. By placing a contemporary abstract piece so close to the physical remains of the 12th-century monastery, S\u00f8rensen encourages viewers to perceive the ruins not merely as static historical debris, but as a living part of the urban landscape. The sculpture serves as a visual bridge in the Abbey Quarter, mirroring the organic shapes of the ancient stonework while maintaining a distinctively modern aesthetic.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/0a2bba165aaf.jpg\")
Oscar Wilde Memorial
\nThe Oscar Wilde Memorial, a set of gates designed by artist Bruce Williams and unveiled in 2000, is located on Chestnut Walk. The installation is strategically positioned adjacent to the perimeter wall of Reading Gaol, the correctional facility where Wilde was incarcerated for \"gross indecency\" between 1895 and 1897.
\nThe work consists of a series of double-sided integrated panels and gates made of stainless steel and glass. Williams used a photo-etching process to display images of Wilde alongside excerpts from his final poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and his long letter, De Profundis, both of which were inspired by his time in the prison. The memorial was commissioned to mark the centenary of Wilde\u2019s death and serves as a permanent historical marker of his connection to the town.
\nSimeon Obelisk
\nThe Simeon Obelisk, designed by sculptor Robert Spiller, is a prominent Portland stone monument located at the junction of Friar Street and Station Road in Reading. Commissioned in 1804 by Edward Simeon, a Director of the Bank of England and brother to Reading\u2019s then-MP John Simeon, the obelisk was originally intended to serve as a functional decorative landmark.
\nThe structure features a triangular base supporting a tall, tapered shaft, which originally housed gas lamps on its three sides\u2014marking it as one of the earliest examples of public gas lighting in the town. Although the lamps were later removed and replaced with decorative carvings, the monument remains in its original location. It serves as a historical marker of 19th-century civic philanthropy and the Simeon family's influence on the urban development of Reading during the Georgian era.
\nGuardian of the Gate of Sparta
\nSculpted by Eric Stanford, was unveiled in 1995 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the South Street Arts Centre in Reading. The piece is situated outside the centre's entrance and was carved from Portland stone salvaged from the demolition of the old Knightsbridge Barracks in London.
\nThe sculpture depicts a stylized, helmeted warrior figure, referencing the ancient Spartan themes of protection and endurance. Stanford, who served as the Keeper of Art at Reading Museum for many years, designed the work to reflect the Arts Centre\u2019s role as a \"stronghold\" for the local creative community. The use of reclaimed military stone provides a material link between the site's history and its modern function as a public cultural space.
\nRequiem
\nSculpted by Eric Stanford, was erected in 1990 to commemorate the residents of Reading who volunteered for the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War (1936\u20131939). The monument is carved from Portland stone and is situated on Dusseldorf Way, positioned outside the Reading Borough Council's Civic Offices.
\nThe sculpture features a stylised, grieving figure draped in heavy robes, designed to evoke a sense of solemnity and loss rather than a celebration of military combat. It was commissioned by the Reading Spanish Civil War Memorial Committee to honour the local individuals who fought against fascism, as well as those who provided humanitarian aid to Spanish refugees. The choice of material and its central civic location ensure it serves as a permanent public reminder of the town\u2019s historical commitment to international solidarity.
\nCrystal Beacon
\nPositioned above a public viewing gallery over the multi-storey car part on the south side of the Kennet at The Oracle, this was designed by John Gingell as part of Hammerson (the developer of the Oracle)'s desire to build contemporary art into the actual fabric of the architecture in 1999. The Oracle used to be a Victorian warehouse.
\nMade of translucent crystal, the work stands as a beacon for the Oracle and by night it can be illuminated by a state of the art computerised light programme.
Somewhat ironically, it is best seen by car from the IDR flyover beside the Oracle car park.
Girl and The Swan
\nInstalled against a brick wall of Arundell House in King's Road in 1984, Girl and The Swan by Lorne McKean is a bronze depicting a young girl reaching up to touch a swan flying overhead.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/8b27e1920cd3.jpg\")
The Compleat Angler
\nChocolate Island was where the massive Huntley & Palmer biscuit factory stored its chocolate \u2013 presumably to prevent pilfering from staff. The pubs further down the Kennet had names like the Jolly Angler and the Fisherman\u2019s Cottage, highlighting the popularity of fishing as a working class pastime on the town\u2019s canal and rivers. The model for this work by\u00a0Kevin Atherton was keen angler and retired postman, Keith Cooper, who was aged 71 when the work was unveiled 24th November 1992.
\nAngels
\nLocated outside the west end of St Laurence Church on either side of the main door. The two angels are attributed to James Marshall. They are made of roman cement and were installed in 1806.
\n\u2018George\u2019
\nThis statue was sculpted by William Bloye, F.R.B.S., high on the front wall of what was then known as Reading Technical College on King's Road. As Birmingham's unofficial civic sculptor Bloye worked on virtually all public commissions including libraries, hospitals and the University. He often carved bas-relief plaques, typically for public houses in Birmingham and one of his most famed works is the statue of 'Pan' at Aston Hall in Birmingham.\u00a0
\nGeorge Palmer
\nThe bronze statue of George Palmer, of Huntley & Palmer fame stands in Palmer Park.\u00a0The statue, by\u00a0George Blackall Simonds, was unveiled on 4 November 1891,\u00a0though it was originally in Broad Street and only later moved to Palmer Park.\u00a0The statue was moved in 1930 to its current location in its namesake park and has been classed\u00a0Grade II Listed\u00a0monument since 14 December 1978.
\n![](\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Broad_Street,_Reading,_unveiling_of_the_statue_of_George_Palmer,_1891.jpg\")
Unveiling of the statue in Board Street on 4 November 1891
\nThe statue was given by the towns-folk of Reading,\u00a0\"in recognition of his services and gifts to the town\",\u00a0and unveiled 4 November 1891,\u00a0the same day of the opening of the 49 acre Palmer Park.[7] Four thousand subscribed to the cost of the statue.\u00a0The opening of the park and the unveiling of the statue have been described as \"the biggest celebration Reading had ever seen.
\nThe Gateway
Created by sculptor Clare Bigger in 2000, is a large-scale stainless steel installation located at the entrance of the Reading International Business Park. Standing at approximately 6 meters high, the sculpture was commissioned to serve as a focal point for the corporate development near the M4 motorway.
Consistent with Bigger's signature style, which focuses on the mechanics of movement and athleticism, the piece depicts two dynamic, stylized figures that arch toward one another to form a symbolic archway or \"gateway.\" The structure is composed of brushed stainless steel ribbons that allow wind and light to pass through, emphasizing a sense of lightness and fluidity despite its significant physical scale. It serves as both a navigational landmark and a representation of the modern, kinetic energy associated with the business park.
\nThe Hexham Road Tree
\nCreated by artist Bhajan Hunjan in 1998, is a site-specific floor mosaic located at the entrance of the Hexham Road Community Centre in Reading. The work was commissioned as part of a wider regeneration project for the estate to create a welcoming and culturally inclusive landmark for the local neighbourhood.
\nThe piece features a central tree motif executed in colourful inlaid tiles and brickwork, symbolizing growth, community roots, and the diversity of the area's residents. Hunjan, known for her focus on patterns and geometry, integrated the design directly into the paving to ensure the art remains a functional part of the public walkway. The \"tree\" serves as a metaphorical gathering point, reflecting the building's role as a hub for social and educational activities.
\nHarrison Memorial
\nErected 1887 and made of Portland stone the memorial is in St Mary's churchyard adjacent to St Mary Butts. The architect was Spencer Slingsby Stallwood. It records the many benefactions of Isaac Harrinson who spent a lot of his money clearing the slums in Reading and particularly those in St Mary Butts. He died a few years after the memorial was erected.\u00a0\u00a0
\nRichard Valpy
\nWithin the exterior niche of St Laurence\u2019s Church, overlooking Reading\u2019s historic Town Hall Square, stands a commemorative statue of Richard Valpy by the sculptor Samuel Nixon. Valpy was a prominent educationalist and the long-serving headmaster of Reading School from 1781 to 1830, credited with transforming the institution into one of the leading schools in the country during the 19th century.
\nThe statue, carved in a traditional neoclassical style, depicts Valpy in his academic robes, holding a book to signify his scholarly contributions and his influential work as a classicist. Its placement at St Laurence\u2019s is historically significant, as the church served as the primary place of worship for the school\u2019s staff and pupils for centuries. As a public monument, it honours Valpy's fifty-year tenure and his lasting impact on the intellectual and civic life of Reading.
\nCartwheeling Boys
\nThe Cartwheeling Boys is a distinctive aluminium sculpture by artist Brian Slack, cast at the Brunel University Department of Metallurgy. It was erected in 1981 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the twinning between Reading and D\u00fcsseldorf. The piece depicts three figures in various stages of a cartwheel, a traditional symbol of joy in D\u00fcsseldorf that dates back to a 17th-century legend involving a loose carriage wheel. Originally located on a wall at San Francisco Libre Walk near the old Civic Centre, the sculpture was famously toppled by Storm Eunice in 2022. Following a period of restoration using modern computer modelling and traditional casting, it was reinstalled in February 2026 on the fa\u00e7ade of the new Civic Offices at the corner of Bridge Street and Fobney Street.
\nLaying the Reading Abbey Foundation
\nA Corshill stone panel on the facade of the Old Town Hall, commemorating Henry I who was the founder of Reading Abbey and who was buried before the high altar there. It is located on the frieze between the main doors to the Museum and Old Town Hall and was installed in 1888 after the building was opened in 1882.
\nThe architect was Thomas Lainson and the sculptor Charles Pinker. The scene depicts Henry laying the foundation stone for Reading Abbey.
\nReading Piece
\nThe sculpture located outside the former Visa International HQ was commissioned by the company who previously occupied this building, Heron Corporation in 1982. Created by the artist Peter Sainty, the piece is a large-scale abstract work fashioned from welded steel.
\nThe sculpture's design is characterized by its sharp, geometric lines and industrial aesthetic, reflecting the modern architectural style of the business park developments emerging in Reading during the early 1980s. Sainty, an artist known for his structural and minimalist approach, intended the work to complement the corporate environment while providing a bold visual anchor for the site's entrance. The use of steel mirrors the technological and forward-thinking nature of the companies housed within the complex at the time of its installation.\u00a0
\n1st Marquess of Reading
\nThe statue of 1st Marquess of Reading (Rufus Isaacs 1860-1935) by Charles Sargeant Jagger is located in the King George V Memorial Gardens, Eldon Square and was moved to its current location in 1971 having been repatriated to Reading in 1961 from Delhi, where it was originally erected. Isaacs was the Viceroy and Governor General of India from 1921 to 1925.
\nStatue of Queen Victoria
\nStanding outside Reading Town Hall, this statue commemorates Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887. Also sculpted by George Blackall Simonds, it reflects the town's respect and admiration for the monarch.
\nStatue of King Edward VII
\nLocated in Station Square, this statue pays tribute to King Edward VII, who reigned from 1901 to 1910. It serves as a reminder of the monarch's influence during a transformative period in British history.
\nThe Trooper Potts VC Memorial
\nLocated outside the Reading Crown Court near the entrance to Forbury Gardens, this is a bronze statue group by sculptor Tom Murphy. Unveiled on October 4, 2015, the monument commemorates Frederick Owen Potts, Reading\u2019s only recipient of the Victoria Cross, and his comrade Arthur Andrews.
\nThe sculpture depicts a life-sized scene from the Battle of Scimitar Hill during the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign. After both men were wounded by machine-gun fire, Potts refused to abandon Andrews, who was unable to walk. Over a period of 48 hours, while under constant enemy fire and suffering from dehydration, Potts used a discarded entrenching shovel as a makeshift sledge to drag Andrews over 600 yards to the safety of the British lines. This feat earned Potts the nickname \"The Hero with the Shovel.\"
\nThe memorial was commissioned by the Trooper Potts VC Memorial Trust and serves a dual purpose. In addition to honouring Potts and Andrews, the plinth features a Roll of Honour listing the names of 426 men from the Berkshire Yeomanry who lost their lives in the Boer War and the two World Wars. The project was officially unveiled by the Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire and television presenter Chris Tarrant to mark the centenary of the act of bravery.
\nHistorically, some have felt that the University of Reading shared a similar lack of prominent public monuments. However, this is a narrative currently being rewritten. The University has recently launched a major Public Art Strategy, including a \u00a3200,000 endowment for new commissions. Works like the \"Floating Garden\" by Ben Cain and Tina Gverovi\u0107 and the upcoming \"Missing Yew\"\u2014an eco-sculpture designed by Petre Nikoloski to fuse living trees with stone\u2014signal a shift toward art that is living, communal, and contemporary.
\nThe Royal Berkshire Hospital also has sculptures . It houses a significant permanent art installation titled \"The Gift of Life\", which was unveiled in 2015. Located in the main entrance reception area, the piece is a large-scale wall installation designed by the Hospital Art Studio to serve as a memorial to organ and tissue donors.
\nThe artwork consists of hundreds of 3D butterflies that span an entire wall, arranged in a way that their collective silhouette forms the shape of a large heart. The butterflies were chosen as a symbol of transformation and \"rebirth,\" and the five specific species depicted are all indigenous to the Berkshire Downs. To create a sense of movement, some of the smaller butterflies are applied directly to the wall surface, while the larger ones are mounted on spacers to appear as if they are fluttering into the room.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/4348599df2c2.jpg\")
Tucked away in the tranquil Englefield Garden deep within the hospital is a sculpture known as \"The Diver\" stands as a striking example of contemporary kinetic art. Created by the renowned sculptor Sophie Dickens\u2014the great-great-granddaughter of novelist Charles Dickens\u2014the piece was installed in 2018 as the centrepiece of a therapeutic sanctuary dedicated to the memory of Sir William Benyon (1930\u20132014), a former Member of Parliament and a significant benefactor to the hospital.
\nThe work is a multi-part bronze installation that captures a single male figure in the various stages of a high dive or somersault. Rather than a static, singular statue, Dickens used five distinct figures to create a \"stop-motion\" effect, leading the eye in a fluid, circular arc toward the surface of the garden's pond. The sculpture is celebrated for its raw, muscular energy; the figures are constructed from individual wooden blocks that were later cast in bronze, giving the work a textured, skeletal appearance that emphasizes the mechanics of the human body in motion.
\nThe placement of \"The Diver\" within the Sir William Benyon Memorial Garden was a deliberate choice by the garden\u2019s designer, Jennifer Benyon. Designed to provide a \"haven of peace\" for patients, staff, and grieving families, the garden uses the sculpture\u2019s dynamic energy to contrast with the stillness of the water. In a clinical environment, the diver\u2019s bold plunge serves as a powerful metaphor for courage, the transition between states of being, and the restorative power of movement.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/86deda26416d.jpg\")
The deployment of statues in Reading continues. The multi-billion pound Station Hill development, acting as a new gateway between Reading Station and the town centre, features a \u00a31.5 million public art trail unveiled between 2024 and 2025. These works were curated by Futurecity to reflect Reading\u2019s industrial, botanical, and social history through a modern, high-tech lens.
\nSeed
\nDesigned by Rachael Champion and Jonathan Trayte, Seed is a five-metre-tall sculpture located in the central piazza. It features a vibrant orange silhouette of a pot marigold (Calendula officinalis) seed, a direct tribute to the horticultural legacy of Suttons Seeds, which was once headquartered in Reading. The sculpture sits on a cylindrical terrazzo plinth made from recycled brick and glass, embedded with nine bronze reliefs. These reliefs depict magnified seed textures captured via scanning electron microscopy at the Natural History Museum, selected in collaboration with the University of Reading's herbarium.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/b30b778eb818.jpg\")
PIVOTAL
\nStanding 14 metres high outside the ONE Station Hill office building, PIVOTAL is a kinetic sculpture by the design studio NEON (Mark Nixon and Viliina Koivisto). It consists of 73 vertical fins that rotate independently in the wind, mimicking the movement of a flag or a shifting skyline. At night, the installation is transformed by an internal LED system that cycles through animated light sequences, making it a permanent landmark for the 20 million passengers who pass through the station annually.
\nThe Station Hill Murals
\nTwo massive, backlit murals created by artist Kev Munday and sculptor Stuart Melrose anchor the pedestrian routes. These pieces combine a distinctive \"pop-art\" illustrative style with advanced material science, using laser-cut aluminium and HIMACS solid surface panels.
\nRoyals, Residents & a Rock Festival: Located near the station underpass, this 51-metre-long mural features a \"who\u2019s who\" of Reading, including Kate Winslet, Ricky Gervais, and Marianne Faithfull, alongside landmarks like the Hexagon Theatre.
\nRivers, Ruins & Regency: Positioned at the Friars Walk end of the development, this piece focuses on historical figures such as King Henry I and Mary Russell Mitford, alongside references to Huntley & Palmers and the Abbey.
\nBoth murals are programmed with thousands of LEDs that change colour and \"wink\" at passersby, with the lighting sequences updated throughout the year to mark local festivals and milestones.
\n\u00a0
", "content_text": "Statues have become one of the most visible battlegrounds in contemporary debates about history, identity, and public space. Once largely ignored\u2014part of the architectural background of daily life\u2014they are now being actively questioned: who they represent, why they were erected, and whether they still reflect the values of the society that surrounds them.\nWalk through London and you will find an abundance of figures cast in bronze or carved in stone: mounted generals, imperial administrators, and colonial figures, many of whom are scarcely recognised by the public. Their prominence, elevated on plinths and placed in key civic locations, suggests a hierarchy of importance that feels increasingly disconnected from modern sensibilities. These are not neutral artefacts - they are deliberate statements about power, legacy, and what a nation chooses to celebrate.\nThe toppling of Edward Colston\u2019s statue in Bristol marked a turning point. What had stood for over a century as an unchallenged monument was suddenly reinterpreted through a contemporary moral lens. The act was not simply vandalism to some, nor purely justice to others\u2014it was a signal that historical narratives are not fixed, and that public symbols can be renegotiated. Similarly, protests in Oxford colleges have highlighted how institutional spaces are also implicated in these debates, raising questions about tradition, benefaction, and moral accountability.\nAt the heart of the issue is not whether history should be remembered, but how it should be represented. Statues, by their nature, are celebratory. They confer honour. As such, they are a selective version of history\u2014one that often omits complexity, controversy, or harm. In a more pluralistic and self-critical society, there is growing discomfort with uncritical celebration of figures whose legacies are entangled with exploitation or injustice.\nThis does not necessarily mean erasing the past. Rather, it opens up a broader conversation about rebalancing public memory. Should new statues be erected to reflect a wider range of contributions\u2014scientists, reformers, artists, and those who advanced social progress? Should existing monuments be contextualised, relocated, or retained as historical artefacts rather than objects of reverence?\nWhat is clear is that statues matter. They are not just relics; they are active participants in shaping how we see ourselves and our past. As society evolves, so too must the symbols that occupy its public spaces.\nBeyond politics and history, statues are also a vital form of public art. They shape the visual identity of cities, provide focal points in shared spaces, and offer moments of reflection or inspiration in the flow of everyday life. A well-conceived sculpture can humanise a square, commemorate collective experience, or provoke thought in ways that written history cannot. Unlike art in galleries, public statues are encountered by everyone, consciously or not and therefore carry a unique responsibility to engage a broad audience while enriching the cultural fabric of a place. Or they may just walk on by without noticing, on their way to a train, a meeting or the shops.\nYou therefore might not have noticed that Reading is rich in sculptures. This month inReading is taking a look at our public art and, as the weather improves, encouraging you to take your own look by embarking on a statue trail through our town.\n\u00a0\n\u00a0\n\nThe Maiwand Lion\nPerhaps the best known of all Reading\u2019s statues, the Maiwand Lion is the centrepiece of Forbury Gardens, and is one of the world\u2019s largest cast-iron statues. Unveiled in 1886, the monument was commissioned to honour the 328 officers and men of the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot who died at the Battle of Maiwand and during the wider Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878\u20131880).\nThe sculpture was designed by Reading-based artist George Blackall Simonds, a member of the famous local brewing family. Simonds spent two years studying lions at London Zoo to ensure anatomical accuracy before the statue was cast in 11 tons of iron by the H. Young & Co. foundry in Pimlico. Standing at approximately 31 feet from the base to the top of the lion\u2019s head, the figure itself measures 16 feet in length.\nA persistent local urban legend suggests that Simonds died by suicide after being told the lion's gait was anatomically incorrect; however, this is demonstrably false. Simonds lived for many years after the unveiling, and he purposely depicted the lion in a \"stand-at-bay\" posture. Furthermore, a lion\u2019s walk is \"pacing\" (moving both legs on one side simultaneously), which Simonds correctly captured. The names of the fallen soldiers are inscribed on bronze plaques around the plinth, which was significantly restored in 2024 to preserve the masonry and metalwork.\nOf course, Reading has its statues commemorating historical figures.\n\nThe Executioner\nThe Executioner (also known as the Robed Figure) is a bronze work by the renowned British artist Dame Elisabeth Frink, installed in the old Abbey quadrangle in 1988. Positioned within the sunken garden of Abbot\u2019s Walk, the sculpture stands in the shadow of the Reading Abbey ruins and the perimeter of the former Reading Gaol. This piece is a cast of the central figure from Frink\u2019s 1986 Dorset Martyrs memorial in Dorchester. While the original group included those being led to their deaths, the Reading installation features only the lone, monumental figure of the executioner, draped in heavy, anonymous robes that evoke an atmosphere of solemnity and judgment.\nThe placement of the sculpture is deeply symbolic given its proximity to the site where Abbot Hugh Faringdon, the last Abbot of Reading, was executed for high treason in 1539 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The figure\u2019s imposing, static presence serves as a personification of state-sanctioned punishment and the impersonal nature of death, reflecting the grim history of the nearby Victorian prison. Unlike more dynamic contemporary works in the town, The Executioner acts as a quiet, sombre site for reflection, bridging the gap between the medieval martyrdom of the Abbey\u2019s past and the modern heritage of the Abbey Quarter.\n\nInterpretation of Ruins\nAdjacent to the historic ruins of Reading Abbey at the junction of Abbey Square and Abbey Street, the abstract bronze sculpture by Danish artist Jens-Flemming S\u00f8rensen provides a modern artistic dialogue with the town's medieval past. Installed in 2000 on a raised green mound, the work is often referred to as an Interpretation of Ruins, though it remains officially untitled. The sculpture features smooth, polished spherical forms emerging from or resting upon rugged, fractured blocks of bronze, mimicking the weathered flint and mortar of the neighbouring Reading Abbey walls.\nThis juxtaposition of refined geometry and raw, decaying textures reflects the process of architectural erosion and the passage of time. By placing a contemporary abstract piece so close to the physical remains of the 12th-century monastery, S\u00f8rensen encourages viewers to perceive the ruins not merely as static historical debris, but as a living part of the urban landscape. The sculpture serves as a visual bridge in the Abbey Quarter, mirroring the organic shapes of the ancient stonework while maintaining a distinctively modern aesthetic.\n\nOscar Wilde Memorial\nThe Oscar Wilde Memorial, a set of gates designed by artist Bruce Williams and unveiled in 2000, is located on Chestnut Walk. The installation is strategically positioned adjacent to the perimeter wall of Reading Gaol, the correctional facility where Wilde was incarcerated for \"gross indecency\" between 1895 and 1897.\nThe work consists of a series of double-sided integrated panels and gates made of stainless steel and glass. Williams used a photo-etching process to display images of Wilde alongside excerpts from his final poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and his long letter, De Profundis, both of which were inspired by his time in the prison. The memorial was commissioned to mark the centenary of Wilde\u2019s death and serves as a permanent historical marker of his connection to the town.\nSimeon Obelisk\nThe Simeon Obelisk, designed by sculptor Robert Spiller, is a prominent Portland stone monument located at the junction of Friar Street and Station Road in Reading. Commissioned in 1804 by Edward Simeon, a Director of the Bank of England and brother to Reading\u2019s then-MP John Simeon, the obelisk was originally intended to serve as a functional decorative landmark.\nThe structure features a triangular base supporting a tall, tapered shaft, which originally housed gas lamps on its three sides\u2014marking it as one of the earliest examples of public gas lighting in the town. Although the lamps were later removed and replaced with decorative carvings, the monument remains in its original location. It serves as a historical marker of 19th-century civic philanthropy and the Simeon family's influence on the urban development of Reading during the Georgian era.\nGuardian of the Gate of Sparta\nSculpted by Eric Stanford, was unveiled in 1995 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the South Street Arts Centre in Reading. The piece is situated outside the centre's entrance and was carved from Portland stone salvaged from the demolition of the old Knightsbridge Barracks in London.\nThe sculpture depicts a stylized, helmeted warrior figure, referencing the ancient Spartan themes of protection and endurance. Stanford, who served as the Keeper of Art at Reading Museum for many years, designed the work to reflect the Arts Centre\u2019s role as a \"stronghold\" for the local creative community. The use of reclaimed military stone provides a material link between the site's history and its modern function as a public cultural space.\nRequiem\nSculpted by Eric Stanford, was erected in 1990 to commemorate the residents of Reading who volunteered for the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War (1936\u20131939). The monument is carved from Portland stone and is situated on Dusseldorf Way, positioned outside the Reading Borough Council's Civic Offices.\nThe sculpture features a stylised, grieving figure draped in heavy robes, designed to evoke a sense of solemnity and loss rather than a celebration of military combat. It was commissioned by the Reading Spanish Civil War Memorial Committee to honour the local individuals who fought against fascism, as well as those who provided humanitarian aid to Spanish refugees. The choice of material and its central civic location ensure it serves as a permanent public reminder of the town\u2019s historical commitment to international solidarity.\nCrystal Beacon\nPositioned above a public viewing gallery over the multi-storey car part on the south side of the Kennet at The Oracle, this was designed by John Gingell as part of Hammerson (the developer of the Oracle)'s desire to build contemporary art into the actual fabric of the architecture in 1999. The Oracle used to be a Victorian warehouse.\nMade of translucent crystal, the work stands as a beacon for the Oracle and by night it can be illuminated by a state of the art computerised light programme.Somewhat ironically, it is best seen by car from the IDR flyover beside the Oracle car park.\nGirl and The Swan\nInstalled against a brick wall of Arundell House in King's Road in 1984, Girl and The Swan by Lorne McKean is a bronze depicting a young girl reaching up to touch a swan flying overhead.\n\nThe Compleat Angler\nChocolate Island was where the massive Huntley & Palmer biscuit factory stored its chocolate \u2013 presumably to prevent pilfering from staff. The pubs further down the Kennet had names like the Jolly Angler and the Fisherman\u2019s Cottage, highlighting the popularity of fishing as a working class pastime on the town\u2019s canal and rivers. The model for this work by\u00a0Kevin Atherton was keen angler and retired postman, Keith Cooper, who was aged 71 when the work was unveiled 24th November 1992.\nAngels\nLocated outside the west end of St Laurence Church on either side of the main door. The two angels are attributed to James Marshall. They are made of roman cement and were installed in 1806.\n\u2018George\u2019\nThis statue was sculpted by William Bloye, F.R.B.S., high on the front wall of what was then known as Reading Technical College on King's Road. As Birmingham's unofficial civic sculptor Bloye worked on virtually all public commissions including libraries, hospitals and the University. He often carved bas-relief plaques, typically for public houses in Birmingham and one of his most famed works is the statue of 'Pan' at Aston Hall in Birmingham.\u00a0\nGeorge Palmer\nThe bronze statue of George Palmer, of Huntley & Palmer fame stands in Palmer Park.\u00a0The statue, by\u00a0George Blackall Simonds, was unveiled on 4 November 1891,\u00a0though it was originally in Broad Street and only later moved to Palmer Park.\u00a0The statue was moved in 1930 to its current location in its namesake park and has been classed\u00a0Grade II Listed\u00a0monument since 14 December 1978.\n\nUnveiling of the statue in Board Street on 4 November 1891\nThe statue was given by the towns-folk of Reading,\u00a0\"in recognition of his services and gifts to the town\",\u00a0and unveiled 4 November 1891,\u00a0the same day of the opening of the 49 acre Palmer Park.[7] Four thousand subscribed to the cost of the statue.\u00a0The opening of the park and the unveiling of the statue have been described as \"the biggest celebration Reading had ever seen.\nThe GatewayCreated by sculptor Clare Bigger in 2000, is a large-scale stainless steel installation located at the entrance of the Reading International Business Park. Standing at approximately 6 meters high, the sculpture was commissioned to serve as a focal point for the corporate development near the M4 motorway.\nConsistent with Bigger's signature style, which focuses on the mechanics of movement and athleticism, the piece depicts two dynamic, stylized figures that arch toward one another to form a symbolic archway or \"gateway.\" The structure is composed of brushed stainless steel ribbons that allow wind and light to pass through, emphasizing a sense of lightness and fluidity despite its significant physical scale. It serves as both a navigational landmark and a representation of the modern, kinetic energy associated with the business park.\nThe Hexham Road Tree\nCreated by artist Bhajan Hunjan in 1998, is a site-specific floor mosaic located at the entrance of the Hexham Road Community Centre in Reading. The work was commissioned as part of a wider regeneration project for the estate to create a welcoming and culturally inclusive landmark for the local neighbourhood.\nThe piece features a central tree motif executed in colourful inlaid tiles and brickwork, symbolizing growth, community roots, and the diversity of the area's residents. Hunjan, known for her focus on patterns and geometry, integrated the design directly into the paving to ensure the art remains a functional part of the public walkway. The \"tree\" serves as a metaphorical gathering point, reflecting the building's role as a hub for social and educational activities.\nHarrison Memorial\nErected 1887 and made of Portland stone the memorial is in St Mary's churchyard adjacent to St Mary Butts. The architect was Spencer Slingsby Stallwood. It records the many benefactions of Isaac Harrinson who spent a lot of his money clearing the slums in Reading and particularly those in St Mary Butts. He died a few years after the memorial was erected.\u00a0\u00a0\nRichard Valpy\nWithin the exterior niche of St Laurence\u2019s Church, overlooking Reading\u2019s historic Town Hall Square, stands a commemorative statue of Richard Valpy by the sculptor Samuel Nixon. Valpy was a prominent educationalist and the long-serving headmaster of Reading School from 1781 to 1830, credited with transforming the institution into one of the leading schools in the country during the 19th century.\nThe statue, carved in a traditional neoclassical style, depicts Valpy in his academic robes, holding a book to signify his scholarly contributions and his influential work as a classicist. Its placement at St Laurence\u2019s is historically significant, as the church served as the primary place of worship for the school\u2019s staff and pupils for centuries. As a public monument, it honours Valpy's fifty-year tenure and his lasting impact on the intellectual and civic life of Reading.\nCartwheeling Boys\nThe Cartwheeling Boys is a distinctive aluminium sculpture by artist Brian Slack, cast at the Brunel University Department of Metallurgy. It was erected in 1981 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the twinning between Reading and D\u00fcsseldorf. The piece depicts three figures in various stages of a cartwheel, a traditional symbol of joy in D\u00fcsseldorf that dates back to a 17th-century legend involving a loose carriage wheel. Originally located on a wall at San Francisco Libre Walk near the old Civic Centre, the sculpture was famously toppled by Storm Eunice in 2022. Following a period of restoration using modern computer modelling and traditional casting, it was reinstalled in February 2026 on the fa\u00e7ade of the new Civic Offices at the corner of Bridge Street and Fobney Street.\nLaying the Reading Abbey Foundation\nA Corshill stone panel on the facade of the Old Town Hall, commemorating Henry I who was the founder of Reading Abbey and who was buried before the high altar there. It is located on the frieze between the main doors to the Museum and Old Town Hall and was installed in 1888 after the building was opened in 1882.\nThe architect was Thomas Lainson and the sculptor Charles Pinker. The scene depicts Henry laying the foundation stone for Reading Abbey.\nReading Piece\nThe sculpture located outside the former Visa International HQ was commissioned by the company who previously occupied this building, Heron Corporation in 1982. Created by the artist Peter Sainty, the piece is a large-scale abstract work fashioned from welded steel.\nThe sculpture's design is characterized by its sharp, geometric lines and industrial aesthetic, reflecting the modern architectural style of the business park developments emerging in Reading during the early 1980s. Sainty, an artist known for his structural and minimalist approach, intended the work to complement the corporate environment while providing a bold visual anchor for the site's entrance. The use of steel mirrors the technological and forward-thinking nature of the companies housed within the complex at the time of its installation.\u00a0\n1st Marquess of Reading\nThe statue of 1st Marquess of Reading (Rufus Isaacs 1860-1935) by Charles Sargeant Jagger is located in the King George V Memorial Gardens, Eldon Square and was moved to its current location in 1971 having been repatriated to Reading in 1961 from Delhi, where it was originally erected. Isaacs was the Viceroy and Governor General of India from 1921 to 1925.\nStatue of Queen Victoria\nStanding outside Reading Town Hall, this statue commemorates Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887. Also sculpted by George Blackall Simonds, it reflects the town's respect and admiration for the monarch.\nStatue of King Edward VII\nLocated in Station Square, this statue pays tribute to King Edward VII, who reigned from 1901 to 1910. It serves as a reminder of the monarch's influence during a transformative period in British history.\nThe Trooper Potts VC Memorial\nLocated outside the Reading Crown Court near the entrance to Forbury Gardens, this is a bronze statue group by sculptor Tom Murphy. Unveiled on October 4, 2015, the monument commemorates Frederick Owen Potts, Reading\u2019s only recipient of the Victoria Cross, and his comrade Arthur Andrews.\nThe sculpture depicts a life-sized scene from the Battle of Scimitar Hill during the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign. After both men were wounded by machine-gun fire, Potts refused to abandon Andrews, who was unable to walk. Over a period of 48 hours, while under constant enemy fire and suffering from dehydration, Potts used a discarded entrenching shovel as a makeshift sledge to drag Andrews over 600 yards to the safety of the British lines. This feat earned Potts the nickname \"The Hero with the Shovel.\"\nThe memorial was commissioned by the Trooper Potts VC Memorial Trust and serves a dual purpose. In addition to honouring Potts and Andrews, the plinth features a Roll of Honour listing the names of 426 men from the Berkshire Yeomanry who lost their lives in the Boer War and the two World Wars. The project was officially unveiled by the Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire and television presenter Chris Tarrant to mark the centenary of the act of bravery.\nHistorically, some have felt that the University of Reading shared a similar lack of prominent public monuments. However, this is a narrative currently being rewritten. The University has recently launched a major Public Art Strategy, including a \u00a3200,000 endowment for new commissions. Works like the \"Floating Garden\" by Ben Cain and Tina Gverovi\u0107 and the upcoming \"Missing Yew\"\u2014an eco-sculpture designed by Petre Nikoloski to fuse living trees with stone\u2014signal a shift toward art that is living, communal, and contemporary.\nThe Royal Berkshire Hospital also has sculptures . It houses a significant permanent art installation titled \"The Gift of Life\", which was unveiled in 2015. Located in the main entrance reception area, the piece is a large-scale wall installation designed by the Hospital Art Studio to serve as a memorial to organ and tissue donors.\nThe artwork consists of hundreds of 3D butterflies that span an entire wall, arranged in a way that their collective silhouette forms the shape of a large heart. The butterflies were chosen as a symbol of transformation and \"rebirth,\" and the five specific species depicted are all indigenous to the Berkshire Downs. To create a sense of movement, some of the smaller butterflies are applied directly to the wall surface, while the larger ones are mounted on spacers to appear as if they are fluttering into the room.\n\nTucked away in the tranquil Englefield Garden deep within the hospital is a sculpture known as \"The Diver\" stands as a striking example of contemporary kinetic art. Created by the renowned sculptor Sophie Dickens\u2014the great-great-granddaughter of novelist Charles Dickens\u2014the piece was installed in 2018 as the centrepiece of a therapeutic sanctuary dedicated to the memory of Sir William Benyon (1930\u20132014), a former Member of Parliament and a significant benefactor to the hospital.\nThe work is a multi-part bronze installation that captures a single male figure in the various stages of a high dive or somersault. Rather than a static, singular statue, Dickens used five distinct figures to create a \"stop-motion\" effect, leading the eye in a fluid, circular arc toward the surface of the garden's pond. The sculpture is celebrated for its raw, muscular energy; the figures are constructed from individual wooden blocks that were later cast in bronze, giving the work a textured, skeletal appearance that emphasizes the mechanics of the human body in motion.\nThe placement of \"The Diver\" within the Sir William Benyon Memorial Garden was a deliberate choice by the garden\u2019s designer, Jennifer Benyon. Designed to provide a \"haven of peace\" for patients, staff, and grieving families, the garden uses the sculpture\u2019s dynamic energy to contrast with the stillness of the water. In a clinical environment, the diver\u2019s bold plunge serves as a powerful metaphor for courage, the transition between states of being, and the restorative power of movement.\n\nThe deployment of statues in Reading continues. The multi-billion pound Station Hill development, acting as a new gateway between Reading Station and the town centre, features a \u00a31.5 million public art trail unveiled between 2024 and 2025. These works were curated by Futurecity to reflect Reading\u2019s industrial, botanical, and social history through a modern, high-tech lens.\nSeed\nDesigned by Rachael Champion and Jonathan Trayte, Seed is a five-metre-tall sculpture located in the central piazza. It features a vibrant orange silhouette of a pot marigold (Calendula officinalis) seed, a direct tribute to the horticultural legacy of Suttons Seeds, which was once headquartered in Reading. The sculpture sits on a cylindrical terrazzo plinth made from recycled brick and glass, embedded with nine bronze reliefs. These reliefs depict magnified seed textures captured via scanning electron microscopy at the Natural History Museum, selected in collaboration with the University of Reading's herbarium.\n\nPIVOTAL\nStanding 14 metres high outside the ONE Station Hill office building, PIVOTAL is a kinetic sculpture by the design studio NEON (Mark Nixon and Viliina Koivisto). It consists of 73 vertical fins that rotate independently in the wind, mimicking the movement of a flag or a shifting skyline. At night, the installation is transformed by an internal LED system that cycles through animated light sequences, making it a permanent landmark for the 20 million passengers who pass through the station annually.\nThe Station Hill Murals\nTwo massive, backlit murals created by artist Kev Munday and sculptor Stuart Melrose anchor the pedestrian routes. These pieces combine a distinctive \"pop-art\" illustrative style with advanced material science, using laser-cut aluminium and HIMACS solid surface panels.\nRoyals, Residents & a Rock Festival: Located near the station underpass, this 51-metre-long mural features a \"who\u2019s who\" of Reading, including Kate Winslet, Ricky Gervais, and Marianne Faithfull, alongside landmarks like the Hexagon Theatre.\nRivers, Ruins & Regency: Positioned at the Friars Walk end of the development, this piece focuses on historical figures such as King Henry I and Mary Russell Mitford, alongside references to Huntley & Palmers and the Abbey.\nBoth murals are programmed with thousands of LEDs that change colour and \"wink\" at passersby, with the lighting sequences updated throughout the year to mark local festivals and milestones.\n\u00a0", "summary": "Statues are more than just art; they are powerful statements about history and identity. As public memory evolves, it's time to re-evaluate the monuments that shape our cities, including Reading's own rich collection.", "date_published": "2026-04-01T09:47:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:01.824914+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/63b58a3e.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/63b58a3e.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "The Reading Sculpture Trail", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 5068, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "Statues have become one of the most visible battlegrounds in contemporary debates about history, identity, and public space. Once largely ignored\u2014part of the architectural background of daily life\u2014they are now being actively questioned: who they represent, why they were erected, and whether they still reflect the values of the society that surrounds them.
\nWalk through London and you will find an abundance of figures cast in bronze or carved in stone: mounted generals, imperial administrators, and colonial figures, many of whom are scarcely recognised by the public. Their prominence, elevated on plinths and placed in key civic locations, suggests a hierarchy of importance that feels increasingly disconnected from modern sensibilities. These are not neutral artefacts - they are deliberate statements about power, legacy, and what a nation chooses to celebrate.
\nThe toppling of Edward Colston\u2019s statue in Bristol marked a turning point. What had stood for over a century as an unchallenged monument was suddenly reinterpreted through a contemporary moral lens. The act was not simply vandalism to some, nor purely justice to others\u2014it was a signal that historical narratives are not fixed, and that public symbols can be renegotiated. Similarly, protests in Oxford colleges have highlighted how institutional spaces are also implicated in these debates, raising questions about tradition, benefaction, and moral accountability.
\nAt the heart of the issue is not whether history should be remembered, but how it should be represented. Statues, by their nature, are celebratory. They confer honour. As such, they are a selective version of history\u2014one that often omits complexity, controversy, or harm. In a more pluralistic and self-critical society, there is growing discomfort with uncritical celebration of figures whose legacies are entangled with exploitation or injustice.
\nThis does not necessarily mean erasing the past. Rather, it opens up a broader conversation about rebalancing public memory. Should new statues be erected to reflect a wider range of contributions\u2014scientists, reformers, artists, and those who advanced social progress? Should existing monuments be contextualised, relocated, or retained as historical artefacts rather than objects of reverence?
\nWhat is clear is that statues matter. They are not just relics; they are active participants in shaping how we see ourselves and our past. As society evolves, so too must the symbols that occupy its public spaces.
\nBeyond politics and history, statues are also a vital form of public art. They shape the visual identity of cities, provide focal points in shared spaces, and offer moments of reflection or inspiration in the flow of everyday life. A well-conceived sculpture can humanise a square, commemorate collective experience, or provoke thought in ways that written history cannot. Unlike art in galleries, public statues are encountered by everyone, consciously or not and therefore carry a unique responsibility to engage a broad audience while enriching the cultural fabric of a place. Or they may just walk on by without noticing, on their way to a train, a meeting or the shops.
\nYou therefore might not have noticed that Reading is rich in sculptures. This month inReading is taking a look at our public art and, as the weather improves, encouraging you to take your own look by embarking on a statue trail through our town.
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n
The Maiwand Lion
\nPerhaps the best known of all Reading\u2019s statues, the Maiwand Lion is the centrepiece of Forbury Gardens, and is one of the world\u2019s largest cast-iron statues. Unveiled in 1886, the monument was commissioned to honour the 328 officers and men of the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot who died at the Battle of Maiwand and during the wider Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878\u20131880).
\nThe sculpture was designed by Reading-based artist George Blackall Simonds, a member of the famous local brewing family. Simonds spent two years studying lions at London Zoo to ensure anatomical accuracy before the statue was cast in 11 tons of iron by the H. Young & Co. foundry in Pimlico. Standing at approximately 31 feet from the base to the top of the lion\u2019s head, the figure itself measures 16 feet in length.
\nA persistent local urban legend suggests that Simonds died by suicide after being told the lion's gait was anatomically incorrect; however, this is demonstrably false. Simonds lived for many years after the unveiling, and he purposely depicted the lion in a \"stand-at-bay\" posture. Furthermore, a lion\u2019s walk is \"pacing\" (moving both legs on one side simultaneously), which Simonds correctly captured. The names of the fallen soldiers are inscribed on bronze plaques around the plinth, which was significantly restored in 2024 to preserve the masonry and metalwork.
\nOf course, Reading has its statues commemorating historical figures.
\n
The Executioner
\nThe Executioner (also known as the Robed Figure) is a bronze work by the renowned British artist Dame Elisabeth Frink, installed in the old Abbey quadrangle in 1988. Positioned within the sunken garden of Abbot\u2019s Walk, the sculpture stands in the shadow of the Reading Abbey ruins and the perimeter of the former Reading Gaol. This piece is a cast of the central figure from Frink\u2019s 1986 Dorset Martyrs memorial in Dorchester. While the original group included those being led to their deaths, the Reading installation features only the lone, monumental figure of the executioner, draped in heavy, anonymous robes that evoke an atmosphere of solemnity and judgment.
\nThe placement of the sculpture is deeply symbolic given its proximity to the site where Abbot Hugh Faringdon, the last Abbot of Reading, was executed for high treason in 1539 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The figure\u2019s imposing, static presence serves as a personification of state-sanctioned punishment and the impersonal nature of death, reflecting the grim history of the nearby Victorian prison. Unlike more dynamic contemporary works in the town, The Executioner acts as a quiet, sombre site for reflection, bridging the gap between the medieval martyrdom of the Abbey\u2019s past and the modern heritage of the Abbey Quarter.
\n
Interpretation of Ruins
\nAdjacent to the historic ruins of Reading Abbey at the junction of Abbey Square and Abbey Street, the abstract bronze sculpture by Danish artist Jens-Flemming S\u00f8rensen provides a modern artistic dialogue with the town's medieval past. Installed in 2000 on a raised green mound, the work is often referred to as an Interpretation of Ruins, though it remains officially untitled. The sculpture features smooth, polished spherical forms emerging from or resting upon rugged, fractured blocks of bronze, mimicking the weathered flint and mortar of the neighbouring Reading Abbey walls.
\nThis juxtaposition of refined geometry and raw, decaying textures reflects the process of architectural erosion and the passage of time. By placing a contemporary abstract piece so close to the physical remains of the 12th-century monastery, S\u00f8rensen encourages viewers to perceive the ruins not merely as static historical debris, but as a living part of the urban landscape. The sculpture serves as a visual bridge in the Abbey Quarter, mirroring the organic shapes of the ancient stonework while maintaining a distinctively modern aesthetic.
\n
Oscar Wilde Memorial
\nThe Oscar Wilde Memorial, a set of gates designed by artist Bruce Williams and unveiled in 2000, is located on Chestnut Walk. The installation is strategically positioned adjacent to the perimeter wall of Reading Gaol, the correctional facility where Wilde was incarcerated for \"gross indecency\" between 1895 and 1897.
\nThe work consists of a series of double-sided integrated panels and gates made of stainless steel and glass. Williams used a photo-etching process to display images of Wilde alongside excerpts from his final poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and his long letter, De Profundis, both of which were inspired by his time in the prison. The memorial was commissioned to mark the centenary of Wilde\u2019s death and serves as a permanent historical marker of his connection to the town.
\nSimeon Obelisk
\nThe Simeon Obelisk, designed by sculptor Robert Spiller, is a prominent Portland stone monument located at the junction of Friar Street and Station Road in Reading. Commissioned in 1804 by Edward Simeon, a Director of the Bank of England and brother to Reading\u2019s then-MP John Simeon, the obelisk was originally intended to serve as a functional decorative landmark.
\nThe structure features a triangular base supporting a tall, tapered shaft, which originally housed gas lamps on its three sides\u2014marking it as one of the earliest examples of public gas lighting in the town. Although the lamps were later removed and replaced with decorative carvings, the monument remains in its original location. It serves as a historical marker of 19th-century civic philanthropy and the Simeon family's influence on the urban development of Reading during the Georgian era.
\nGuardian of the Gate of Sparta
\nSculpted by Eric Stanford, was unveiled in 1995 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the South Street Arts Centre in Reading. The piece is situated outside the centre's entrance and was carved from Portland stone salvaged from the demolition of the old Knightsbridge Barracks in London.
\nThe sculpture depicts a stylized, helmeted warrior figure, referencing the ancient Spartan themes of protection and endurance. Stanford, who served as the Keeper of Art at Reading Museum for many years, designed the work to reflect the Arts Centre\u2019s role as a \"stronghold\" for the local creative community. The use of reclaimed military stone provides a material link between the site's history and its modern function as a public cultural space.
\nRequiem
\nSculpted by Eric Stanford, was erected in 1990 to commemorate the residents of Reading who volunteered for the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War (1936\u20131939). The monument is carved from Portland stone and is situated on Dusseldorf Way, positioned outside the Reading Borough Council's Civic Offices.
\nThe sculpture features a stylised, grieving figure draped in heavy robes, designed to evoke a sense of solemnity and loss rather than a celebration of military combat. It was commissioned by the Reading Spanish Civil War Memorial Committee to honour the local individuals who fought against fascism, as well as those who provided humanitarian aid to Spanish refugees. The choice of material and its central civic location ensure it serves as a permanent public reminder of the town\u2019s historical commitment to international solidarity.
\nCrystal Beacon
\nPositioned above a public viewing gallery over the multi-storey car part on the south side of the Kennet at The Oracle, this was designed by John Gingell as part of Hammerson (the developer of the Oracle)'s desire to build contemporary art into the actual fabric of the architecture in 1999. The Oracle used to be a Victorian warehouse.
\nMade of translucent crystal, the work stands as a beacon for the Oracle and by night it can be illuminated by a state of the art computerised light programme.
Somewhat ironically, it is best seen by car from the IDR flyover beside the Oracle car park.
Girl and The Swan
\nInstalled against a brick wall of Arundell House in King's Road in 1984, Girl and The Swan by Lorne McKean is a bronze depicting a young girl reaching up to touch a swan flying overhead.
\n
The Compleat Angler
\nChocolate Island was where the massive Huntley & Palmer biscuit factory stored its chocolate \u2013 presumably to prevent pilfering from staff. The pubs further down the Kennet had names like the Jolly Angler and the Fisherman\u2019s Cottage, highlighting the popularity of fishing as a working class pastime on the town\u2019s canal and rivers. The model for this work by\u00a0Kevin Atherton was keen angler and retired postman, Keith Cooper, who was aged 71 when the work was unveiled 24th November 1992.
\nAngels
\nLocated outside the west end of St Laurence Church on either side of the main door. The two angels are attributed to James Marshall. They are made of roman cement and were installed in 1806.
\n\u2018George\u2019
\nThis statue was sculpted by William Bloye, F.R.B.S., high on the front wall of what was then known as Reading Technical College on King's Road. As Birmingham's unofficial civic sculptor Bloye worked on virtually all public commissions including libraries, hospitals and the University. He often carved bas-relief plaques, typically for public houses in Birmingham and one of his most famed works is the statue of 'Pan' at Aston Hall in Birmingham.\u00a0
\nGeorge Palmer
\nThe bronze statue of George Palmer, of Huntley & Palmer fame stands in Palmer Park.\u00a0The statue, by\u00a0George Blackall Simonds, was unveiled on 4 November 1891,\u00a0though it was originally in Broad Street and only later moved to Palmer Park.\u00a0The statue was moved in 1930 to its current location in its namesake park and has been classed\u00a0Grade II Listed\u00a0monument since 14 December 1978.
\n
Unveiling of the statue in Board Street on 4 November 1891
\nThe statue was given by the towns-folk of Reading,\u00a0\"in recognition of his services and gifts to the town\",\u00a0and unveiled 4 November 1891,\u00a0the same day of the opening of the 49 acre Palmer Park.[7] Four thousand subscribed to the cost of the statue.\u00a0The opening of the park and the unveiling of the statue have been described as \"the biggest celebration Reading had ever seen.
\nThe Gateway
Created by sculptor Clare Bigger in 2000, is a large-scale stainless steel installation located at the entrance of the Reading International Business Park. Standing at approximately 6 meters high, the sculpture was commissioned to serve as a focal point for the corporate development near the M4 motorway.
Consistent with Bigger's signature style, which focuses on the mechanics of movement and athleticism, the piece depicts two dynamic, stylized figures that arch toward one another to form a symbolic archway or \"gateway.\" The structure is composed of brushed stainless steel ribbons that allow wind and light to pass through, emphasizing a sense of lightness and fluidity despite its significant physical scale. It serves as both a navigational landmark and a representation of the modern, kinetic energy associated with the business park.
\nThe Hexham Road Tree
\nCreated by artist Bhajan Hunjan in 1998, is a site-specific floor mosaic located at the entrance of the Hexham Road Community Centre in Reading. The work was commissioned as part of a wider regeneration project for the estate to create a welcoming and culturally inclusive landmark for the local neighbourhood.
\nThe piece features a central tree motif executed in colourful inlaid tiles and brickwork, symbolizing growth, community roots, and the diversity of the area's residents. Hunjan, known for her focus on patterns and geometry, integrated the design directly into the paving to ensure the art remains a functional part of the public walkway. The \"tree\" serves as a metaphorical gathering point, reflecting the building's role as a hub for social and educational activities.
\nHarrison Memorial
\nErected 1887 and made of Portland stone the memorial is in St Mary's churchyard adjacent to St Mary Butts. The architect was Spencer Slingsby Stallwood. It records the many benefactions of Isaac Harrinson who spent a lot of his money clearing the slums in Reading and particularly those in St Mary Butts. He died a few years after the memorial was erected.\u00a0\u00a0
\nRichard Valpy
\nWithin the exterior niche of St Laurence\u2019s Church, overlooking Reading\u2019s historic Town Hall Square, stands a commemorative statue of Richard Valpy by the sculptor Samuel Nixon. Valpy was a prominent educationalist and the long-serving headmaster of Reading School from 1781 to 1830, credited with transforming the institution into one of the leading schools in the country during the 19th century.
\nThe statue, carved in a traditional neoclassical style, depicts Valpy in his academic robes, holding a book to signify his scholarly contributions and his influential work as a classicist. Its placement at St Laurence\u2019s is historically significant, as the church served as the primary place of worship for the school\u2019s staff and pupils for centuries. As a public monument, it honours Valpy's fifty-year tenure and his lasting impact on the intellectual and civic life of Reading.
\nCartwheeling Boys
\nThe Cartwheeling Boys is a distinctive aluminium sculpture by artist Brian Slack, cast at the Brunel University Department of Metallurgy. It was erected in 1981 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the twinning between Reading and D\u00fcsseldorf. The piece depicts three figures in various stages of a cartwheel, a traditional symbol of joy in D\u00fcsseldorf that dates back to a 17th-century legend involving a loose carriage wheel. Originally located on a wall at San Francisco Libre Walk near the old Civic Centre, the sculpture was famously toppled by Storm Eunice in 2022. Following a period of restoration using modern computer modelling and traditional casting, it was reinstalled in February 2026 on the fa\u00e7ade of the new Civic Offices at the corner of Bridge Street and Fobney Street.
\nLaying the Reading Abbey Foundation
\nA Corshill stone panel on the facade of the Old Town Hall, commemorating Henry I who was the founder of Reading Abbey and who was buried before the high altar there. It is located on the frieze between the main doors to the Museum and Old Town Hall and was installed in 1888 after the building was opened in 1882.
\nThe architect was Thomas Lainson and the sculptor Charles Pinker. The scene depicts Henry laying the foundation stone for Reading Abbey.
\nReading Piece
\nThe sculpture located outside the former Visa International HQ was commissioned by the company who previously occupied this building, Heron Corporation in 1982. Created by the artist Peter Sainty, the piece is a large-scale abstract work fashioned from welded steel.
\nThe sculpture's design is characterized by its sharp, geometric lines and industrial aesthetic, reflecting the modern architectural style of the business park developments emerging in Reading during the early 1980s. Sainty, an artist known for his structural and minimalist approach, intended the work to complement the corporate environment while providing a bold visual anchor for the site's entrance. The use of steel mirrors the technological and forward-thinking nature of the companies housed within the complex at the time of its installation.\u00a0
\n1st Marquess of Reading
\nThe statue of 1st Marquess of Reading (Rufus Isaacs 1860-1935) by Charles Sargeant Jagger is located in the King George V Memorial Gardens, Eldon Square and was moved to its current location in 1971 having been repatriated to Reading in 1961 from Delhi, where it was originally erected. Isaacs was the Viceroy and Governor General of India from 1921 to 1925.
\nStatue of Queen Victoria
\nStanding outside Reading Town Hall, this statue commemorates Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887. Also sculpted by George Blackall Simonds, it reflects the town's respect and admiration for the monarch.
\nStatue of King Edward VII
\nLocated in Station Square, this statue pays tribute to King Edward VII, who reigned from 1901 to 1910. It serves as a reminder of the monarch's influence during a transformative period in British history.
\nThe Trooper Potts VC Memorial
\nLocated outside the Reading Crown Court near the entrance to Forbury Gardens, this is a bronze statue group by sculptor Tom Murphy. Unveiled on October 4, 2015, the monument commemorates Frederick Owen Potts, Reading\u2019s only recipient of the Victoria Cross, and his comrade Arthur Andrews.
\nThe sculpture depicts a life-sized scene from the Battle of Scimitar Hill during the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign. After both men were wounded by machine-gun fire, Potts refused to abandon Andrews, who was unable to walk. Over a period of 48 hours, while under constant enemy fire and suffering from dehydration, Potts used a discarded entrenching shovel as a makeshift sledge to drag Andrews over 600 yards to the safety of the British lines. This feat earned Potts the nickname \"The Hero with the Shovel.\"
\nThe memorial was commissioned by the Trooper Potts VC Memorial Trust and serves a dual purpose. In addition to honouring Potts and Andrews, the plinth features a Roll of Honour listing the names of 426 men from the Berkshire Yeomanry who lost their lives in the Boer War and the two World Wars. The project was officially unveiled by the Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire and television presenter Chris Tarrant to mark the centenary of the act of bravery.
\nHistorically, some have felt that the University of Reading shared a similar lack of prominent public monuments. However, this is a narrative currently being rewritten. The University has recently launched a major Public Art Strategy, including a \u00a3200,000 endowment for new commissions. Works like the \"Floating Garden\" by Ben Cain and Tina Gverovi\u0107 and the upcoming \"Missing Yew\"\u2014an eco-sculpture designed by Petre Nikoloski to fuse living trees with stone\u2014signal a shift toward art that is living, communal, and contemporary.
\nThe Royal Berkshire Hospital also has sculptures . It houses a significant permanent art installation titled \"The Gift of Life\", which was unveiled in 2015. Located in the main entrance reception area, the piece is a large-scale wall installation designed by the Hospital Art Studio to serve as a memorial to organ and tissue donors.
\nThe artwork consists of hundreds of 3D butterflies that span an entire wall, arranged in a way that their collective silhouette forms the shape of a large heart. The butterflies were chosen as a symbol of transformation and \"rebirth,\" and the five specific species depicted are all indigenous to the Berkshire Downs. To create a sense of movement, some of the smaller butterflies are applied directly to the wall surface, while the larger ones are mounted on spacers to appear as if they are fluttering into the room.
\n
Tucked away in the tranquil Englefield Garden deep within the hospital is a sculpture known as \"The Diver\" stands as a striking example of contemporary kinetic art. Created by the renowned sculptor Sophie Dickens\u2014the great-great-granddaughter of novelist Charles Dickens\u2014the piece was installed in 2018 as the centrepiece of a therapeutic sanctuary dedicated to the memory of Sir William Benyon (1930\u20132014), a former Member of Parliament and a significant benefactor to the hospital.
\nThe work is a multi-part bronze installation that captures a single male figure in the various stages of a high dive or somersault. Rather than a static, singular statue, Dickens used five distinct figures to create a \"stop-motion\" effect, leading the eye in a fluid, circular arc toward the surface of the garden's pond. The sculpture is celebrated for its raw, muscular energy; the figures are constructed from individual wooden blocks that were later cast in bronze, giving the work a textured, skeletal appearance that emphasizes the mechanics of the human body in motion.
\nThe placement of \"The Diver\" within the Sir William Benyon Memorial Garden was a deliberate choice by the garden\u2019s designer, Jennifer Benyon. Designed to provide a \"haven of peace\" for patients, staff, and grieving families, the garden uses the sculpture\u2019s dynamic energy to contrast with the stillness of the water. In a clinical environment, the diver\u2019s bold plunge serves as a powerful metaphor for courage, the transition between states of being, and the restorative power of movement.
\n
The deployment of statues in Reading continues. The multi-billion pound Station Hill development, acting as a new gateway between Reading Station and the town centre, features a \u00a31.5 million public art trail unveiled between 2024 and 2025. These works were curated by Futurecity to reflect Reading\u2019s industrial, botanical, and social history through a modern, high-tech lens.
\nSeed
\nDesigned by Rachael Champion and Jonathan Trayte, Seed is a five-metre-tall sculpture located in the central piazza. It features a vibrant orange silhouette of a pot marigold (Calendula officinalis) seed, a direct tribute to the horticultural legacy of Suttons Seeds, which was once headquartered in Reading. The sculpture sits on a cylindrical terrazzo plinth made from recycled brick and glass, embedded with nine bronze reliefs. These reliefs depict magnified seed textures captured via scanning electron microscopy at the Natural History Museum, selected in collaboration with the University of Reading's herbarium.
\n
PIVOTAL
\nStanding 14 metres high outside the ONE Station Hill office building, PIVOTAL is a kinetic sculpture by the design studio NEON (Mark Nixon and Viliina Koivisto). It consists of 73 vertical fins that rotate independently in the wind, mimicking the movement of a flag or a shifting skyline. At night, the installation is transformed by an internal LED system that cycles through animated light sequences, making it a permanent landmark for the 20 million passengers who pass through the station annually.
\nThe Station Hill Murals
\nTwo massive, backlit murals created by artist Kev Munday and sculptor Stuart Melrose anchor the pedestrian routes. These pieces combine a distinctive \"pop-art\" illustrative style with advanced material science, using laser-cut aluminium and HIMACS solid surface panels.
\nRoyals, Residents & a Rock Festival: Located near the station underpass, this 51-metre-long mural features a \"who\u2019s who\" of Reading, including Kate Winslet, Ricky Gervais, and Marianne Faithfull, alongside landmarks like the Hexagon Theatre.
\nRivers, Ruins & Regency: Positioned at the Friars Walk end of the development, this piece focuses on historical figures such as King Henry I and Mary Russell Mitford, alongside references to Huntley & Palmers and the Abbey.
\nBoth murals are programmed with thousands of LEDs that change colour and \"wink\" at passersby, with the lighting sequences updated throughout the year to mark local festivals and milestones.
\n\u00a0
", "description": "Statues are more than just art; they are powerful statements about history and identity. As public memory evolves, it's time to re-evaluate the monuments that shape our cities, including Reading's own rich collection.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:01.824914+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-04-01T09:47:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-reading-sculpture-trail/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "335", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/tutus-ethiopian-table-20-years-of-flavour-and-community-in-reading/", "title": "Out Of Africa Into Reading", "content_html": "Reading without Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table now seems unthinkable. This year marks the 20th anniversary for the popular menu of meat and vegetarian stews, served with the Ethiopian traditional pancake, injera.
\nNow based in Palmer Park Lodge, next to the hugely popular play area and just off Wokingham Road, the caf\u00e9 is a dream come true for Tutu Melaku. It\u2019s a real meeting point: families can pop in for snacks, east Reading residents can enjoy tea and cake, while community groups \u2013 including poets and singers \u2013 have made it a second home. No wonder it has rave reviews on Tripadvisor.\u00a0
\nThat\u2019s not all that Tutu does: her sauces can be bought for home cooking, and they can be found in pantries the world over as people buy them for presents as well as for themselves, while her mobile catering truck means she can pop up at festivals or attend company functions, parties and weddings.\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u201cMy food is not just staying in Reading, it\u2019s going to Scotland, to Aberdeen, to Leeds, to Birmingham,\u201d she says, adding that she hopes that one day her sauces will be on sale in shops.
\nThere is one thing that may surprise people. Despite Tutu\u2019s pride in the cuisine of her home country, her core clientele isn\u2019t from the African nation.\u00a0
\n\u201cThere are a very small number of people from Ethiopia in Reading, especially when I opened. It\u2019s not a big community here. London? Definitely. Reading is a very multi-cultural town, and everybody welcomes everybody from different places. It is a beautiful place to live because everybody wants to know who you are, everybody welcomes you, everybody loves you and wants to know more about you. I\u2019ve never felt like I\u2019m an outsider.\u201d
\nThe journey to a successful business has been a long one, and it all started in her own kitchen.\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/59ea7c234f88.jpg\")
Originally from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia\u2019s capital, she found herself living and working in Reading, often offering some African hospitality to friends she made here: \u201cI\u2019m passionate about cooking and when I invited people to my house, they loved my food. Someone suggested that I should start a business: I\u2019d never thought about it.\u201d
\nLike all good superheroes, she had a double life: when she started Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table, she was a childminder during the day and catering for parties, meetings and birthdays the rest of the time. That initial success led her to realise there was a business to be had. There was just one problem: \u201cWhen you are a childminder, you don\u2019t make a lot of money. I loved the job, and it suited me as my kids were young.\u201d
\nTutu needed an alternative solution and set upon trying to find a kitchen to hire, trying pubs but finding closed doors. Forget the school of hard knocks: this was the pubs and restaurants of hard door knocking.
\nShe says: \u201cI remember one who just said, \u2018How dare you come and ask this question\u2019.
\n\u201cSome asked why and I told them that this is my passion, and I know I didn\u2019t have the money to do it.\u201d
\nHowever, a conversation at RISC that had initially seemed fruitless came good. Tutu had initially been told that the charity, which runs the Global Caf\u00e9 in London Street, wouldn\u2019t take her in, but was later invited to speak to the trustees about her vision for using their kitchens to bring her food to a wider audience.\u00a0
\n\u201cThey asked me to come in and have a meeting with me, asked me a lot of questions and wanted to know about me as a person as well. After a week they said they were happy to have me,\u201d she recalls. \u201cWhen we did the launch, we had 144 people turn up.
\n\u201cI remember the queue was out in the streets, reaching the traffic lights. It was a big, big, big launch \u2026 and that\u2019s where the journey started.\u201d
\nShe was there for 12 years, winning awards such as a Pride of Reading Award, but yearned for her own space. When the opportunity came to take on the cafe at Palmer Park, she leapt into action and convinced Reading Borough Council that she was the best person to take on the lease.
\n\u201cWhen I mentioned that I was going to move to Palmer Park I think most of my friends thought I was crazy,\u201d she laughs. \u201cThey said I was already established in RISC, and it would be hard to make money. I said to them I\u2019m not there yet, but when I am it will be a different story.\u201d
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/bafa3f72ef9f.jpg\")
The launch, in 2019, saw crowds once again flock to support Tutu. The then borough mayor, Debs Edwards, cut the ribbon and among the guests was the Ethiopian High Commission's Deputy Head of Mission, Ababi Demissie. At the ceremony, he endorsed her as a cultural ambassador for the country, adding that he hoped her success will serve as an example and catalyst for even more Ethiopians to contribute towards building a better Ethiopia and promote Ethiopia\u2019s cultural heritage through various endeavours.
\nThat early success was then followed by the lockdowns caused by Covid-19, with the hospitality industry particularly affected.\u00a0
\n\u201cWe celebrated our first anniversary and then we had to shut down. I had a panic attack because I didn\u2019t know what to do, and was worried I\u2019d lose the cafe, and that would be the end of me. But you know what? My community, they said you are not going to close down. We\u2019re going to come and have takeaway food,\u201d she says.\u00a0
\n\u201cThe people around me saved this place: This is not just a business; Tutu\u2019s is more than that and that\u2019s why it\u2019s successful. If you focus on having to make money, that's not going to work. You have to learn how to serve your people.\u201d
\nThat includes seeing the Palmer Park venue host wedding and birthday parties, and a Community Festival. Tutu feels that this means it\u2019s not a caf\u00e9, but a family, and this feeds back into how Tutu runs things.\u00a0
\n\u201cI look after everybody who walks into this cafe,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause I do, you make them special and you remember who they are; you remember the coffee, the food and how they like it. Some people, you know, like their food on the plate, some like small dishes and different bowls.\u00a0
\n\u201cI remember one lady saying that coming to me is like going to her mum\u2019s every Sunday for a roast. That\u2019s a big statement to make. If I can make people feel like that I think my job is done.\u201d
\nTo mark the 20th anniversary of Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table, several events are being planned. Among the early initiatives is a commemorative mug that people can purchase, and customers are being invited to complete postcard-sized greetings that will eventually form a massive birthday card.
\nIt will culminate in an event this autumn. \u201cWe don\u2019t know exactly what the party looks like, we have so many ideas and I want people to give me theirs. I want them to share their memories about the caf\u00e9 and RISC, tell me how they met me, and what it means to them.\u00a0
\n\u201cSend me a letter, draw a picture, so I can keep it and show my grandchildren.\u201d
\nWhatever happens, with her community joining her around the table and breaking injera (Ethiopian pancake) together, the celebration will be a day that makes Reading proud.
\nFor more on Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table, log on to:\u00a0https://tutus-ethiopian-table.com. Her next open mic event will be from 6.30pm on Friday, 10 April.\u00a0
\nTutu\u2019s charity, Tutu\u2019s Fund for the Future, helps orphaned and vulnerable children in Ethiopia attend school and develop their potential. Run in partnership with Together We Learn, it focuses on education projects in schools and the sponsorship of vulnerable children. For more details, or to donate to the fund, log on to:\u00a0https://twlethiopia.org/tutus-fund-for-the-future/
", "content_text": "Reading without Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table now seems unthinkable. This year marks the 20th anniversary for the popular menu of meat and vegetarian stews, served with the Ethiopian traditional pancake, injera.\nNow based in Palmer Park Lodge, next to the hugely popular play area and just off Wokingham Road, the caf\u00e9 is a dream come true for Tutu Melaku. It\u2019s a real meeting point: families can pop in for snacks, east Reading residents can enjoy tea and cake, while community groups \u2013 including poets and singers \u2013 have made it a second home. No wonder it has rave reviews on Tripadvisor.\u00a0\nThat\u2019s not all that Tutu does: her sauces can be bought for home cooking, and they can be found in pantries the world over as people buy them for presents as well as for themselves, while her mobile catering truck means she can pop up at festivals or attend company functions, parties and weddings.\u00a0\u00a0\n\u201cMy food is not just staying in Reading, it\u2019s going to Scotland, to Aberdeen, to Leeds, to Birmingham,\u201d she says, adding that she hopes that one day her sauces will be on sale in shops.\nThere is one thing that may surprise people. Despite Tutu\u2019s pride in the cuisine of her home country, her core clientele isn\u2019t from the African nation.\u00a0\n\u201cThere are a very small number of people from Ethiopia in Reading, especially when I opened. It\u2019s not a big community here. London? Definitely. Reading is a very multi-cultural town, and everybody welcomes everybody from different places. It is a beautiful place to live because everybody wants to know who you are, everybody welcomes you, everybody loves you and wants to know more about you. I\u2019ve never felt like I\u2019m an outsider.\u201d\nThe journey to a successful business has been a long one, and it all started in her own kitchen.\u00a0\n\nOriginally from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia\u2019s capital, she found herself living and working in Reading, often offering some African hospitality to friends she made here: \u201cI\u2019m passionate about cooking and when I invited people to my house, they loved my food. Someone suggested that I should start a business: I\u2019d never thought about it.\u201d\nLike all good superheroes, she had a double life: when she started Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table, she was a childminder during the day and catering for parties, meetings and birthdays the rest of the time. That initial success led her to realise there was a business to be had. There was just one problem: \u201cWhen you are a childminder, you don\u2019t make a lot of money. I loved the job, and it suited me as my kids were young.\u201d\nTutu needed an alternative solution and set upon trying to find a kitchen to hire, trying pubs but finding closed doors. Forget the school of hard knocks: this was the pubs and restaurants of hard door knocking.\nShe says: \u201cI remember one who just said, \u2018How dare you come and ask this question\u2019.\n\u201cSome asked why and I told them that this is my passion, and I know I didn\u2019t have the money to do it.\u201d\nHowever, a conversation at RISC that had initially seemed fruitless came good. Tutu had initially been told that the charity, which runs the Global Caf\u00e9 in London Street, wouldn\u2019t take her in, but was later invited to speak to the trustees about her vision for using their kitchens to bring her food to a wider audience.\u00a0\n\u201cThey asked me to come in and have a meeting with me, asked me a lot of questions and wanted to know about me as a person as well. After a week they said they were happy to have me,\u201d she recalls. \u201cWhen we did the launch, we had 144 people turn up.\n\u201cI remember the queue was out in the streets, reaching the traffic lights. It was a big, big, big launch \u2026 and that\u2019s where the journey started.\u201d\nShe was there for 12 years, winning awards such as a Pride of Reading Award, but yearned for her own space. When the opportunity came to take on the cafe at Palmer Park, she leapt into action and convinced Reading Borough Council that she was the best person to take on the lease.\n\u201cWhen I mentioned that I was going to move to Palmer Park I think most of my friends thought I was crazy,\u201d she laughs. \u201cThey said I was already established in RISC, and it would be hard to make money. I said to them I\u2019m not there yet, but when I am it will be a different story.\u201d\n\nThe launch, in 2019, saw crowds once again flock to support Tutu. The then borough mayor, Debs Edwards, cut the ribbon and among the guests was the Ethiopian High Commission's Deputy Head of Mission, Ababi Demissie. At the ceremony, he endorsed her as a cultural ambassador for the country, adding that he hoped her success will serve as an example and catalyst for even more Ethiopians to contribute towards building a better Ethiopia and promote Ethiopia\u2019s cultural heritage through various endeavours.\nThat early success was then followed by the lockdowns caused by Covid-19, with the hospitality industry particularly affected.\u00a0\n\u201cWe celebrated our first anniversary and then we had to shut down. I had a panic attack because I didn\u2019t know what to do, and was worried I\u2019d lose the cafe, and that would be the end of me. But you know what? My community, they said you are not going to close down. We\u2019re going to come and have takeaway food,\u201d she says.\u00a0\n\u201cThe people around me saved this place: This is not just a business; Tutu\u2019s is more than that and that\u2019s why it\u2019s successful. If you focus on having to make money, that's not going to work. You have to learn how to serve your people.\u201d\nThat includes seeing the Palmer Park venue host wedding and birthday parties, and a Community Festival. Tutu feels that this means it\u2019s not a caf\u00e9, but a family, and this feeds back into how Tutu runs things.\u00a0\n\u201cI look after everybody who walks into this cafe,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause I do, you make them special and you remember who they are; you remember the coffee, the food and how they like it. Some people, you know, like their food on the plate, some like small dishes and different bowls.\u00a0\n\u201cI remember one lady saying that coming to me is like going to her mum\u2019s every Sunday for a roast. That\u2019s a big statement to make. If I can make people feel like that I think my job is done.\u201d\nTo mark the 20th anniversary of Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table, several events are being planned. Among the early initiatives is a commemorative mug that people can purchase, and customers are being invited to complete postcard-sized greetings that will eventually form a massive birthday card.\nIt will culminate in an event this autumn. \u201cWe don\u2019t know exactly what the party looks like, we have so many ideas and I want people to give me theirs. I want them to share their memories about the caf\u00e9 and RISC, tell me how they met me, and what it means to them.\u00a0\n\u201cSend me a letter, draw a picture, so I can keep it and show my grandchildren.\u201d\nWhatever happens, with her community joining her around the table and breaking injera (Ethiopian pancake) together, the celebration will be a day that makes Reading proud.\nFor more on Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table, log on to:\u00a0https://tutus-ethiopian-table.com. Her next open mic event will be from 6.30pm on Friday, 10 April.\u00a0\nTutu\u2019s charity, Tutu\u2019s Fund for the Future, helps orphaned and vulnerable children in Ethiopia attend school and develop their potential. Run in partnership with Together We Learn, it focuses on education projects in schools and the sponsorship of vulnerable children. For more details, or to donate to the fund, log on to:\u00a0https://twlethiopia.org/tutus-fund-for-the-future/", "summary": "Celebrating 20 years, Tutu's Ethiopian Table is a beloved Reading institution, offering delicious stews and injera. From humble beginnings to a thriving caf\u00e9 and global reach, Tutu Melaku's journey is a testament to passion and community.", "date_published": "2026-04-01T09:44:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:03.064739+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/c5c9e2cf.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/c5c9e2cf.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Out Of Africa Into Reading", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1579, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "Reading without Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table now seems unthinkable. This year marks the 20th anniversary for the popular menu of meat and vegetarian stews, served with the Ethiopian traditional pancake, injera.
\nNow based in Palmer Park Lodge, next to the hugely popular play area and just off Wokingham Road, the caf\u00e9 is a dream come true for Tutu Melaku. It\u2019s a real meeting point: families can pop in for snacks, east Reading residents can enjoy tea and cake, while community groups \u2013 including poets and singers \u2013 have made it a second home. No wonder it has rave reviews on Tripadvisor.\u00a0
\nThat\u2019s not all that Tutu does: her sauces can be bought for home cooking, and they can be found in pantries the world over as people buy them for presents as well as for themselves, while her mobile catering truck means she can pop up at festivals or attend company functions, parties and weddings.\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u201cMy food is not just staying in Reading, it\u2019s going to Scotland, to Aberdeen, to Leeds, to Birmingham,\u201d she says, adding that she hopes that one day her sauces will be on sale in shops.
\nThere is one thing that may surprise people. Despite Tutu\u2019s pride in the cuisine of her home country, her core clientele isn\u2019t from the African nation.\u00a0
\n\u201cThere are a very small number of people from Ethiopia in Reading, especially when I opened. It\u2019s not a big community here. London? Definitely. Reading is a very multi-cultural town, and everybody welcomes everybody from different places. It is a beautiful place to live because everybody wants to know who you are, everybody welcomes you, everybody loves you and wants to know more about you. I\u2019ve never felt like I\u2019m an outsider.\u201d
\nThe journey to a successful business has been a long one, and it all started in her own kitchen.\u00a0
\n
Originally from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia\u2019s capital, she found herself living and working in Reading, often offering some African hospitality to friends she made here: \u201cI\u2019m passionate about cooking and when I invited people to my house, they loved my food. Someone suggested that I should start a business: I\u2019d never thought about it.\u201d
\nLike all good superheroes, she had a double life: when she started Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table, she was a childminder during the day and catering for parties, meetings and birthdays the rest of the time. That initial success led her to realise there was a business to be had. There was just one problem: \u201cWhen you are a childminder, you don\u2019t make a lot of money. I loved the job, and it suited me as my kids were young.\u201d
\nTutu needed an alternative solution and set upon trying to find a kitchen to hire, trying pubs but finding closed doors. Forget the school of hard knocks: this was the pubs and restaurants of hard door knocking.
\nShe says: \u201cI remember one who just said, \u2018How dare you come and ask this question\u2019.
\n\u201cSome asked why and I told them that this is my passion, and I know I didn\u2019t have the money to do it.\u201d
\nHowever, a conversation at RISC that had initially seemed fruitless came good. Tutu had initially been told that the charity, which runs the Global Caf\u00e9 in London Street, wouldn\u2019t take her in, but was later invited to speak to the trustees about her vision for using their kitchens to bring her food to a wider audience.\u00a0
\n\u201cThey asked me to come in and have a meeting with me, asked me a lot of questions and wanted to know about me as a person as well. After a week they said they were happy to have me,\u201d she recalls. \u201cWhen we did the launch, we had 144 people turn up.
\n\u201cI remember the queue was out in the streets, reaching the traffic lights. It was a big, big, big launch \u2026 and that\u2019s where the journey started.\u201d
\nShe was there for 12 years, winning awards such as a Pride of Reading Award, but yearned for her own space. When the opportunity came to take on the cafe at Palmer Park, she leapt into action and convinced Reading Borough Council that she was the best person to take on the lease.
\n\u201cWhen I mentioned that I was going to move to Palmer Park I think most of my friends thought I was crazy,\u201d she laughs. \u201cThey said I was already established in RISC, and it would be hard to make money. I said to them I\u2019m not there yet, but when I am it will be a different story.\u201d
\n
The launch, in 2019, saw crowds once again flock to support Tutu. The then borough mayor, Debs Edwards, cut the ribbon and among the guests was the Ethiopian High Commission's Deputy Head of Mission, Ababi Demissie. At the ceremony, he endorsed her as a cultural ambassador for the country, adding that he hoped her success will serve as an example and catalyst for even more Ethiopians to contribute towards building a better Ethiopia and promote Ethiopia\u2019s cultural heritage through various endeavours.
\nThat early success was then followed by the lockdowns caused by Covid-19, with the hospitality industry particularly affected.\u00a0
\n\u201cWe celebrated our first anniversary and then we had to shut down. I had a panic attack because I didn\u2019t know what to do, and was worried I\u2019d lose the cafe, and that would be the end of me. But you know what? My community, they said you are not going to close down. We\u2019re going to come and have takeaway food,\u201d she says.\u00a0
\n\u201cThe people around me saved this place: This is not just a business; Tutu\u2019s is more than that and that\u2019s why it\u2019s successful. If you focus on having to make money, that's not going to work. You have to learn how to serve your people.\u201d
\nThat includes seeing the Palmer Park venue host wedding and birthday parties, and a Community Festival. Tutu feels that this means it\u2019s not a caf\u00e9, but a family, and this feeds back into how Tutu runs things.\u00a0
\n\u201cI look after everybody who walks into this cafe,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause I do, you make them special and you remember who they are; you remember the coffee, the food and how they like it. Some people, you know, like their food on the plate, some like small dishes and different bowls.\u00a0
\n\u201cI remember one lady saying that coming to me is like going to her mum\u2019s every Sunday for a roast. That\u2019s a big statement to make. If I can make people feel like that I think my job is done.\u201d
\nTo mark the 20th anniversary of Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table, several events are being planned. Among the early initiatives is a commemorative mug that people can purchase, and customers are being invited to complete postcard-sized greetings that will eventually form a massive birthday card.
\nIt will culminate in an event this autumn. \u201cWe don\u2019t know exactly what the party looks like, we have so many ideas and I want people to give me theirs. I want them to share their memories about the caf\u00e9 and RISC, tell me how they met me, and what it means to them.\u00a0
\n\u201cSend me a letter, draw a picture, so I can keep it and show my grandchildren.\u201d
\nWhatever happens, with her community joining her around the table and breaking injera (Ethiopian pancake) together, the celebration will be a day that makes Reading proud.
\nFor more on Tutu\u2019s Ethiopian Table, log on to:\u00a0https://tutus-ethiopian-table.com. Her next open mic event will be from 6.30pm on Friday, 10 April.\u00a0
\nTutu\u2019s charity, Tutu\u2019s Fund for the Future, helps orphaned and vulnerable children in Ethiopia attend school and develop their potential. Run in partnership with Together We Learn, it focuses on education projects in schools and the sponsorship of vulnerable children. For more details, or to donate to the fund, log on to:\u00a0https://twlethiopia.org/tutus-fund-for-the-future/
", "description": "Celebrating 20 years, Tutu's Ethiopian Table is a beloved Reading institution, offering delicious stews and injera. From humble beginnings to a thriving caf\u00e9 and global reach, Tutu Melaku's journey is a testament to passion and community.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:03.064739+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-04-01T09:44:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/tutus-ethiopian-table-20-years-of-flavour-and-community-in-reading/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "334", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-reading-banking-scandal/", "title": "The Reading Banking Scandal", "content_html": "As the final bank branch in Woodley prepares to close, the steady disappearance of everyday banking is an issue for many DIngs. Access to cash, in-person advice, and basic services has been reduced to a small number of branches and Post Offices.
\r\nFinancial activity in the area can be traced back to the 12th century, when Reading Abbey operated as a centre of economic administration. It managed land, collected revenues, and even operated a mint under royal authority. It had its own treasury on the second story between the South Transept and the Chapter House where valuables, coins, documents and books were kept.
\r\nIn later centuries, local banking became more commercial. By the late 18th century, local institutions such as the Simonds Bank were serving regional businesses and issuing their own banknotes. The bank, founded by the brewing family was founded in 1791 by William Blackall Simonds and amalgamated with Barclays Bank in 1913.
\r\nOther local banks included Stephens, Blandy and Co., set up in the late 1700s by the Stephens and Blandy families and acquired by Lloyds Bank in 1889.
\r\nThe Reading Savings Bank was established as a mutual society in 1817 by local Trustees and was eventually absorbed into the TSB (Trustee Savings Bank) network.
\r\nJ & C Simonds and Co. was founded in 1814 by John & Charles Simonds as a spin-off/re-founding of the original Simonds Bank, this was also eventually merged into Barclays.
\r\nReading & High Wycombe Building Society was another local mutual society. For much of the early 20th century, it was the go-to institution for local workers looking to buy homes in the Berkshire and Buckinghamshire area. In December 1956, the Reading & High Wycombe Building Society merged into the Bristol & West Building Society - part of a larger trend where regional societies joined forces to compete with national players. Then Bristol & West was bought by the Bank of Ireland in 1997. Later, in 2009, the branch network and savings business of Bristol & West were transferred to the Britannia Building Society and Britannia then merged with the Co-operative Bank.
\r\nDuring the 1980s and 1990s, all major banks and building societies maintained a presence in Reading town centre. At one point there were nearly fifty branches in the area, at a time when banking relied on in-person services, local decision-making, and regular customer interaction.
\r\nFrom the 1990s onwards, this expansive branch network in the town began to unwind. Digital banking reduced demand for physical branches, and banks consolidated their networks. Building societies were taken over by banks. Closures followed in sequence. Today there are fewer than twenty bank branches in the area, although Indian bank ICICI recently bucked the trend by opening a branch on Kings Road. The Barclays Bank on Broad St became The Botanist, the Lloyds Bank in Market Place became Market House. The old advertising slogan that 'your bank has become a nice wine bar' was very true in Reading.
\r\nBut as this quiet decline was happening, a much larger scandal was unfolding in an unassuming bank branch in Reading. - during the early decades of the 21st century, the town has been at the centre of one of the most serious banking frauds in modern British history.
\r\nIn the early years of the 21st century, a major banking scandal unfolded in Reading that exposed profound failures within Britain’s financial system. Centred on the Reading branch of HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland), the affair combined fraud, corruption, regulatory failure and institutional denial. Its consequences were devastating—not only for small business owners, but also for high-profile figures such as Noel Edmonds.
\r\nAt first glance, the HBOS branch in Reading appeared typical of a regional banking hub. Behind its operations, however, a coordinated fraud was developing within the bank’s Impaired Assets Office, a division intended to support struggling businesses. But instead of recovery, the unit became a mechanism for extraction.
\r\nThe central figure behind the scandal was Lynden Scourfield, a senior manager with authority over distressed business lending. He worked closely with David Mills, a turnaround consultant later described in court as having \"an unusually exploitative role\" in the relationship.
\r\nThe fraud followed a consistent pattern: businesses in difficulty were directed toward a specific consultancy, Quayside Corporate Services. Large and often inappropriate loans were approved under the premise of restructuring, with high consultancy fees imposed, rapidly draining company resources. As a result, businesses collapsed under the combined weight of debt and fees.
\r\nThe outcome was predictable. Companies failed, owners were left insolvent and funds were diverted through the consultancy network to those involved in the scheme to fund lifestyles that included luxury travel, expensive assets, and personal excess.
\r\nThe consequences extended beyond financial loss. Many business owners lost livelihoods, homes, and long-standing enterprises.
\r\nThe scale was immense. The fraud is estimated to have cost around £245 million, with dozens of small and medium-sized enterprises driven into insolvency.
\r\nOne of the most prominent cases was that of Noel Edmonds. His company encountered the Reading operation during the mid-2000s, after which he argued that its decline was directly linked to the fraud. He later described severe personal strain, including a period of acute mental distress. Over time, he became the most visible public advocate for victims, pursuing compensation from Lloyds Banking Group, which acquired HBOS in 2009.
\r\nHis campaign brought sustained attention to the issue, including public criticism of the bank’s handling of compensation.
\r\nConcerns about the Reading operation had been raised years before formal action was taken.
\r\nAmong the earliest and most persistent whistleblowers were Paul and Nikki Turner, whose own business had been affected by the practices at the branch. After investigating independently, they compiled evidence linking internal bank decisions with external consultancy activity. Despite presenting this material to authorities, progress was slow. It was not until 2011 that Thames Valley Police launched a formal investigation into their claims.
\r\nAt the same time, internal concerns were also being documented. In 2013, a senior risk officer, Sally Masterton, produced a report indicating that the bank had prior knowledge of serious issues connected to Reading. The report was initially dismissed. Masterton later exited the organisation, though the bank subsequently acknowledged that her work had been produced in good faith.
\r\nThe case reached court in 2017. Six individuals were convicted and received a combined total of 47 years in prison. Lynden Scourfield was jailed for 11 years and 3 months, David Mills for 15 years and Mark Dobson for four and a half years
\r\nThe judge described the activity as \"sustained and deliberate exploitation of legitimate businesses\".
\r\nFollowing the convictions, Lloyds Banking Group established a compensation process known as the Griggs Review, but this process was widely criticised by victims and independent observers, who argued that it understated losses and applied restrictive methodologies.
\r\nA subsequent independent review in 2019 identified significant shortcomings in the original compensation scheme.
\r\nOver time, the total financial impact on the bank has grown substantially. By 2026, estimated costs, including compensation and associated expenses, have reached approximately £1.3 billion.
\r\nDespite this, many affected individuals maintain that financial settlements have not addressed the full extent of the damage to this day.
\r\nAttention has since shifted to questions of institutional accountability.
\r\nIn 2017, an independent review was commissioned to examine whether senior executives were aware of the fraud and whether there had been any failure to disclose it appropriately.
\r\nBut even as of today (April 2026), the review has not been fully published.
\r\nThe delay has been attributed to the scale of documentation and the process of allowing individuals named in the report to respond prior to release. However, the length of time involved has led to criticism from politicians, campaign groups, and victims. Concerns remain that any eventual publication may be limited in scope.
\r\nMeanwhile, as we all know, banking has changed with the advent of the internet, the closing of branches and the introduction of 'challenger banks' such as Monzo, Starling and Revolut.
\r\nFor many people in Reading, Post Offices now handle basic transactions such as deposits and withdrawals, and there are also ongoing discussions about shared banking hubs, where multiple institutions provide in-person banking services on a rotating basis.
\r\nThese solutions address some practical needs but do not replicate the role previously played by local branches. The move online is permanent.
\r\nThe story of banking in Reading now spans nearly a thousand years, from physical coin production and local lending relationships to digital systems and remote services.
\r\nThe HBOS Reading scandal exposed failures in oversight and accountability within that system.
\r\nThe closure of Woodley’s final bank reflects a different transformation: the gradual removal of physical banking from everyday life. But many of those involved in the Reading banking scandal may not be sorry to see them go.
\r\n\r\n
", "content_text": "As the final bank branch in Woodley prepares to close, the steady disappearance of everyday banking is an issue for many DIngs. Access to cash, in-person advice, and basic services has been reduced to a small number of branches and Post Offices.\r\nFinancial activity in the area can be traced back to the 12th century, when Reading Abbey operated as a centre of economic administration. It managed land, collected revenues, and even operated a mint under royal authority. It had its own treasury on the second story between the South Transept and the Chapter House where valuables, coins, documents and books were kept.\r\nIn later centuries, local banking became more commercial. By the late 18th century, local institutions such as the Simonds Bank were serving regional businesses and issuing their own banknotes. The bank, founded by the brewing family was founded in 1791 by William Blackall Simonds and amalgamated with Barclays Bank in 1913.\r\nOther local banks included Stephens, Blandy and Co., set up in the late 1700s by the Stephens and Blandy families and acquired by Lloyds Bank in 1889.\r\nThe Reading Savings Bank was established as a mutual society in 1817 by local Trustees and was eventually absorbed into the TSB (Trustee Savings Bank) network.\r\nJ & C Simonds and Co. was founded in 1814 by John & Charles Simonds as a spin-off/re-founding of the original Simonds Bank, this was also eventually merged into Barclays.\r\nReading & High Wycombe Building Society was another local mutual society. For much of the early 20th century, it was the go-to institution for local workers looking to buy homes in the Berkshire and Buckinghamshire area. In December 1956, the Reading & High Wycombe Building Society merged into the Bristol & West Building Society - part of a larger trend where regional societies joined forces to compete with national players. Then Bristol & West was bought by the Bank of Ireland in 1997. Later, in 2009, the branch network and savings business of Bristol & West were transferred to the Britannia Building Society and Britannia then merged with the Co-operative Bank.\r\nDuring the 1980s and 1990s, all major banks and building societies maintained a presence in Reading town centre. At one point there were nearly fifty branches in the area, at a time when banking relied on in-person services, local decision-making, and regular customer interaction.\r\nFrom the 1990s onwards, this expansive branch network in the town began to unwind. Digital banking reduced demand for physical branches, and banks consolidated their networks. Building societies were taken over by banks. Closures followed in sequence. Today there are fewer than twenty bank branches in the area, although Indian bank ICICI recently bucked the trend by opening a branch on Kings Road. The Barclays Bank on Broad St became The Botanist, the Lloyds Bank in Market Place became Market House. The old advertising slogan that 'your bank has become a nice wine bar' was very true in Reading.\r\nBut as this quiet decline was happening, a much larger scandal was unfolding in an unassuming bank branch in Reading. - during the early decades of the 21st century, the town has been at the centre of one of the most serious banking frauds in modern British history.\r\nHigh Street Branch\r\nIn the early years of the 21st century, a major banking scandal unfolded in Reading that exposed profound failures within Britain’s financial system. Centred on the Reading branch of HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland), the affair combined fraud, corruption, regulatory failure and institutional denial. Its consequences were devastating—not only for small business owners, but also for high-profile figures such as Noel Edmonds.\r\nAt first glance, the HBOS branch in Reading appeared typical of a regional banking hub. Behind its operations, however, a coordinated fraud was developing within the bank’s Impaired Assets Office, a division intended to support struggling businesses. But instead of recovery, the unit became a mechanism for extraction.\r\nThe central figure behind the scandal was Lynden Scourfield, a senior manager with authority over distressed business lending. He worked closely with David Mills, a turnaround consultant later described in court as having \"an unusually exploitative role\" in the relationship.\r\nThe fraud followed a consistent pattern: businesses in difficulty were directed toward a specific consultancy, Quayside Corporate Services. Large and often inappropriate loans were approved under the premise of restructuring, with high consultancy fees imposed, rapidly draining company resources. As a result, businesses collapsed under the combined weight of debt and fees.\r\nThe outcome was predictable. Companies failed, owners were left insolvent and funds were diverted through the consultancy network to those involved in the scheme to fund lifestyles that included luxury travel, expensive assets, and personal excess.\r\nThe consequences extended beyond financial loss. Many business owners lost livelihoods, homes, and long-standing enterprises.\r\nThe scale was immense. The fraud is estimated to have cost around £245 million, with dozens of small and medium-sized enterprises driven into insolvency.\r\nOne of the most prominent cases was that of Noel Edmonds. His company encountered the Reading operation during the mid-2000s, after which he argued that its decline was directly linked to the fraud. He later described severe personal strain, including a period of acute mental distress. Over time, he became the most visible public advocate for victims, pursuing compensation from Lloyds Banking Group, which acquired HBOS in 2009.\r\nHis campaign brought sustained attention to the issue, including public criticism of the bank’s handling of compensation.\r\nEarly Warnings and Internal Suppression\r\nConcerns about the Reading operation had been raised years before formal action was taken.\r\nAmong the earliest and most persistent whistleblowers were Paul and Nikki Turner, whose own business had been affected by the practices at the branch. After investigating independently, they compiled evidence linking internal bank decisions with external consultancy activity. Despite presenting this material to authorities, progress was slow. It was not until 2011 that Thames Valley Police launched a formal investigation into their claims.\r\nAt the same time, internal concerns were also being documented. In 2013, a senior risk officer, Sally Masterton, produced a report indicating that the bank had prior knowledge of serious issues connected to Reading. The report was initially dismissed. Masterton later exited the organisation, though the bank subsequently acknowledged that her work had been produced in good faith.\r\nCriminal Proceedings and Convictions\r\nThe case reached court in 2017. Six individuals were convicted and received a combined total of 47 years in prison. Lynden Scourfield was jailed for 11 years and 3 months, David Mills for 15 years and Mark Dobson for four and a half years\r\nThe judge described the activity as \"sustained and deliberate exploitation of legitimate businesses\".\r\nFollowing the convictions, Lloyds Banking Group established a compensation process known as the Griggs Review, but this process was widely criticised by victims and independent observers, who argued that it understated losses and applied restrictive methodologies.\r\nA subsequent independent review in 2019 identified significant shortcomings in the original compensation scheme.\r\nOver time, the total financial impact on the bank has grown substantially. By 2026, estimated costs, including compensation and associated expenses, have reached approximately £1.3 billion.\r\nDespite this, many affected individuals maintain that financial settlements have not addressed the full extent of the damage to this day.\r\nThe Dobbs Review and Unresolved Questions\r\nAttention has since shifted to questions of institutional accountability.\r\nIn 2017, an independent review was commissioned to examine whether senior executives were aware of the fraud and whether there had been any failure to disclose it appropriately.\r\nBut even as of today (April 2026), the review has not been fully published.\r\nThe delay has been attributed to the scale of documentation and the process of allowing individuals named in the report to respond prior to release. However, the length of time involved has led to criticism from politicians, campaign groups, and victims. Concerns remain that any eventual publication may be limited in scope.\r\nFrom Banking Hub to Banking Desert\r\nMeanwhile, as we all know, banking has changed with the advent of the internet, the closing of branches and the introduction of 'challenger banks' such as Monzo, Starling and Revolut. \r\nFor many people in Reading, Post Offices now handle basic transactions such as deposits and withdrawals, and there are also ongoing discussions about shared banking hubs, where multiple institutions provide in-person banking services on a rotating basis.\r\nThese solutions address some practical needs but do not replicate the role previously played by local branches. The move online is permanent.\r\nThe story of banking in Reading now spans nearly a thousand years, from physical coin production and local lending relationships to digital systems and remote services.\r\nThe HBOS Reading scandal exposed failures in oversight and accountability within that system.\r\nThe closure of Woodley’s final bank reflects a different transformation: the gradual removal of physical banking from everyday life. But many of those involved in the Reading banking scandal may not be sorry to see them go.\r\n \r\n ", "summary": "As Woodley's last bank branch closes, we trace Reading's financial history from 12th-century monastic administration to the rise and fall of local banks, culminating in the devastating HBOS fraud scandal.", "date_published": "2026-04-01T09:43:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-08T11:41:42.504488+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/1f974d9d.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/1f974d9d.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "The Reading Banking Scandal", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1883, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
As the final bank branch in Woodley prepares to close, the steady disappearance of everyday banking is an issue for many DIngs. Access to cash, in-person advice, and basic services has been reduced to a small number of branches and Post Offices.
\r\nFinancial activity in the area can be traced back to the 12th century, when Reading Abbey operated as a centre of economic administration. It managed land, collected revenues, and even operated a mint under royal authority. It had its own treasury on the second story between the South Transept and the Chapter House where valuables, coins, documents and books were kept.
\r\nIn later centuries, local banking became more commercial. By the late 18th century, local institutions such as the Simonds Bank were serving regional businesses and issuing their own banknotes. The bank, founded by the brewing family was founded in 1791 by William Blackall Simonds and amalgamated with Barclays Bank in 1913.
\r\nOther local banks included Stephens, Blandy and Co., set up in the late 1700s by the Stephens and Blandy families and acquired by Lloyds Bank in 1889.
\r\nThe Reading Savings Bank was established as a mutual society in 1817 by local Trustees and was eventually absorbed into the TSB (Trustee Savings Bank) network.
\r\nJ & C Simonds and Co. was founded in 1814 by John & Charles Simonds as a spin-off/re-founding of the original Simonds Bank, this was also eventually merged into Barclays.
\r\nReading & High Wycombe Building Society was another local mutual society. For much of the early 20th century, it was the go-to institution for local workers looking to buy homes in the Berkshire and Buckinghamshire area. In December 1956, the Reading & High Wycombe Building Society merged into the Bristol & West Building Society - part of a larger trend where regional societies joined forces to compete with national players. Then Bristol & West was bought by the Bank of Ireland in 1997. Later, in 2009, the branch network and savings business of Bristol & West were transferred to the Britannia Building Society and Britannia then merged with the Co-operative Bank.
\r\nDuring the 1980s and 1990s, all major banks and building societies maintained a presence in Reading town centre. At one point there were nearly fifty branches in the area, at a time when banking relied on in-person services, local decision-making, and regular customer interaction.
\r\nFrom the 1990s onwards, this expansive branch network in the town began to unwind. Digital banking reduced demand for physical branches, and banks consolidated their networks. Building societies were taken over by banks. Closures followed in sequence. Today there are fewer than twenty bank branches in the area, although Indian bank ICICI recently bucked the trend by opening a branch on Kings Road. The Barclays Bank on Broad St became The Botanist, the Lloyds Bank in Market Place became Market House. The old advertising slogan that 'your bank has become a nice wine bar' was very true in Reading.
\r\nBut as this quiet decline was happening, a much larger scandal was unfolding in an unassuming bank branch in Reading. - during the early decades of the 21st century, the town has been at the centre of one of the most serious banking frauds in modern British history.
\r\nIn the early years of the 21st century, a major banking scandal unfolded in Reading that exposed profound failures within Britain’s financial system. Centred on the Reading branch of HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland), the affair combined fraud, corruption, regulatory failure and institutional denial. Its consequences were devastating—not only for small business owners, but also for high-profile figures such as Noel Edmonds.
\r\nAt first glance, the HBOS branch in Reading appeared typical of a regional banking hub. Behind its operations, however, a coordinated fraud was developing within the bank’s Impaired Assets Office, a division intended to support struggling businesses. But instead of recovery, the unit became a mechanism for extraction.
\r\nThe central figure behind the scandal was Lynden Scourfield, a senior manager with authority over distressed business lending. He worked closely with David Mills, a turnaround consultant later described in court as having \"an unusually exploitative role\" in the relationship.
\r\nThe fraud followed a consistent pattern: businesses in difficulty were directed toward a specific consultancy, Quayside Corporate Services. Large and often inappropriate loans were approved under the premise of restructuring, with high consultancy fees imposed, rapidly draining company resources. As a result, businesses collapsed under the combined weight of debt and fees.
\r\nThe outcome was predictable. Companies failed, owners were left insolvent and funds were diverted through the consultancy network to those involved in the scheme to fund lifestyles that included luxury travel, expensive assets, and personal excess.
\r\nThe consequences extended beyond financial loss. Many business owners lost livelihoods, homes, and long-standing enterprises.
\r\nThe scale was immense. The fraud is estimated to have cost around £245 million, with dozens of small and medium-sized enterprises driven into insolvency.
\r\nOne of the most prominent cases was that of Noel Edmonds. His company encountered the Reading operation during the mid-2000s, after which he argued that its decline was directly linked to the fraud. He later described severe personal strain, including a period of acute mental distress. Over time, he became the most visible public advocate for victims, pursuing compensation from Lloyds Banking Group, which acquired HBOS in 2009.
\r\nHis campaign brought sustained attention to the issue, including public criticism of the bank’s handling of compensation.
\r\nConcerns about the Reading operation had been raised years before formal action was taken.
\r\nAmong the earliest and most persistent whistleblowers were Paul and Nikki Turner, whose own business had been affected by the practices at the branch. After investigating independently, they compiled evidence linking internal bank decisions with external consultancy activity. Despite presenting this material to authorities, progress was slow. It was not until 2011 that Thames Valley Police launched a formal investigation into their claims.
\r\nAt the same time, internal concerns were also being documented. In 2013, a senior risk officer, Sally Masterton, produced a report indicating that the bank had prior knowledge of serious issues connected to Reading. The report was initially dismissed. Masterton later exited the organisation, though the bank subsequently acknowledged that her work had been produced in good faith.
\r\nThe case reached court in 2017. Six individuals were convicted and received a combined total of 47 years in prison. Lynden Scourfield was jailed for 11 years and 3 months, David Mills for 15 years and Mark Dobson for four and a half years
\r\nThe judge described the activity as \"sustained and deliberate exploitation of legitimate businesses\".
\r\nFollowing the convictions, Lloyds Banking Group established a compensation process known as the Griggs Review, but this process was widely criticised by victims and independent observers, who argued that it understated losses and applied restrictive methodologies.
\r\nA subsequent independent review in 2019 identified significant shortcomings in the original compensation scheme.
\r\nOver time, the total financial impact on the bank has grown substantially. By 2026, estimated costs, including compensation and associated expenses, have reached approximately £1.3 billion.
\r\nDespite this, many affected individuals maintain that financial settlements have not addressed the full extent of the damage to this day.
\r\nAttention has since shifted to questions of institutional accountability.
\r\nIn 2017, an independent review was commissioned to examine whether senior executives were aware of the fraud and whether there had been any failure to disclose it appropriately.
\r\nBut even as of today (April 2026), the review has not been fully published.
\r\nThe delay has been attributed to the scale of documentation and the process of allowing individuals named in the report to respond prior to release. However, the length of time involved has led to criticism from politicians, campaign groups, and victims. Concerns remain that any eventual publication may be limited in scope.
\r\nMeanwhile, as we all know, banking has changed with the advent of the internet, the closing of branches and the introduction of 'challenger banks' such as Monzo, Starling and Revolut.
\r\nFor many people in Reading, Post Offices now handle basic transactions such as deposits and withdrawals, and there are also ongoing discussions about shared banking hubs, where multiple institutions provide in-person banking services on a rotating basis.
\r\nThese solutions address some practical needs but do not replicate the role previously played by local branches. The move online is permanent.
\r\nThe story of banking in Reading now spans nearly a thousand years, from physical coin production and local lending relationships to digital systems and remote services.
\r\nThe HBOS Reading scandal exposed failures in oversight and accountability within that system.
\r\nThe closure of Woodley’s final bank reflects a different transformation: the gradual removal of physical banking from everyday life. But many of those involved in the Reading banking scandal may not be sorry to see them go.
\r\n\r\n
", "description": "As Woodley's last bank branch closes, we trace Reading's financial history from 12th-century monastic administration to the rise and fall of local banks, culminating in the devastating HBOS fraud scandal.", "dateModified": "2026-05-08T11:41:42.504488+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-04-01T09:43:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-reading-banking-scandal/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "320", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/eating-out-cote/", "title": "C\u00f4te", "content_html": "
\u00a0
\nWe decided that it was time for a proper, grown up review. You know, like the ones Fay Maschler used to write, or AA Gill or Grace Dent before they gave up the booze.
\nTime to go back to the nineties, or even eighties, when a business lunch was fun and nothing got done in afternoons beyond moving on to find somewhere for dinner and another drink.
\nYes, time for a retro review and a bit of nostalgia because the subject of today's review is C\u00f4te, that stalwart of French brasseries (or is it bistros ?) - a surviving chain that has long ago seen off the likes of Pierre Victoire and Cafe Rouge.
\nThe reason for nostalgia isn't so much the retro menu, but the decision in the week of our visit by Reading Borough Council to allow the redevelopment of swathes of Oracle Riverside into flats.
\nSo the local C\u00f4te will be no longer.
\nThis has been a stalwart, and I have regularly visited both the Reading and Wokingham branches over the years. It's just the place for a good, solid boozy lunch or a Sunday dinner with the extended family. Or a meal after an early evening movie - yes the Vue cinema complex is also going, to be replaced with a smaller number of smaller screens apparently.
\nRecently C\u00f4te emphasised their 'back to the future ' move to become more French so I was interested to see the latest menu.
\nWhich is really not that French. However, the menus at your typical French cafe is no longer that French. They have been Macdonalised with a pasta on the side. Indeed, the food quality at those French cafes still surviving (Uber Eats conquers the world..) caused so much consternation that the French government considered introducing an 'appelation' standard for cafes
\nThe lunch menu is OK value but really short on French mains (arguably steak frites is the only 'French' main course on the menu).\u00a0
\nWe were here for a proper lunch so a bottle of Picpoul and some of the magnificent and huge fourgasse (a pretzel shaped bread) with onion and cheese toppings was perfect as we caught up. The charcutterie was a bit disappointing - some saussicon sec, which my wife loves and I loathe, with Parma ham (not so French) along with remoulade, confit cucumbers and a dash of rocket. Totally pathetic compared to what you can get at Carluccios or Vino Vitae, albeit for a bit more money. The meat also came with some bread and butter, I should add. I have never been served butter in a French restaurant without asking... But this is Reading.
\nStill, we chatted and grazed. and drank and grazed. This was the week after serious defeats in the Six Nations, which both of use tried to ignore, but there was always that undercurrent of Celtic defeatism and we debated the games endlessly anyway (G is a proud Scot despite his Saesnach accent.)
\nAfter an hour or so we decided that a main should be ordered. The special - Breton Fish Soup - was chosen by both of us, eschewing the burger and pasta dishes that have contaminated that 'back to the future'\u00a0 menu.
\nThis was a rich tomatoey/paprika broth (technically making it a Basque stew not a Breton stew in my view), with lots of mussels and some salmon plus leeks and potatoes. It was delicious, but not fully satisfying.\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/5579b8cd2504.webp\")
A fishy soup is easy. This had a bit of depth, but I knew I could do much better at home. As a \u00a318 special it was more than passable, but I spent most of the meal reflecting on what it lacked (depth, dill...)
\nAn hour or so later - I did warn you that we were doing this properly, didn't I ? - we went for the puds. A chocolate praline tart with ice cream and a pistachio creme brulee that was, well, a chocolate ganache with ice cream and a mushy bit of pistachio loveliness. Nothing brilliant, nothing bad and probably a thousand calories between us that I and G never needed. But when you're in your sixties and seventeen stone already, the voice of your GP in you ear is a mere whisper compared to your tinnitus.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/f3c75f413bfc.jpg\")
\u00a0
\nC\u00f4te is run, thank the heavens, by a UK company. You know, those people climbing lamposts with union jacks and selling out the UK to the US by endlessly using Google, Facebook, Amazon, X et al. Yes, you guessed it. We had a bottle of a very nice Cotes du Provence (yes, i know, we went all Saturday Kitchen with a pink wine..) - you will not go wrong with the wine list here - and conversation became a bit more intense.
\nThe US has contaminated the world. Its businesses dominate us, but we do not realise, and even French cuisince has fallen foul to the dreadful burger, and in France your village bistro now has a deep fat frier instead of a chef.
\nAnd C\u00f4te is now a symptom of this. A good hybrid of the traditional French brasserie with a cheap British pub, heading the way of an American diner.
\nYou can eat so well here, for a reasonable price, but this is not high cuisine and it is not what you can eat at my favourite French bistr\u00f4t (for the record, Saccerre on the Rue des Bretanges in the Marais, which was my local for one wonderful year).
\nThe food is good, the service at the Reading branch is perfect, the location, until they tear it down, is quite nice - this is a huge space on two levels with massive windows on the drab concrete culloiur that is the River Kennet at this point. It sits opposite LSB, where you can have a slightly better experience for a slightly greater outlay.
\nSo, job done. At around four o'clock we ran through the endless, pouring rain to Market House for a 'debrief' and agreed that we had had a perfect 80s style boozy lunch with bottles of Picpoul, Graves and Cotes du Provence.
The Reading branch is directly owned and not a franchise and the staff diod not know what the future held. I dearly hope that they will find a new slot in one of our many empty premises and just carry on, but really go back to the future with their menu and make it vraiment francais.
\u00a0
\nWe decided that it was time for a proper, grown up review. You know, like the ones Fay Maschler used to write, or AA Gill or Grace Dent before they gave up the booze.
\nTime to go back to the nineties, or even eighties, when a business lunch was fun and nothing got done in afternoons beyond moving on to find somewhere for dinner and another drink.
\nYes, time for a retro review and a bit of nostalgia because the subject of today's review is C\u00f4te, that stalwart of French brasseries (or is it bistros ?) - a surviving chain that has long ago seen off the likes of Pierre Victoire and Cafe Rouge.
\nThe reason for nostalgia isn't so much the retro menu, but the decision in the week of our visit by Reading Borough Council to allow the redevelopment of swathes of Oracle Riverside into flats.
\nSo the local C\u00f4te will be no longer.
\nThis has been a stalwart, and I have regularly visited both the Reading and Wokingham branches over the years. It's just the place for a good, solid boozy lunch or a Sunday dinner with the extended family. Or a meal after an early evening movie - yes the Vue cinema complex is also going, to be replaced with a smaller number of smaller screens apparently.
\nRecently C\u00f4te emphasised their 'back to the future ' move to become more French so I was interested to see the latest menu.
\nWhich is really not that French. However, the menus at your typical French cafe is no longer that French. They have been Macdonalised with a pasta on the side. Indeed, the food quality at those French cafes still surviving (Uber Eats conquers the world..) caused so much consternation that the French government considered introducing an 'appelation' standard for cafes
\nThe lunch menu is OK value but really short on French mains (arguably steak frites is the only 'French' main course on the menu).\u00a0
\nWe were here for a proper lunch so a bottle of Picpoul and some of the magnificent and huge fourgasse (a pretzel shaped bread) with onion and cheese toppings was perfect as we caught up. The charcutterie was a bit disappointing - some saussicon sec, which my wife loves and I loathe, with Parma ham (not so French) along with remoulade, confit cucumbers and a dash of rocket. Totally pathetic compared to what you can get at Carluccios or Vino Vitae, albeit for a bit more money. The meat also came with some bread and butter, I should add. I have never been served butter in a French restaurant without asking... But this is Reading.
\nStill, we chatted and grazed. and drank and grazed. This was the week after serious defeats in the Six Nations, which both of use tried to ignore, but there was always that undercurrent of Celtic defeatism and we debated the games endlessly anyway (G is a proud Scot despite his Saesnach accent.)
\nAfter an hour or so we decided that a main should be ordered. The special - Breton Fish Soup - was chosen by both of us, eschewing the burger and pasta dishes that have contaminated that 'back to the future'\u00a0 menu.
\nThis was a rich tomatoey/paprika broth (technically making it a Basque stew not a Breton stew in my view), with lots of mussels and some salmon plus leeks and potatoes. It was delicious, but not fully satisfying.\u00a0
\n
A fishy soup is easy. This had a bit of depth, but I knew I could do much better at home. As a \u00a318 special it was more than passable, but I spent most of the meal reflecting on what it lacked (depth, dill...)
\nAn hour or so later - I did warn you that we were doing this properly, didn't I ? - we went for the puds. A chocolate praline tart with ice cream and a pistachio creme brulee that was, well, a chocolate ganache with ice cream and a mushy bit of pistachio loveliness. Nothing brilliant, nothing bad and probably a thousand calories between us that I and G never needed. But when you're in your sixties and seventeen stone already, the voice of your GP in you ear is a mere whisper compared to your tinnitus.
\n
\u00a0
\nC\u00f4te is run, thank the heavens, by a UK company. You know, those people climbing lamposts with union jacks and selling out the UK to the US by endlessly using Google, Facebook, Amazon, X et al. Yes, you guessed it. We had a bottle of a very nice Cotes du Provence (yes, i know, we went all Saturday Kitchen with a pink wine..) - you will not go wrong with the wine list here - and conversation became a bit more intense.
\nThe US has contaminated the world. Its businesses dominate us, but we do not realise, and even French cuisince has fallen foul to the dreadful burger, and in France your village bistro now has a deep fat frier instead of a chef.
\nAnd C\u00f4te is now a symptom of this. A good hybrid of the traditional French brasserie with a cheap British pub, heading the way of an American diner.
\nYou can eat so well here, for a reasonable price, but this is not high cuisine and it is not what you can eat at my favourite French bistr\u00f4t (for the record, Saccerre on the Rue des Bretanges in the Marais, which was my local for one wonderful year).
\nThe food is good, the service at the Reading branch is perfect, the location, until they tear it down, is quite nice - this is a huge space on two levels with massive windows on the drab concrete culloiur that is the River Kennet at this point. It sits opposite LSB, where you can have a slightly better experience for a slightly greater outlay.
\nSo, job done. At around four o'clock we ran through the endless, pouring rain to Market House for a 'debrief' and agreed that we had had a perfect 80s style boozy lunch with bottles of Picpoul, Graves and Cotes du Provence.
The Reading branch is directly owned and not a franchise and the staff diod not know what the future held. I dearly hope that they will find a new slot in one of our many empty premises and just carry on, but really go back to the future with their menu and make it vraiment francais.
Many innovations have come out of the University of Reading. Here’s a look at some of them.
Reading is arguably the world leader in atmospheric science. The university has operated continuous weather observation since 1901, making its datasets among the longest-running in the world. It famously hosts the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and maintains a partnership with the Met Office that is unrivaled globally. In 2026, this collaboration added the Advanced Forecasting and Environmental Services Partnership (AFESP), a £30 million initiative pushing the boundaries of local weather prediction and climate resilience. Reading atmospheric scientists helped refine understanding of the Walker Circulation, a fundamental atmospheric circulation pattern affecting El Niño and La Niña.
Climate Stripes: those stark vertical blue-to-red bars representing global temperature rises—you’ve seen a University of Reading invention. Created by Professor Ed Hawkins, these stripes have become a universal visual shorthand for climate change, appearing on everything from the cover of The Economist to the main stage at Glastonbury.
\r\nThe \"Reading Rule\" & Typography: Reading’s Department of Typography & Graphic Communication is the gold standard for legibility research. The \"Reading Rule\" refers to their groundbreaking evidence-based principles for typography, ensuring that information—from medicine labels to road signs—is legible for everyone, including those with visual impairments.
\r\nNutrigenomics: Can an apple a day truly keep the doctor away? Reading’s researchers have proven it. Leading work in nutrigenomics has identified how specific compounds in apples and tea (flavonoids) can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease, bridging the gap between diet and long-term cardiovascular health.
\r\nThe Silchester Dig: Reading leads one of the most significant ongoing archaeological excavations in the world. The Silchester Dig at the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum has rewritten our understanding of Roman-British life, using advanced DNA analysis to trace the origins of its ancient inhabitants.
\r\nSustainable Food: In 2026, the university is at the cutting edge of \"cultivated meat\" research. Projects led by scientists like Professor Dimitris Charalampopoulos are using red yeast and cellular agriculture to create sustainable, slaughter-free meat that mimics the flavor and texture of the real thing, helping young adults transition to planet-friendly diets.
\r\n", "content_text": "Many innovations have come out of the University of Reading. Here’s a look at some of them.Reading is arguably the world leader in atmospheric science. The university has operated continuous weather observation since 1901, making its datasets among the longest-running in the world. It famously hosts the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and maintains a partnership with the Met Office that is unrivaled globally. In 2026, this collaboration added the Advanced Forecasting and Environmental Services Partnership (AFESP), a £30 million initiative pushing the boundaries of local weather prediction and climate resilience. Reading atmospheric scientists helped refine understanding of the Walker Circulation, a fundamental atmospheric circulation pattern affecting El Niño and La Niña.\r\nClimate Stripes: those stark vertical blue-to-red bars representing global temperature rises—you’ve seen a University of Reading invention. Created by Professor Ed Hawkins, these stripes have become a universal visual shorthand for climate change, appearing on everything from the cover of The Economist to the main stage at Glastonbury.\r\nThe \"Reading Rule\" & Typography: Reading’s Department of Typography & Graphic Communication is the gold standard for legibility research. The \"Reading Rule\" refers to their groundbreaking evidence-based principles for typography, ensuring that information—from medicine labels to road signs—is legible for everyone, including those with visual impairments.\r\nNutrigenomics: Can an apple a day truly keep the doctor away? Reading’s researchers have proven it. Leading work in nutrigenomics has identified how specific compounds in apples and tea (flavonoids) can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease, bridging the gap between diet and long-term cardiovascular health.\r\nThe Silchester Dig: Reading leads one of the most significant ongoing archaeological excavations in the world. The Silchester Dig at the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum has rewritten our understanding of Roman-British life, using advanced DNA analysis to trace the origins of its ancient inhabitants.\r\nSustainable Food: In 2026, the university is at the cutting edge of \"cultivated meat\" research. Projects led by scientists like Professor Dimitris Charalampopoulos are using red yeast and cellular agriculture to create sustainable, slaughter-free meat that mimics the flavor and texture of the real thing, helping young adults transition to planet-friendly diets.\r\n ", "summary": "Discover how the University of Reading is shaping the future with world-leading innovations in atmospheric science, climate change visualization, typography, nutrigenomics, archaeology, and sustainable food.", "date_published": "2026-03-24T15:48:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-08T11:52:56.065491+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/4ec78ef6.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/4ec78ef6.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Made In Reading: University's Groundbreaking Innovations", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 403, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
Many innovations have come out of the University of Reading. Here’s a look at some of them.
Reading is arguably the world leader in atmospheric science. The university has operated continuous weather observation since 1901, making its datasets among the longest-running in the world. It famously hosts the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and maintains a partnership with the Met Office that is unrivaled globally. In 2026, this collaboration added the Advanced Forecasting and Environmental Services Partnership (AFESP), a £30 million initiative pushing the boundaries of local weather prediction and climate resilience. Reading atmospheric scientists helped refine understanding of the Walker Circulation, a fundamental atmospheric circulation pattern affecting El Niño and La Niña.
Climate Stripes: those stark vertical blue-to-red bars representing global temperature rises—you’ve seen a University of Reading invention. Created by Professor Ed Hawkins, these stripes have become a universal visual shorthand for climate change, appearing on everything from the cover of The Economist to the main stage at Glastonbury.
\r\nThe \"Reading Rule\" & Typography: Reading’s Department of Typography & Graphic Communication is the gold standard for legibility research. The \"Reading Rule\" refers to their groundbreaking evidence-based principles for typography, ensuring that information—from medicine labels to road signs—is legible for everyone, including those with visual impairments.
\r\nNutrigenomics: Can an apple a day truly keep the doctor away? Reading’s researchers have proven it. Leading work in nutrigenomics has identified how specific compounds in apples and tea (flavonoids) can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease, bridging the gap between diet and long-term cardiovascular health.
\r\nThe Silchester Dig: Reading leads one of the most significant ongoing archaeological excavations in the world. The Silchester Dig at the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum has rewritten our understanding of Roman-British life, using advanced DNA analysis to trace the origins of its ancient inhabitants.
\r\nSustainable Food: In 2026, the university is at the cutting edge of \"cultivated meat\" research. Projects led by scientists like Professor Dimitris Charalampopoulos are using red yeast and cellular agriculture to create sustainable, slaughter-free meat that mimics the flavor and texture of the real thing, helping young adults transition to planet-friendly diets.
\r\n", "description": "Discover how the University of Reading is shaping the future with world-leading innovations in atmospheric science, climate change visualization, typography, nutrigenomics, archaeology, and sustainable food.", "dateModified": "2026-05-08T11:52:56.065491+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-03-24T15:48:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/made-in-reading-universitys-groundbreaking-innovations/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "318", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/university-or-property-developer/", "title": "University Or Property Developer ?", "content_html": "
![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/1297e859c836.png\")
\u00a0
\nVery few of us living in Reading realise how much of the region is owned or controlled by the local University. Over the past decade, Reading has moved from being a solid if unspectacular British research university into a bold experiment in territorial reinvention, revenue diversification and global ambition, generating controversy and antipathy in its wake.
\nIf Reading\u2019s traditional strengths \u2014 meteorology, environmental science, business education \u2014 still anchor its reputation, they are now overlaid with an ambitious slate of development strategies. In these straitened days for higher education with threats coming from our own government's immigration policies, inflation, increasing global competition and a general devaluation in degrees and higher degrees in general in the wake of factors such as AI, it is perhaps only prudent that the University of Reading is looking after its balance sheet. But is this right for an academic institution ?
\nReading currently maintains an investment asset portfolio of \u00a3307.6 million. While this represents a reasonably robust position for a mid-tier UK institution, which has helped the university narrow its annual operating loss to \u00a310.8 million, it highlights a chasm when placed on the scales of international finance.
\nWithin the UK, the University of Reading sits comfortably in the upper-middle tier of wealth, but remains dwarfed by the \"Oxbridge\" behemoths. For the fiscal year ending July 2025, the University of Oxford reported a total consolidated endowment (including its constituent colleges) of \u00a39.28 billion. To put that into perspective, Oxford\u2019s endowment is roughly 30 times larger than Reading\u2019s.
\nA single Oxford college, St John\u2019s, holds an endowment of approximately \u00a3790 million\u2014more than double the wealth of the entire University of Reading.
\nThe comparison becomes even more stark when looking across the Atlantic. While Reading manages a portfolio in the hundreds of millions, top-tier US institutions operate with sovereign-wealth-level capital. As of the 2025 fiscal year, Harvard University remains the wealthiest academic institution in the world, with an endowment valued at $56.9 billion (approx. \u00a344.9 billion) and the University of Texas has \u00a334 billion in its coffers. Much of this wealth comes from donations from alumni, something nearly unheard of in the UK.
\nSo, it is therefore perhaps not surprising that the University has become involved in extensive commercial activities to copmpete in what is a global academic market.
The uni's commercial ventures range from garden village planning on thousands of acres of its farmland to the development of world-class film and TV studios, overseas campuses and global brand building.\u00a0 At its centenary, let's take a deep dive into the uni's balance sheet.
'Cine Valley' and Shinfield Studios: Hollywood on the M4 ?
\n\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/9cdcb3a6dc68.jpeg\")
\u00a0
\nOn land owned by the University of Reading at the Thames Valley Science Park - a business park the university has been developing since the mid-2010s - is Shinfield Studios,\u00a0a major film and television production campus with 18 sound stages, workshops, office space and backlot facilities.
\nOriginally announced with a long-term lease to LA-based investors and promoter Commonwealth Real Estate and envisaged as part of a broader \u201cCine Valley\u201d hub, Shinfield Studios is now one of the UK\u2019s significant new film production centres outside the traditional hubs near London and Pinewood. amonst productions completed or in progress are:
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024): One of the first major productions to use the site; the studio was used to recreate New York City streetscapes.
Greenland: Migration (Expected 2026): The sequel to the Gerard Butler disaster thriller Greenland utilized the stages for its post-apocalyptic sequences.
\nThe Magic Faraway Tree (Expected 2026): An adaptation of the Enid Blyton classic starring Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield.
The Acolyte (Disney+): This Star Wars series used Shinfield as its primary production base, including the construction of a large exterior set on the backlot.
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix): Used the studio's soundstages for interior sequences of Regency-era London.
\nThe Agency: A political thriller series starring Michael Fassbender (remake of Le Bureau des L\u00e9gendes).
\nSquid Game: The Challenge (Netflix): Parts of the reality competition were filmed utilizing the studio's vast stage space.
\nEntertainment & Game Shows
Interestingly, despite being a cinematic hub, the studio has also hosted several high-profile UK TV shows:
99 to Beat (ITV): A game show hosted by Adam and Ryan Thomas.
\nLOL: Last One Laughing UK (Amazon Prime): The UK version of the global comedy format.
\nYou Bet! (ITV): A revival of the classic 90s challenge show.
\nIts proponents sell Shinfield as a \u00a3200m-plus investment expected to generate substantial inward economic activity \u2014 estimates have been as high as \u00a3500m per year \u2014 and thousands of jobs, both direct and indirect. However, in an era where a lot of production is now moving to data centres using AI, its long term viability is yet to be proven.
\nReading\u2019s own 2023\u201324 financial statements framed the development as a strategic play: the studios help Reading pivot toward a creative economy cluster and expand employment beyond academia. The University does have courses in BA Film & Television: Focuses on filmmaking, TV studio production, cinematography, editing, and screenwriting, BA Film & Theatre: A joint approach exploring both screen and live performance, including set design and directing, BA Creative Writing: Often taken alongside English Literature or Art, focusing on narrative craft for various media and postgraduate courses in MA Creative Enterprise (Film or Theatre Pathways): A unique \"cross-over\" degree combining artistic practice with modules in management, law, and entrepreneurship from the Henley Business School, MA by Research (Film, Theatre & Television): A flexible, research-intensive programme where you can focus on a specific practical project or a theoretical dissertation, MA Fine Art: Focuses on contemporary professional practice, exhibitions, and curatorial initiatives and MA Communication Design: Pathways in Graphic Design, Book Design, and Typeface Design (Reading is world-renowned for typography).
\nThe facilities for the British Museum and the Natural History Museum are also located at the Thames Valley Science Park (TVSP) - it is important to distinguish this from the Thames Valley Park (confusingly called TVP), which is a separate commercial site in East Reading - home to Microsoft and Oracle - that the University does not own.
\nThe University of Reading holds the freehold of the land at the Science Park. The museums have established themselves there through long-term partnerships and lease agreements.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/da509b826525.jpg\")
The British Museum Archaeological Research Collection (BM_ARC), officially opened in 2024.\u00a0
\nThe Natural History Museum's \"Science and Digitisation Centre\" is currently under construction at TVBP, with the groundbreaking ceremony having taken place in September 2025. This project is backed by over \u00a3200 million in government investment and sits on land leased from the University.
\nThese facilities are part of a strategic research partnership. By co-locating, the museums can collaborate with University scientists on genomics, climate change, and archaeology; provide research opportunities and placements for University of Reading students and centralize their most fragile and important collections in high-tech, climate-controlled environments that are more modern than their historic London basements.
\nTVBP also houses The Gateway Building, an innovation center for health-tech and environmental startups and Rutherford Cancer Centre, a high-tech medical facility.
\nCritics have questioned whether promises of local jobs and skill pipelines \u2014 including apprenticeships and Screen Berkshire training initiatives \u2014 will materialise for current residents or primarily benefit external contractors and high-skill migrants.
\n\u00a0
\nIn March 2025, the University, in partnership with private developers, unveiled plans for Loddon Garden Village, a proposed mixed-use community between Shinfield, Arborfield and Sindlesham, poised to deliver approximately 4,000 homes along with schools, employment space and civic infrastructure. The university\u2019s role stems from its position as trustee of Hall Farm, land it owns through the National Institute for Research in Dairying (NIRD) Trust.
\nThe farm was purchased in 1947 by the NIRD. At the time, the Institute needed to expand its farming activities beyond its original site at Church Farm in Shinfield. The 299 acre Arborfield Hall Farm was acquired primarily to provide additional grazing land and forage crops for young livestock.
\nThe NIRD was a research body closely associated with the University. While it operated as a distinct entity for many years, the University of Reading acted as the sole trustee of the NIRD Trust. This meant that while the land was technically held for the specific purpose of dairy research, it was under the University\u2019s administrative umbrella.
\nIn March 1985, the NIRD was officially dissolved as a separate research institute. Its functions and assets, including Hall Farm, were re-absorbed directly into the University of Reading. This transition consolidated the farm into the University's School of Agriculture, Policy and Development.
\n\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/4904cd0b4566.jpg\")
\u00a0
\nTo its advocates, Loddon is a model for holistic, sustainability-led development: energy-efficient housing, integrated schooling and a massive new country park larger than Dinton Pastures, linked to existing green spaces. The scheme\u2019s architects and supporters in local government position it as a generational opportunity to rebuild the region\u2019s physical fabric and generate employment opportunities in s region where there is substantial demand for housing.
\nYet opposition has been fast and often visceral. Campaign groups like\u00a0Save Our Loddon Valley Environment (SOLVE) argue that the submission fails national planning tests, including inadequate consideration of flood risk and infrastructure delivery \u2014 points raised by independent planning consultants in public examinations.
\nSome local representatives and residents express a distinct sense of betrayal. Shinfield, once a verdant village just south of Reading, now increasingly resembles a semii-urban town, as farmland gives way to housing estates and commercial developments. As one Wokingham councillor put it bluntly in 2021: \u201cThe University of Reading has turned Shinfield from village to town.\u201d
\nAnd this is not merely a quibble over development. At stake is the university\u2019s reputation and role in shaping the region\u2019s economy, whilst guarding its own coffers. For decades universities have been humdrum generators of human capital and research; now Reading is becoming a generator of actuarial risk, transport headaches and traffic modelling debates \u2014 responsibilities formerly well beyond their brief.\u00a0The very fact that a university serves as a master planner for nearly four thousand homes underscores how higher education institutions are evolving into actors in regional urban development, not just observers of it.
\n\u00a0
\nOverseas Expansion and the Malaysia Campus: Global Ambitions or Global Missteps?
\nLong before Loddon or Cine Valley made headlines, Reading pursued a different kind of geographical expansion: international campuses.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/fe592a315ec5.avif\")
The jewel in that strategy is the University of Reading Malaysia (UoRM), launched in Educity, Iskandar Puteri, near Singapore. On the surface, this branch campus has flourished. Started with a few hundred students, UoRM saw its enrolment swell to record highs \u2014 nearly 950 students in 2024/25 \u2014 and celebrated its first decade alongside the UK campus\u2019s centenary ambitions.
\nBut beneath the celebratory press releases lies a more complicated narrative familiar across the UK sector: overseas campuses can be strategically valuable yet financially fraught.
\nIn the late 2010s, investigative reporting and sector analyses flagged that Reading\u2019s Malaysia campus had been slower to recruit than expected and had incurred higher costs than anticipated. Critics suggested that expansion was undertaken without sufficient market analysis, undershooting demand forecasts and overestimating local economic conditions. Whether this represents a learning curve of a globalizing university or a cautionary lesson about export-oriented education ventures remains a subject of debate among governance analysts and staff. The UK government's policies, scrambling to appeal to the extreme right and curtail immigration has also dented the UK's brand as an academic provider.
\nIn 2026, the UK government ditched its target of attracting more international students, instead urging institutions to open campuses abroad to diversify revenue and reduce universities\u2019 reliance on fees from overseas enrolments at home. For Reading, this means its Malaysia campus \u2014 and ambitions for further global partnerships \u2014 may gain new strategic value even as domestic student recruitment becomes more competitive. But the 'UK uni' brand may not be seen as attractive to stuents hoping to study, and perhaps obtain jobs in the UK.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Global Classroom: International Students and Institutional Risk
\nReading today hosts a truly international student body - approximately 27\u201328% international students, well above the UK average, drawn from over 160 countries. International students are not merely a cultural asset; they are a strategic lifeline. Their fees contribute disproportionately to university revenues at a time when UK government teaching grants have been frozen for years and domestic fee caps remain largely static.
\nChina is the largest source countries for the University. This is bolstered by the NUIST Reading Academy, a joint partnership with Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology. Many Chinese students study at the Reading campus for the final year(s) of their degrees, particularly in sciences, business, and economics.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/1ecd81ae7e89.jpg\")
But dependency on foreign students carries risk. National immigration politics, visa policy tightening and broader debates about overseas student numbers once buoyed universities\u2019 finances, but are now limiting growth prospects. Reading is hardly unique in feeling these headwinds, but its relative financial exposure to international income and its overseas campus investments make it a bellwether for mid-tier research universities navigating a volatile post-Brexit, post-pandemic environment.
\nStudent accommodation pressures compound the challenge. Local planning authorities have rejected large private developments outside campus boundaries on grounds they are inappropriate for educational use, reflecting tensions between community character and the university\u2019s expansion needs and on campus development have often been controversial - the proposed redevelopment of St Patrick's Hall drew severe criticism from local MP, Matt Rodda. This underscores a broader structural question: if universities are growth engines, are they also responsible for the infrastructure and housing that growth demands?
\n\u00a0
\nThe University of Reading stands at an inflection point familiar to many modern universities all over the world: the push to globalise, commercialise and diversify rendered through strategies that often strain local relationships and institutional coherence.
\nFrom Loddon Garden Village and Shinfield Studios to an ambitious international presence in Malaysia, Reading\u2019s leadership is embracing a vision of a university that is economic actor, regional developer and global brand. Whether this translates into sustained academic excellence and community goodwill \u2014 or becomes an overextension that dilutes academic focus \u2014 is an open question.
\nWhat is clear is this: Reading is no longer a quiet provincial university. It has become a case study in the ambitious reinvention of higher education, where the stakes are intellectual, economic and cultural \u2014 and where the conversations it now commands extend far beyond the green lawns of Whiteknights Park.
\n\u00a0
", "content_text": "\n\u00a0\nVery few of us living in Reading realise how much of the region is owned or controlled by the local University. Over the past decade, Reading has moved from being a solid if unspectacular British research university into a bold experiment in territorial reinvention, revenue diversification and global ambition, generating controversy and antipathy in its wake.\nIf Reading\u2019s traditional strengths \u2014 meteorology, environmental science, business education \u2014 still anchor its reputation, they are now overlaid with an ambitious slate of development strategies. In these straitened days for higher education with threats coming from our own government's immigration policies, inflation, increasing global competition and a general devaluation in degrees and higher degrees in general in the wake of factors such as AI, it is perhaps only prudent that the University of Reading is looking after its balance sheet. But is this right for an academic institution ?\nReading currently maintains an investment asset portfolio of \u00a3307.6 million. While this represents a reasonably robust position for a mid-tier UK institution, which has helped the university narrow its annual operating loss to \u00a310.8 million, it highlights a chasm when placed on the scales of international finance.\nWithin the UK, the University of Reading sits comfortably in the upper-middle tier of wealth, but remains dwarfed by the \"Oxbridge\" behemoths. For the fiscal year ending July 2025, the University of Oxford reported a total consolidated endowment (including its constituent colleges) of \u00a39.28 billion. To put that into perspective, Oxford\u2019s endowment is roughly 30 times larger than Reading\u2019s.\nA single Oxford college, St John\u2019s, holds an endowment of approximately \u00a3790 million\u2014more than double the wealth of the entire University of Reading.\nThe comparison becomes even more stark when looking across the Atlantic. While Reading manages a portfolio in the hundreds of millions, top-tier US institutions operate with sovereign-wealth-level capital. As of the 2025 fiscal year, Harvard University remains the wealthiest academic institution in the world, with an endowment valued at $56.9 billion (approx. \u00a344.9 billion) and the University of Texas has \u00a334 billion in its coffers. Much of this wealth comes from donations from alumni, something nearly unheard of in the UK.\nSo, it is therefore perhaps not surprising that the University has become involved in extensive commercial activities to copmpete in what is a global academic market.The uni's commercial ventures range from garden village planning on thousands of acres of its farmland to the development of world-class film and TV studios, overseas campuses and global brand building.\u00a0 At its centenary, let's take a deep dive into the uni's balance sheet.\n'Cine Valley' and Shinfield Studios: Hollywood on the M4 ?\n\u00a0\n\n\u00a0\nOn land owned by the University of Reading at the Thames Valley Science Park - a business park the university has been developing since the mid-2010s - is Shinfield Studios,\u00a0a major film and television production campus with 18 sound stages, workshops, office space and backlot facilities.\nOriginally announced with a long-term lease to LA-based investors and promoter Commonwealth Real Estate and envisaged as part of a broader \u201cCine Valley\u201d hub, Shinfield Studios is now one of the UK\u2019s significant new film production centres outside the traditional hubs near London and Pinewood. amonst productions completed or in progress are:Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024): One of the first major productions to use the site; the studio was used to recreate New York City streetscapes.\nGreenland: Migration (Expected 2026): The sequel to the Gerard Butler disaster thriller Greenland utilized the stages for its post-apocalyptic sequences.\nThe Magic Faraway Tree (Expected 2026): An adaptation of the Enid Blyton classic starring Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield.The Acolyte (Disney+): This Star Wars series used Shinfield as its primary production base, including the construction of a large exterior set on the backlot.\nQueen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix): Used the studio's soundstages for interior sequences of Regency-era London.\nThe Agency: A political thriller series starring Michael Fassbender (remake of Le Bureau des L\u00e9gendes).\nSquid Game: The Challenge (Netflix): Parts of the reality competition were filmed utilizing the studio's vast stage space.\nEntertainment & Game ShowsInterestingly, despite being a cinematic hub, the studio has also hosted several high-profile UK TV shows:\n99 to Beat (ITV): A game show hosted by Adam and Ryan Thomas.\nLOL: Last One Laughing UK (Amazon Prime): The UK version of the global comedy format.\nYou Bet! (ITV): A revival of the classic 90s challenge show.\nIts proponents sell Shinfield as a \u00a3200m-plus investment expected to generate substantial inward economic activity \u2014 estimates have been as high as \u00a3500m per year \u2014 and thousands of jobs, both direct and indirect. However, in an era where a lot of production is now moving to data centres using AI, its long term viability is yet to be proven.\nReading\u2019s own 2023\u201324 financial statements framed the development as a strategic play: the studios help Reading pivot toward a creative economy cluster and expand employment beyond academia. The University does have courses in BA Film & Television: Focuses on filmmaking, TV studio production, cinematography, editing, and screenwriting, BA Film & Theatre: A joint approach exploring both screen and live performance, including set design and directing, BA Creative Writing: Often taken alongside English Literature or Art, focusing on narrative craft for various media and postgraduate courses in MA Creative Enterprise (Film or Theatre Pathways): A unique \"cross-over\" degree combining artistic practice with modules in management, law, and entrepreneurship from the Henley Business School, MA by Research (Film, Theatre & Television): A flexible, research-intensive programme where you can focus on a specific practical project or a theoretical dissertation, MA Fine Art: Focuses on contemporary professional practice, exhibitions, and curatorial initiatives and MA Communication Design: Pathways in Graphic Design, Book Design, and Typeface Design (Reading is world-renowned for typography).\nThe facilities for the British Museum and the Natural History Museum are also located at the Thames Valley Science Park (TVSP) - it is important to distinguish this from the Thames Valley Park (confusingly called TVP), which is a separate commercial site in East Reading - home to Microsoft and Oracle - that the University does not own.\nThe University of Reading holds the freehold of the land at the Science Park. The museums have established themselves there through long-term partnerships and lease agreements.\n\nThe British Museum Archaeological Research Collection (BM_ARC), officially opened in 2024.\u00a0\nThe Natural History Museum's \"Science and Digitisation Centre\" is currently under construction at TVBP, with the groundbreaking ceremony having taken place in September 2025. This project is backed by over \u00a3200 million in government investment and sits on land leased from the University.\nThese facilities are part of a strategic research partnership. By co-locating, the museums can collaborate with University scientists on genomics, climate change, and archaeology; provide research opportunities and placements for University of Reading students and centralize their most fragile and important collections in high-tech, climate-controlled environments that are more modern than their historic London basements.\nTVBP also houses The Gateway Building, an innovation center for health-tech and environmental startups and Rutherford Cancer Centre, a high-tech medical facility.\nCritics have questioned whether promises of local jobs and skill pipelines \u2014 including apprenticeships and Screen Berkshire training initiatives \u2014 will materialise for current residents or primarily benefit external contractors and high-skill migrants.\n\u00a0\nThe Garden Village Gamble: University as Urban Developer\nIn March 2025, the University, in partnership with private developers, unveiled plans for Loddon Garden Village, a proposed mixed-use community between Shinfield, Arborfield and Sindlesham, poised to deliver approximately 4,000 homes along with schools, employment space and civic infrastructure. The university\u2019s role stems from its position as trustee of Hall Farm, land it owns through the National Institute for Research in Dairying (NIRD) Trust.\nThe farm was purchased in 1947 by the NIRD. At the time, the Institute needed to expand its farming activities beyond its original site at Church Farm in Shinfield. The 299 acre Arborfield Hall Farm was acquired primarily to provide additional grazing land and forage crops for young livestock.\nThe NIRD was a research body closely associated with the University. While it operated as a distinct entity for many years, the University of Reading acted as the sole trustee of the NIRD Trust. This meant that while the land was technically held for the specific purpose of dairy research, it was under the University\u2019s administrative umbrella.\nIn March 1985, the NIRD was officially dissolved as a separate research institute. Its functions and assets, including Hall Farm, were re-absorbed directly into the University of Reading. This transition consolidated the farm into the University's School of Agriculture, Policy and Development.\n\u00a0\n\n\u00a0\nTo its advocates, Loddon is a model for holistic, sustainability-led development: energy-efficient housing, integrated schooling and a massive new country park larger than Dinton Pastures, linked to existing green spaces. The scheme\u2019s architects and supporters in local government position it as a generational opportunity to rebuild the region\u2019s physical fabric and generate employment opportunities in s region where there is substantial demand for housing.\nYet opposition has been fast and often visceral. Campaign groups like\u00a0Save Our Loddon Valley Environment (SOLVE) argue that the submission fails national planning tests, including inadequate consideration of flood risk and infrastructure delivery \u2014 points raised by independent planning consultants in public examinations.\nSome local representatives and residents express a distinct sense of betrayal. Shinfield, once a verdant village just south of Reading, now increasingly resembles a semii-urban town, as farmland gives way to housing estates and commercial developments. As one Wokingham councillor put it bluntly in 2021: \u201cThe University of Reading has turned Shinfield from village to town.\u201d\nAnd this is not merely a quibble over development. At stake is the university\u2019s reputation and role in shaping the region\u2019s economy, whilst guarding its own coffers. For decades universities have been humdrum generators of human capital and research; now Reading is becoming a generator of actuarial risk, transport headaches and traffic modelling debates \u2014 responsibilities formerly well beyond their brief.\u00a0The very fact that a university serves as a master planner for nearly four thousand homes underscores how higher education institutions are evolving into actors in regional urban development, not just observers of it.\n\u00a0\nOverseas Expansion and the Malaysia Campus: Global Ambitions or Global Missteps?\nLong before Loddon or Cine Valley made headlines, Reading pursued a different kind of geographical expansion: international campuses.\n\nThe jewel in that strategy is the University of Reading Malaysia (UoRM), launched in Educity, Iskandar Puteri, near Singapore. On the surface, this branch campus has flourished. Started with a few hundred students, UoRM saw its enrolment swell to record highs \u2014 nearly 950 students in 2024/25 \u2014 and celebrated its first decade alongside the UK campus\u2019s centenary ambitions.\nBut beneath the celebratory press releases lies a more complicated narrative familiar across the UK sector: overseas campuses can be strategically valuable yet financially fraught.\nIn the late 2010s, investigative reporting and sector analyses flagged that Reading\u2019s Malaysia campus had been slower to recruit than expected and had incurred higher costs than anticipated. Critics suggested that expansion was undertaken without sufficient market analysis, undershooting demand forecasts and overestimating local economic conditions. Whether this represents a learning curve of a globalizing university or a cautionary lesson about export-oriented education ventures remains a subject of debate among governance analysts and staff. The UK government's policies, scrambling to appeal to the extreme right and curtail immigration has also dented the UK's brand as an academic provider.\nIn 2026, the UK government ditched its target of attracting more international students, instead urging institutions to open campuses abroad to diversify revenue and reduce universities\u2019 reliance on fees from overseas enrolments at home. For Reading, this means its Malaysia campus \u2014 and ambitions for further global partnerships \u2014 may gain new strategic value even as domestic student recruitment becomes more competitive. But the 'UK uni' brand may not be seen as attractive to stuents hoping to study, and perhaps obtain jobs in the UK.\n\u00a0\nThe Global Classroom: International Students and Institutional Risk\nReading today hosts a truly international student body - approximately 27\u201328% international students, well above the UK average, drawn from over 160 countries. International students are not merely a cultural asset; they are a strategic lifeline. Their fees contribute disproportionately to university revenues at a time when UK government teaching grants have been frozen for years and domestic fee caps remain largely static.\nChina is the largest source countries for the University. This is bolstered by the NUIST Reading Academy, a joint partnership with Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology. Many Chinese students study at the Reading campus for the final year(s) of their degrees, particularly in sciences, business, and economics.\n\nBut dependency on foreign students carries risk. National immigration politics, visa policy tightening and broader debates about overseas student numbers once buoyed universities\u2019 finances, but are now limiting growth prospects. Reading is hardly unique in feeling these headwinds, but its relative financial exposure to international income and its overseas campus investments make it a bellwether for mid-tier research universities navigating a volatile post-Brexit, post-pandemic environment.\nStudent accommodation pressures compound the challenge. Local planning authorities have rejected large private developments outside campus boundaries on grounds they are inappropriate for educational use, reflecting tensions between community character and the university\u2019s expansion needs and on campus development have often been controversial - the proposed redevelopment of St Patrick's Hall drew severe criticism from local MP, Matt Rodda. This underscores a broader structural question: if universities are growth engines, are they also responsible for the infrastructure and housing that growth demands?\n\u00a0\nAn Institution in Transition\n\u00a0\nThe University of Reading stands at an inflection point familiar to many modern universities all over the world: the push to globalise, commercialise and diversify rendered through strategies that often strain local relationships and institutional coherence.\nFrom Loddon Garden Village and Shinfield Studios to an ambitious international presence in Malaysia, Reading\u2019s leadership is embracing a vision of a university that is economic actor, regional developer and global brand. Whether this translates into sustained academic excellence and community goodwill \u2014 or becomes an overextension that dilutes academic focus \u2014 is an open question.\nWhat is clear is this: Reading is no longer a quiet provincial university. It has become a case study in the ambitious reinvention of higher education, where the stakes are intellectual, economic and cultural \u2014 and where the conversations it now commands extend far beyond the green lawns of Whiteknights Park.\n\u00a0", "summary": "The University of Reading is transforming into a major property developer and business innovator, venturing into film studios and global ambitions. Discover how its balance sheet is shaping its territorial reinvention.", "date_published": "2026-03-24T15:44:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:08.844558+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/7a7ba376.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "location": "Reading, UK", "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/7a7ba376.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "University Or Property Developer ?", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 2833, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
\u00a0
\nVery few of us living in Reading realise how much of the region is owned or controlled by the local University. Over the past decade, Reading has moved from being a solid if unspectacular British research university into a bold experiment in territorial reinvention, revenue diversification and global ambition, generating controversy and antipathy in its wake.
\nIf Reading\u2019s traditional strengths \u2014 meteorology, environmental science, business education \u2014 still anchor its reputation, they are now overlaid with an ambitious slate of development strategies. In these straitened days for higher education with threats coming from our own government's immigration policies, inflation, increasing global competition and a general devaluation in degrees and higher degrees in general in the wake of factors such as AI, it is perhaps only prudent that the University of Reading is looking after its balance sheet. But is this right for an academic institution ?
\nReading currently maintains an investment asset portfolio of \u00a3307.6 million. While this represents a reasonably robust position for a mid-tier UK institution, which has helped the university narrow its annual operating loss to \u00a310.8 million, it highlights a chasm when placed on the scales of international finance.
\nWithin the UK, the University of Reading sits comfortably in the upper-middle tier of wealth, but remains dwarfed by the \"Oxbridge\" behemoths. For the fiscal year ending July 2025, the University of Oxford reported a total consolidated endowment (including its constituent colleges) of \u00a39.28 billion. To put that into perspective, Oxford\u2019s endowment is roughly 30 times larger than Reading\u2019s.
\nA single Oxford college, St John\u2019s, holds an endowment of approximately \u00a3790 million\u2014more than double the wealth of the entire University of Reading.
\nThe comparison becomes even more stark when looking across the Atlantic. While Reading manages a portfolio in the hundreds of millions, top-tier US institutions operate with sovereign-wealth-level capital. As of the 2025 fiscal year, Harvard University remains the wealthiest academic institution in the world, with an endowment valued at $56.9 billion (approx. \u00a344.9 billion) and the University of Texas has \u00a334 billion in its coffers. Much of this wealth comes from donations from alumni, something nearly unheard of in the UK.
\nSo, it is therefore perhaps not surprising that the University has become involved in extensive commercial activities to copmpete in what is a global academic market.
The uni's commercial ventures range from garden village planning on thousands of acres of its farmland to the development of world-class film and TV studios, overseas campuses and global brand building.\u00a0 At its centenary, let's take a deep dive into the uni's balance sheet.
'Cine Valley' and Shinfield Studios: Hollywood on the M4 ?
\n\u00a0
\n
\u00a0
\nOn land owned by the University of Reading at the Thames Valley Science Park - a business park the university has been developing since the mid-2010s - is Shinfield Studios,\u00a0a major film and television production campus with 18 sound stages, workshops, office space and backlot facilities.
\nOriginally announced with a long-term lease to LA-based investors and promoter Commonwealth Real Estate and envisaged as part of a broader \u201cCine Valley\u201d hub, Shinfield Studios is now one of the UK\u2019s significant new film production centres outside the traditional hubs near London and Pinewood. amonst productions completed or in progress are:
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024): One of the first major productions to use the site; the studio was used to recreate New York City streetscapes.
Greenland: Migration (Expected 2026): The sequel to the Gerard Butler disaster thriller Greenland utilized the stages for its post-apocalyptic sequences.
\nThe Magic Faraway Tree (Expected 2026): An adaptation of the Enid Blyton classic starring Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield.
The Acolyte (Disney+): This Star Wars series used Shinfield as its primary production base, including the construction of a large exterior set on the backlot.
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix): Used the studio's soundstages for interior sequences of Regency-era London.
\nThe Agency: A political thriller series starring Michael Fassbender (remake of Le Bureau des L\u00e9gendes).
\nSquid Game: The Challenge (Netflix): Parts of the reality competition were filmed utilizing the studio's vast stage space.
\nEntertainment & Game Shows
Interestingly, despite being a cinematic hub, the studio has also hosted several high-profile UK TV shows:
99 to Beat (ITV): A game show hosted by Adam and Ryan Thomas.
\nLOL: Last One Laughing UK (Amazon Prime): The UK version of the global comedy format.
\nYou Bet! (ITV): A revival of the classic 90s challenge show.
\nIts proponents sell Shinfield as a \u00a3200m-plus investment expected to generate substantial inward economic activity \u2014 estimates have been as high as \u00a3500m per year \u2014 and thousands of jobs, both direct and indirect. However, in an era where a lot of production is now moving to data centres using AI, its long term viability is yet to be proven.
\nReading\u2019s own 2023\u201324 financial statements framed the development as a strategic play: the studios help Reading pivot toward a creative economy cluster and expand employment beyond academia. The University does have courses in BA Film & Television: Focuses on filmmaking, TV studio production, cinematography, editing, and screenwriting, BA Film & Theatre: A joint approach exploring both screen and live performance, including set design and directing, BA Creative Writing: Often taken alongside English Literature or Art, focusing on narrative craft for various media and postgraduate courses in MA Creative Enterprise (Film or Theatre Pathways): A unique \"cross-over\" degree combining artistic practice with modules in management, law, and entrepreneurship from the Henley Business School, MA by Research (Film, Theatre & Television): A flexible, research-intensive programme where you can focus on a specific practical project or a theoretical dissertation, MA Fine Art: Focuses on contemporary professional practice, exhibitions, and curatorial initiatives and MA Communication Design: Pathways in Graphic Design, Book Design, and Typeface Design (Reading is world-renowned for typography).
\nThe facilities for the British Museum and the Natural History Museum are also located at the Thames Valley Science Park (TVSP) - it is important to distinguish this from the Thames Valley Park (confusingly called TVP), which is a separate commercial site in East Reading - home to Microsoft and Oracle - that the University does not own.
\nThe University of Reading holds the freehold of the land at the Science Park. The museums have established themselves there through long-term partnerships and lease agreements.
\n
The British Museum Archaeological Research Collection (BM_ARC), officially opened in 2024.\u00a0
\nThe Natural History Museum's \"Science and Digitisation Centre\" is currently under construction at TVBP, with the groundbreaking ceremony having taken place in September 2025. This project is backed by over \u00a3200 million in government investment and sits on land leased from the University.
\nThese facilities are part of a strategic research partnership. By co-locating, the museums can collaborate with University scientists on genomics, climate change, and archaeology; provide research opportunities and placements for University of Reading students and centralize their most fragile and important collections in high-tech, climate-controlled environments that are more modern than their historic London basements.
\nTVBP also houses The Gateway Building, an innovation center for health-tech and environmental startups and Rutherford Cancer Centre, a high-tech medical facility.
\nCritics have questioned whether promises of local jobs and skill pipelines \u2014 including apprenticeships and Screen Berkshire training initiatives \u2014 will materialise for current residents or primarily benefit external contractors and high-skill migrants.
\n\u00a0
\nIn March 2025, the University, in partnership with private developers, unveiled plans for Loddon Garden Village, a proposed mixed-use community between Shinfield, Arborfield and Sindlesham, poised to deliver approximately 4,000 homes along with schools, employment space and civic infrastructure. The university\u2019s role stems from its position as trustee of Hall Farm, land it owns through the National Institute for Research in Dairying (NIRD) Trust.
\nThe farm was purchased in 1947 by the NIRD. At the time, the Institute needed to expand its farming activities beyond its original site at Church Farm in Shinfield. The 299 acre Arborfield Hall Farm was acquired primarily to provide additional grazing land and forage crops for young livestock.
\nThe NIRD was a research body closely associated with the University. While it operated as a distinct entity for many years, the University of Reading acted as the sole trustee of the NIRD Trust. This meant that while the land was technically held for the specific purpose of dairy research, it was under the University\u2019s administrative umbrella.
\nIn March 1985, the NIRD was officially dissolved as a separate research institute. Its functions and assets, including Hall Farm, were re-absorbed directly into the University of Reading. This transition consolidated the farm into the University's School of Agriculture, Policy and Development.
\n\u00a0
\n
\u00a0
\nTo its advocates, Loddon is a model for holistic, sustainability-led development: energy-efficient housing, integrated schooling and a massive new country park larger than Dinton Pastures, linked to existing green spaces. The scheme\u2019s architects and supporters in local government position it as a generational opportunity to rebuild the region\u2019s physical fabric and generate employment opportunities in s region where there is substantial demand for housing.
\nYet opposition has been fast and often visceral. Campaign groups like\u00a0Save Our Loddon Valley Environment (SOLVE) argue that the submission fails national planning tests, including inadequate consideration of flood risk and infrastructure delivery \u2014 points raised by independent planning consultants in public examinations.
\nSome local representatives and residents express a distinct sense of betrayal. Shinfield, once a verdant village just south of Reading, now increasingly resembles a semii-urban town, as farmland gives way to housing estates and commercial developments. As one Wokingham councillor put it bluntly in 2021: \u201cThe University of Reading has turned Shinfield from village to town.\u201d
\nAnd this is not merely a quibble over development. At stake is the university\u2019s reputation and role in shaping the region\u2019s economy, whilst guarding its own coffers. For decades universities have been humdrum generators of human capital and research; now Reading is becoming a generator of actuarial risk, transport headaches and traffic modelling debates \u2014 responsibilities formerly well beyond their brief.\u00a0The very fact that a university serves as a master planner for nearly four thousand homes underscores how higher education institutions are evolving into actors in regional urban development, not just observers of it.
\n\u00a0
\nOverseas Expansion and the Malaysia Campus: Global Ambitions or Global Missteps?
\nLong before Loddon or Cine Valley made headlines, Reading pursued a different kind of geographical expansion: international campuses.
\n
The jewel in that strategy is the University of Reading Malaysia (UoRM), launched in Educity, Iskandar Puteri, near Singapore. On the surface, this branch campus has flourished. Started with a few hundred students, UoRM saw its enrolment swell to record highs \u2014 nearly 950 students in 2024/25 \u2014 and celebrated its first decade alongside the UK campus\u2019s centenary ambitions.
\nBut beneath the celebratory press releases lies a more complicated narrative familiar across the UK sector: overseas campuses can be strategically valuable yet financially fraught.
\nIn the late 2010s, investigative reporting and sector analyses flagged that Reading\u2019s Malaysia campus had been slower to recruit than expected and had incurred higher costs than anticipated. Critics suggested that expansion was undertaken without sufficient market analysis, undershooting demand forecasts and overestimating local economic conditions. Whether this represents a learning curve of a globalizing university or a cautionary lesson about export-oriented education ventures remains a subject of debate among governance analysts and staff. The UK government's policies, scrambling to appeal to the extreme right and curtail immigration has also dented the UK's brand as an academic provider.
\nIn 2026, the UK government ditched its target of attracting more international students, instead urging institutions to open campuses abroad to diversify revenue and reduce universities\u2019 reliance on fees from overseas enrolments at home. For Reading, this means its Malaysia campus \u2014 and ambitions for further global partnerships \u2014 may gain new strategic value even as domestic student recruitment becomes more competitive. But the 'UK uni' brand may not be seen as attractive to stuents hoping to study, and perhaps obtain jobs in the UK.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Global Classroom: International Students and Institutional Risk
\nReading today hosts a truly international student body - approximately 27\u201328% international students, well above the UK average, drawn from over 160 countries. International students are not merely a cultural asset; they are a strategic lifeline. Their fees contribute disproportionately to university revenues at a time when UK government teaching grants have been frozen for years and domestic fee caps remain largely static.
\nChina is the largest source countries for the University. This is bolstered by the NUIST Reading Academy, a joint partnership with Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology. Many Chinese students study at the Reading campus for the final year(s) of their degrees, particularly in sciences, business, and economics.
\n
But dependency on foreign students carries risk. National immigration politics, visa policy tightening and broader debates about overseas student numbers once buoyed universities\u2019 finances, but are now limiting growth prospects. Reading is hardly unique in feeling these headwinds, but its relative financial exposure to international income and its overseas campus investments make it a bellwether for mid-tier research universities navigating a volatile post-Brexit, post-pandemic environment.
\nStudent accommodation pressures compound the challenge. Local planning authorities have rejected large private developments outside campus boundaries on grounds they are inappropriate for educational use, reflecting tensions between community character and the university\u2019s expansion needs and on campus development have often been controversial - the proposed redevelopment of St Patrick's Hall drew severe criticism from local MP, Matt Rodda. This underscores a broader structural question: if universities are growth engines, are they also responsible for the infrastructure and housing that growth demands?
\n\u00a0
\nThe University of Reading stands at an inflection point familiar to many modern universities all over the world: the push to globalise, commercialise and diversify rendered through strategies that often strain local relationships and institutional coherence.
\nFrom Loddon Garden Village and Shinfield Studios to an ambitious international presence in Malaysia, Reading\u2019s leadership is embracing a vision of a university that is economic actor, regional developer and global brand. Whether this translates into sustained academic excellence and community goodwill \u2014 or becomes an overextension that dilutes academic focus \u2014 is an open question.
\nWhat is clear is this: Reading is no longer a quiet provincial university. It has become a case study in the ambitious reinvention of higher education, where the stakes are intellectual, economic and cultural \u2014 and where the conversations it now commands extend far beyond the green lawns of Whiteknights Park.
\n\u00a0
", "description": "The University of Reading is transforming into a major property developer and business innovator, venturing into film studios and global ambitions. Discover how its balance sheet is shaping its territorial reinvention.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:08.844558+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-03-24T15:44:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "contentLocation": { "name": "Reading, UK", "@type": "Place" }, "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/university-or-property-developer/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "317", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/university-of-reading-celebrates-100-years-a-deep-dive-into-its-history-and-future/", "title": "University of Reading Celebrates 100 Years: A Deep Dive into Its History and Future", "content_html": "\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/e252f9294c58.jpg\")
This year marks the 100th anniversary of one of the town\u2019s biggest employers and most important institutions: the University of Reading. This month we take a deep dive into the history and future of this institution.
Every year since 17 March 1926, thousands of teenagers \u2013 and mature students \u2013 have made Reading their home for at least three years of study. The campus offers a wide range of degrees in disciplines that include art, agriculture, history, meteorology, computer science, chemistry, and typography. Its courses are renowned and its academics in demand when the media need expert voices.\u00a0
The University has evolved, just as the town has. Courses, halls of residence, lecture halls, the library, and the students' union have all seen upgrades over the years. While many of the buildings, especially on the London Road campus, look the same on the outside, changing technology, times, and demands keep it relevant.\u00a0
Staff at the University have always sought to ensure the students are part of the town\u2019s life, after all many make Reading their home once their studies are over. This means that many residents will have their own memories of life on campus to share, whether it's their hall of residence, walking around Harris Gardens, graduation at the London Road campus, or taking part in sporting activities.
Throughout this year, several special events will be held to help the town celebrate the University's work and its role in Reading\u2019s story over the past century. Last year, many alumni submitted their memories to help shape a new celebration that will go on display online and across the Whiteknights and London Road campuses. The trail of curated pictures has been organised by arts collective jelly and helps tell the story of many students\u2019 happy memories.\u00a0
One way to catch a glimpse of this is through special heritage tours the University is organising throughout the year. They will highlight historic campus buildings, beautiful green spaces, wartime history and generations of voices of the people who have studied, worked, and lived at the University, helping to inspire the institution to this day.
They run on different days and times, and cover different subjects, including the history of different parts of campus such as Foxhill House, Earley Gate, and the London Road base. There will also be focuses on the University\u2019s RAG (raising and giving) parades \u2013 the climax of fundraising weeks \u2013 and the university\u2019s role during wars.\u00a0
Molli Cleaver, Community Engagement Manager at the University of Reading, said: \"Our Centenary is such a special occasion to connect with our local community. We really want everyone to be part of our celebrations.
\u201cWe know there is so much interest in the history of the University, our people and our campuses and buildings. The Centenary Heritage Tours are a unique opportunity to step into our rich history and learn more about the university on your doorstep.\u201d
Places are free, but must be booked from Eventbrite. Some of the tours are run by Terry Dixon, and he requests a donation for Reading-area charities. https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/centenary-heritage-tours-4799755?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=creatorshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=odclsxcollection&utm-source=cp&aff=escb
The Museum of English Rural Life is also joining in with some centenary celebrations for the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Based on the London Road campus opposite the Royal Berkshire Hospital, MERL is an absolute unit when it comes to charting life in the country.\u00a0
The exhibition highlights CPRE's major achievements over the past century, including the creation of England's national parks and green belts, campaigns to limit light pollution and litter, regulation of housing development, advocacy for local food production and more.
Dr Ollie Douglas, Curator of MERL Collections, said: \"This exhibition tells the story of one of the most influential conservation charities in England's history.\u00a0
\u201cFor 100 years, CPRE has been at the forefront of protecting our countryside, from creating the national parks we still treasure today to fighting for dark skies and green spaces. We're proud to celebrate their centenary and show how grassroots campaigning has shaped the rural landscapes we all enjoy.\"
Alongside Voices of the Countryside, The MERL is launching Radical Rural, a trail through the museum's galleries highlighting additional movements, artists, and writers who champion rural England's people and places. The contents of the trail range from rural artworks and protest banners, to a costume of Old Crockern, the legendary folk spirit who protects Dartmoor.
The Voices of the Countryside exhibition and the Radical Rural trail both run until 24 May.
There are several other events in May.\u00a0
The now annual Community Festival will be held on Whiteknights Campus on Saturday, 16 May. The free event features a range of activities for all ages including performances, tours, games and food.\u00a0
A real blast from the past comes in the form of a RAG Parade. For more than 50 years, it was a highlight in the university\u2019s calendar as students and the wider Reading population came together to raise funds for good causes. While most people will think of the RAG Mag \u2013 a collection of jokes and curiosities \u2013 and bed pushing, for others the parade will be what they recall.\u00a0
For one day only, this parade is set to return, and the University is hoping that students, staff and alumni will put on an event that the Reading community will remember. It is set to take place on Sunday, 17 May.\u00a0
A week later, the Whiteknights Campus is to become a theatre set for a specially commissioned promenade production that celebrates student life.\u00a0
Sparks, Parks, Halls & Balls recreates the bustle of a 1950s common room, the energy and protest of the 1970s, and the unmistakable sounds of the 1990s \u2013 bringing past moments vividly into the present. The stage is the campus and as audiences walk through the site, they can encounter stories, memories and moments that reflect the lives of those who have studied, worked and gathered at Reading over the last hundred years.
The play is part of South Street Arts Centre's acclaimed SITELINES programme, which creates immersive theatre in unusual locations.\u00a0
Professor Robert Van de Noort, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading, said: \"Our centenary is not just about marking a date in history. It is about recognising the people, ideas and everyday moments that have shaped this University over a century. This production will capture that spirit in a unique way.\u201d
The project has been made possible by a grant from the University\u2019s Centenary Fund, secured by Rachel Helsby, Head of the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor\u2019s Office, who is also co-producing the production.
She said: \u201cBy working with SITELINES, we are inviting audiences to experience our campus in a new way, through stories rooted in real memories and real places. It is a celebration of community, creativity and the shared experiences that continue to define Reading.\u201d
There will be six performances from Friday, 22 May, to Sunday, 24 May, and numbers are strictly limited. They can be booked via the Reading Arts website, https://whatsonreading.com/venues/sitelines/whats-on/sparks-parks-halls-balls
May\u2019s celebration events come to an end on Saturday, 30 May with a special day of sporting action as alumni return to participate in a series of sporting matches against current students.\u00a0
For more details on the events planned, log on to: https://www.reading.ac.uk/centenary/\u00a0
\u00a0
\n
This year marks the 100th anniversary of one of the town\u2019s biggest employers and most important institutions: the University of Reading. This month we take a deep dive into the history and future of this institution.
Every year since 17 March 1926, thousands of teenagers \u2013 and mature students \u2013 have made Reading their home for at least three years of study. The campus offers a wide range of degrees in disciplines that include art, agriculture, history, meteorology, computer science, chemistry, and typography. Its courses are renowned and its academics in demand when the media need expert voices.\u00a0
The University has evolved, just as the town has. Courses, halls of residence, lecture halls, the library, and the students' union have all seen upgrades over the years. While many of the buildings, especially on the London Road campus, look the same on the outside, changing technology, times, and demands keep it relevant.\u00a0
Staff at the University have always sought to ensure the students are part of the town\u2019s life, after all many make Reading their home once their studies are over. This means that many residents will have their own memories of life on campus to share, whether it's their hall of residence, walking around Harris Gardens, graduation at the London Road campus, or taking part in sporting activities.
Throughout this year, several special events will be held to help the town celebrate the University's work and its role in Reading\u2019s story over the past century. Last year, many alumni submitted their memories to help shape a new celebration that will go on display online and across the Whiteknights and London Road campuses. The trail of curated pictures has been organised by arts collective jelly and helps tell the story of many students\u2019 happy memories.\u00a0
One way to catch a glimpse of this is through special heritage tours the University is organising throughout the year. They will highlight historic campus buildings, beautiful green spaces, wartime history and generations of voices of the people who have studied, worked, and lived at the University, helping to inspire the institution to this day.
They run on different days and times, and cover different subjects, including the history of different parts of campus such as Foxhill House, Earley Gate, and the London Road base. There will also be focuses on the University\u2019s RAG (raising and giving) parades \u2013 the climax of fundraising weeks \u2013 and the university\u2019s role during wars.\u00a0
Molli Cleaver, Community Engagement Manager at the University of Reading, said: \"Our Centenary is such a special occasion to connect with our local community. We really want everyone to be part of our celebrations.
\u201cWe know there is so much interest in the history of the University, our people and our campuses and buildings. The Centenary Heritage Tours are a unique opportunity to step into our rich history and learn more about the university on your doorstep.\u201d
Places are free, but must be booked from Eventbrite. Some of the tours are run by Terry Dixon, and he requests a donation for Reading-area charities. https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/centenary-heritage-tours-4799755?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=creatorshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=odclsxcollection&utm-source=cp&aff=escb
The Museum of English Rural Life is also joining in with some centenary celebrations for the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Based on the London Road campus opposite the Royal Berkshire Hospital, MERL is an absolute unit when it comes to charting life in the country.\u00a0
The exhibition highlights CPRE's major achievements over the past century, including the creation of England's national parks and green belts, campaigns to limit light pollution and litter, regulation of housing development, advocacy for local food production and more.
Dr Ollie Douglas, Curator of MERL Collections, said: \"This exhibition tells the story of one of the most influential conservation charities in England's history.\u00a0
\u201cFor 100 years, CPRE has been at the forefront of protecting our countryside, from creating the national parks we still treasure today to fighting for dark skies and green spaces. We're proud to celebrate their centenary and show how grassroots campaigning has shaped the rural landscapes we all enjoy.\"
Alongside Voices of the Countryside, The MERL is launching Radical Rural, a trail through the museum's galleries highlighting additional movements, artists, and writers who champion rural England's people and places. The contents of the trail range from rural artworks and protest banners, to a costume of Old Crockern, the legendary folk spirit who protects Dartmoor.
The Voices of the Countryside exhibition and the Radical Rural trail both run until 24 May.
There are several other events in May.\u00a0
The now annual Community Festival will be held on Whiteknights Campus on Saturday, 16 May. The free event features a range of activities for all ages including performances, tours, games and food.\u00a0
A real blast from the past comes in the form of a RAG Parade. For more than 50 years, it was a highlight in the university\u2019s calendar as students and the wider Reading population came together to raise funds for good causes. While most people will think of the RAG Mag \u2013 a collection of jokes and curiosities \u2013 and bed pushing, for others the parade will be what they recall.\u00a0
For one day only, this parade is set to return, and the University is hoping that students, staff and alumni will put on an event that the Reading community will remember. It is set to take place on Sunday, 17 May.\u00a0
A week later, the Whiteknights Campus is to become a theatre set for a specially commissioned promenade production that celebrates student life.\u00a0
Sparks, Parks, Halls & Balls recreates the bustle of a 1950s common room, the energy and protest of the 1970s, and the unmistakable sounds of the 1990s \u2013 bringing past moments vividly into the present. The stage is the campus and as audiences walk through the site, they can encounter stories, memories and moments that reflect the lives of those who have studied, worked and gathered at Reading over the last hundred years.
The play is part of South Street Arts Centre's acclaimed SITELINES programme, which creates immersive theatre in unusual locations.\u00a0
Professor Robert Van de Noort, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading, said: \"Our centenary is not just about marking a date in history. It is about recognising the people, ideas and everyday moments that have shaped this University over a century. This production will capture that spirit in a unique way.\u201d
The project has been made possible by a grant from the University\u2019s Centenary Fund, secured by Rachel Helsby, Head of the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor\u2019s Office, who is also co-producing the production.
She said: \u201cBy working with SITELINES, we are inviting audiences to experience our campus in a new way, through stories rooted in real memories and real places. It is a celebration of community, creativity and the shared experiences that continue to define Reading.\u201d
There will be six performances from Friday, 22 May, to Sunday, 24 May, and numbers are strictly limited. They can be booked via the Reading Arts website, https://whatsonreading.com/venues/sitelines/whats-on/sparks-parks-halls-balls
May\u2019s celebration events come to an end on Saturday, 30 May with a special day of sporting action as alumni return to participate in a series of sporting matches against current students.\u00a0
For more details on the events planned, log on to: https://www.reading.ac.uk/centenary/\u00a0
As the May 2026 local elections approach, the silhouette of cranes across the Reading skyline tells a story of two towns. One is a thriving technology and logistics hub, buoyed by its proximity to London and the Elizabeth Line with PepsiCo moving its HQ into the town centre and pharma giant Sanofi taking up residence in Thames Valley Park; the other is a community grappling with an increasingly untenable housing crisis where a homeless person fell seriously ill in a tent on Broad Street and died shortly afterwards in hospital.\u00a0
\nIt's not surprising then that for many residents the primary metric of the town\u2019s success is not its GDP, but the length of the housing register and the visibility of those without their own front door - and this may spell electoral problems for the majority Labour party that has long controlled the town, come the forthcoming elections.
\nSocial housing, which became viewed as a right for many Brits after the Second World War until its provision was dismantled by Margaret Thatcher, is currently at the center of a political and economic storm in Reading.
\nTo many, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are seen as a reason for the lack of public housing - a position being milked by the far right - who ironically have no plans at all to build any more social housing. But asylum seekers actually have no right to social housing. The problem isn't immigrants, it's the far right policies implemented by Thatcher and perpetuated by Blair and then thirteen years of subsequent Conservative rule. And it looks like our current Labour regime isn't going to make any difference as they run scared from the far right.\u00a0
With ever rising rents, thousands of households in limbo, and the Council facing unprecedented financial strain, the reality is that Reading needs around a substantial programme of social house building.
\nThe Labour ruling party on Reading Borough Council is being slated for only completing 11 council homes during 2025, and due to 'right to buy', our town probably lost social homes. And their disasterous dismantling of Housing for Reading, which threw another 400 people onto the housing market was a further debacle.
\nRob White, leader of the Greens was highly critical:
\n\"I am deeply worried about affordable housing in Reading. New figures show that Reading Borough Council missed its own target by a huge margin. Last year, only 11 affordable homes were delivered, when the target was 169. That is not a small slip. It is a serious failure.\"
\nLabour leader Liz Terry responded by pointing to more recent developments:
\n\"I was lucky to be at the Wensley Road estate in Coley last week to celebrate the official opening of 46 new homes. It is a particularly special project because all households moving in to them are from Reading\u2019s Wensley Road community.
\n\"We\u2019ve created two 4-bed houses, 26 3-bed houses, two 1-bed and two 2-bed wheelchair accessible ground floor flats, six 1-bed flats and eight 2-bed flats. Many are already occupied with the remainder allocated and soon to be filled. They form part of a wider estate improvement project, which has seen a new play park opened, new landscaping including additional pathways, and new parking spaces and roads.\"
\nBut the actual scale of the challenge is best understood through the Council\u2019s housing register. As of early 2026, the registered list of those waiting for a social home was over 3,000 households, possibly representing as many as 10,000 people. Despite the Council\u2019s efforts to prioritize those in the most urgent need, the reality is that less than 10% of those on the register are housed in any given year.
\nThis bottleneck has direct consequences for homelessness. Reading\u2019s rough sleeping rates have historically been among the highest in the South East. In 2025, official counts estimated approximately 46 people sleeping rough per 100,000 - this may sound low, but it is a rate significantly higher than the regional average. From View Island, to Kenavon Drive and the Thames towpath, you will find people living in tents and boats that should be condemned.
But the homeless woman in her fifties who recently died was living in a tent in a Broad Street bus shelter in Reading, opposite HSBC. Most Reading residents probably walked past her 'home' without a thought.
And beyond the visible rough sleeping and waiting lists for social housing, a hidden and massively expensive homelessness crisis is\u00a0 temporary accommodation.
![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/005e4e032035.png\")
The Temporary Accommodation Crisis
\nAccording to the latest data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) approximately 387 to 400 households were living in temporary accommodation in Reading in mid-2025.
\n\u200bThis represents a nearly 20% increase compared to the same period in 2024, with the number of families with children in temporary accommodation rose significantly, with a 33% increase (an additional 75 households) recorded between 2024 and 2025. (It should be noted that asylum seekers are totally outside this model. They may be housed in the borough but are paid for by the Home Office and have no rights to council accommodation.)
\nA complicating factor in Reading's data is the use of the town by other councils for their homeless population. For example, in 2024/25, Oxford City Council placed 34 of its own homeless households in temporary accommodation within Reading because they ran out of space in Oxford. These people are living in Reading, but they are technically counted in Oxford's homelessness statistics, not Reading's, and are paid for by Reading, although all liabilities apart from housing fall locally.
Supply vs. Right to Buy
\nTo be fair, Reading Borough Council has not been totally idle. Under its current Council Plan (2025\u20132028), the administration has committed to delivering over 300 new council homes. But the count of eleven new homes in the past financial year is a scandal that has spured them into some action with the opening of those 46 new homes on the Wensley Road estate and the acquisition of properties on Dwyer Road.
\nHowever, a \"leaky bucket\" effect persists thanks to right to buy and restrictions on further building by councils. For every new home built, others are lost through the Right to Buy (RTB) scheme. Recent data indicated that between 2021 and 2023, the total stock of council homes in Reading actually decreased slightly, despite the council's building program.
\nAs of early 2026, Reading Borough Council manages approximately 5,800 to 5,900 homes. To put this in perspective, in 1979, roughly 30% of Reading's housing stock was council-owned. \u200bBy 2025, that figure has dropped to approximately 15%.
So why does the council simply not build more houses when it can afford to buy office buildings as an investment - Reading Borough Council purchased Kennet Wharf on Queen's Road, the European home of Visa, for \u00a320.1 million in February 2018 as part of a commercial investment strategy, for example.
\nWell, In the post-war decades, building council houses wasn't just a policy; it was a national mission. Today, while the spirit might be willing, the financial and legislative machinery is far less amenable.
\nThe biggest shift since was the 1980 Housing Act. It introduced \"Right to Buy,\" which has seen over 1.5 million council homes sold into private hands.For decades, councils were forced to sell homes at massive discounts and were legally blocked from keeping all the proceeds to build new ones. Most of that money went back to the Treasury to pay down national debt. Thank you, Margaret.
\nWhile the government recently allowed councils to keep 100% of receipts and reduced the discounts, the \"yo-yo\" effect remains. Councils are currently spending millions buying back the same houses they were forced to sell decades ago\u2014often at 5-6 times the original price.
\nIn the 50s and 60s, the government essentially wrote a blank cheque for housing. Today, councils operate under the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), a ring-fenced \"business\" that must balance its own books. Even though the \"debt cap\" was removed in 2018, councils are still limited by what they can afford to pay back. High interest rates in 2025\u20132026 mean that borrowing from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) is expensive.
\nTo keep social housing affordable, the government often caps how much rent councils can charge (currently pegged agains the Consumer Price Index). This is great for tenants, but it limits the \"profit\" councils need to reinvest in new bricks and mortar.
\nIn the past councils had massive powers to buy land cheaply through Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs), but today they have to compete with commercial developer. Until very recently, if a council wanted to buy a field for housing, they had to pay the \"hope value\"\u2014what the land might be worth if it had luxury flats on it. This made land prohibitively expensive. In Reading land is very expensive and swathes of the town, such as the area to the west of Katesgrove and Kennet Island being restricted from development by age old nuclear safety regulations.
\nWe are only just seeing the impact of the 2024\u20132025 reforms that allow councils to ignore \"hope value\" for social housing. However, legal battles with landowners are still slowing this down.
\nIn the 1960s, you could \"throw up\" a tower block with minimal insulation or safety tech. Today, councils face a mountain of regulatory costs and restrictions - even commercial developmetns have ground to a halt thanks to the consequences of legislation introduced to prevent another Grenfell Tower disaster. The requirement for a second staircase in high rise blocks and the introduction of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), which has become a massive bottleneck in areas like London, resulting in almost all commercial property development grinding to a halt in the capital.
\nCouncils are legally required to fix damp, mould, and safety issues in existing stock within strict timelines and new homes must now be nearly zero-carbon. This adds roughly 15\u201320% to the cost of every single house compared to just a few years ago.
\nFinally, and perhaps most ironically, the UK has a massive skills shortage in the building sector after Brexit.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Rise Of Housing Associations
\nWhile the Borough Council is the most visible provider of low-cost housing, it does not act alone. Housing Associations -officially known as Private Registered Providers (PRPs) - form the \"third pillar\" of Reading\u2019s housing canopy. Currently, these non-profit organizations manage a portfolio in Reading that nearly matches the Council\u2019s own stock, with over 5,500 units across the borough.
\nThe landscape in Reading is a patchwork of large-scale regional providers and specialist local groups. A2Dominion and Housing Solutions are among the largest, managing significant estates and modern apartment blocks. Meanwhile, organizations like Launchpad Reading provide supported housing specifically for those transitioning out of homelessness.
\nA major point of contention UK wide is the distinction between \"Social\" and \"Affordable\" rent levels. Social Rent, typically charged by the Council and some older association tenancies, this is set at approximately 50% of local market rates whilst affordable rent is the model adopted by most housing associations where rents can be set at up to 80% of the market rate.
\nIn a high-demand town like Reading, where private rents have surged, even an \"affordable\" 80% rate can put significant pressure on low-income families who do not qualify for full housing benefits.
\nDespite being separate entities, the Council and Associations operate a unified system. To ensure fairness, Reading uses a 'Common Housing Register'. When a Housing Association property in the town becomes vacant, the Council usually holds \"nomination rights\" for 75% to 100% of those lets. This means that regardless of who owns the brick and mortar, the Council\u2019s waiting list remains the single point of entry for those in need.
\nAnd housing associations are not exempt from the political debates surrounding the \"leaky bucket\" of social stock. While Council tenants have the Right to Buy, most Housing Association tenants have a similar, though slightly different 'Right to Acquire'.
\nSection 106 agreements place a legal requirements on private developers\u2014such as those building the high-rise apartments near Reading Station\u2014to provide a percentage of homes to housing associations. These quotas are often negotiated down by developers, or replaced with financial contributions elsewhere.
\nWhile the Council remains the single largest landlord, several Housing Associations manage thousands of properties across Reading.\u00a0
\nHousing associations have merged and now often operate across multiple local authorities, but their presence in Reading is significant enough to shape entire neighborhoods like Coley, Whitley, and Tilehurst. Here are the largest in out town:
\nA2Dominion ~1,500+ properties . One of the largest regional providers. Significant presence in central Reading and managed \"Retirement Living\" schemes like Cornerstones in Tilehurst.
\nSouthern Housing ~1,200+ properties. Formed from the merger of Optivo and Southern Housing Group. They manage a mix of social rent and shared ownership across the South East, with a major hub in Theale/Reading including Livonia View between the river and railway line in east Reading.
\nHousing Solutions ~800+ properties. Focuses heavily on the Berkshire area. They manage diverse stock across Reading, including key worker and family housing.
\nStonewater ~600+ properties. A major national provider with a strong local footprint, particularly in retirement living (e.g., Raglan Court) and general needs housing.
\nAbri ~400+ properties. Formerly Radian/Yarlington. They are increasingly active in new-build \"affordable\" developments on brownfield sites around the town
\nAffinity Housing ~350+ properties. Often works in direct partnership with the Council on specific PFI (Private Finance Initiative) contracts, particularly in North Whitley.
\nThe sheer volume of Association-owned property means that the housing issues faced by Reading cannot be solved by the Council alone. The Council has nomination rights to the vast majority of these housing association properties' vacancies, so this directly impacts how fast the 3,000-person waiting list moves.
\nRecent governments have spent a lot of legislative time regulating private landlords, but a key political issue now is social landlord accountability. Service charges have been increasing well above the rate of inflation and there is an increasing call for stricter local oversight of housing associations, following resident complaints regarding costs, repair delays and the handling of serious issues such as damp and mold in older blocks.
\nThis said, smaller associations like Launchpad Reading and Abbeyfield are essential for supported housing in our town Without them, the Council would face even higher costs in providing specialized care for the elderly or those recovering from homelessness.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Economic Impact: A Council on the Edge
\nThe housing crisis is not just a social issue; it is a fiscal one. Reading Borough Council has had to find nearly \u00a313 million in savings and efficiencies over the last three years, largely driven by the rising cost of essential services.
\nThe economic \"knock-on\" is clear: when residents spend 40% or more of their income on rent, local spending in Reading\u2019s retail and hospitality sectors suffers. Furthermore, the high cost of housing makes it difficult for essential workers\u2014nurses, teachers, and bus drivers\u2014to live within the borough, leading to recruitment crises in public services.
Political Choices
\nWith homeless people dying on our high street, the far right fearmongering and the cost or renting continuing to rise, the three main parties in Reading are offering distinct visions for the future of social housing.
\nThe Labour Administration
\nLabour highlights its track record of building the first new council houses in a generation. Their platform focuses on \"fairer communities,\" arguing that despite national headwinds and RTB, they are the only party with a proven delivery model. They are lobbying the national government for a complete overhaul of RTB rules to allow councils to retain 100% of receipts for rebuilding.
\nThe Green Party
\nHaving seen significant gains in recent years, the Greens argue that the current pace of building is insufficient. They point to the net loss of social stock as evidence of a failed strategy. Their 2026 manifesto calls for a \"moratorium on council house sales\" and a more aggressive use of Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) on empty long-term properties and derelict offices.
\nThe Liberal Democrats and Conservatives
\nThe Liberal Democrats have focused heavily on the private rental market, calling for better protections for tenants to prevent them from needing social housing in the first place.\u00a0
\nThe Conservatives, meanwhile, emphasize the role of the private sector and housing associations, arguing that the Council should focus on \"enabling\" rather than being the primary builder, while supporting the aspiration of homeownership through shared equity schemes.
\n\u00a0
\nA Difficult Future
\nReading is a town of immense potential, but that potential is being throttled by a housing market that no longer serves a large portion of its population. The social housing crisis is the thread that connects homelessness, council insolvency, and economic stagnation. Having homeless people die on our streets cannot make anyone feel good about their town.
\n\u00a0
", "content_text": "As the May 2026 local elections approach, the silhouette of cranes across the Reading skyline tells a story of two towns. One is a thriving technology and logistics hub, buoyed by its proximity to London and the Elizabeth Line with PepsiCo moving its HQ into the town centre and pharma giant Sanofi taking up residence in Thames Valley Park; the other is a community grappling with an increasingly untenable housing crisis where a homeless person fell seriously ill in a tent on Broad Street and died shortly afterwards in hospital.\u00a0\nIt's not surprising then that for many residents the primary metric of the town\u2019s success is not its GDP, but the length of the housing register and the visibility of those without their own front door - and this may spell electoral problems for the majority Labour party that has long controlled the town, come the forthcoming elections.\nSocial housing, which became viewed as a right for many Brits after the Second World War until its provision was dismantled by Margaret Thatcher, is currently at the center of a political and economic storm in Reading.\nTo many, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are seen as a reason for the lack of public housing - a position being milked by the far right - who ironically have no plans at all to build any more social housing. But asylum seekers actually have no right to social housing. The problem isn't immigrants, it's the far right policies implemented by Thatcher and perpetuated by Blair and then thirteen years of subsequent Conservative rule. And it looks like our current Labour regime isn't going to make any difference as they run scared from the far right.\u00a0\nWith ever rising rents, thousands of households in limbo, and the Council facing unprecedented financial strain, the reality is that Reading needs around a substantial programme of social house building.\nThe Labour ruling party on Reading Borough Council is being slated for only completing 11 council homes during 2025, and due to 'right to buy', our town probably lost social homes. And their disasterous dismantling of Housing for Reading, which threw another 400 people onto the housing market was a further debacle.\nRob White, leader of the Greens was highly critical:\n\"I am deeply worried about affordable housing in Reading. New figures show that Reading Borough Council missed its own target by a huge margin. Last year, only 11 affordable homes were delivered, when the target was 169. That is not a small slip. It is a serious failure.\"\nLabour leader Liz Terry responded by pointing to more recent developments:\n\"I was lucky to be at the Wensley Road estate in Coley last week to celebrate the official opening of 46 new homes. It is a particularly special project because all households moving in to them are from Reading\u2019s Wensley Road community.\n\"We\u2019ve created two 4-bed houses, 26 3-bed houses, two 1-bed and two 2-bed wheelchair accessible ground floor flats, six 1-bed flats and eight 2-bed flats. Many are already occupied with the remainder allocated and soon to be filled. They form part of a wider estate improvement project, which has seen a new play park opened, new landscaping including additional pathways, and new parking spaces and roads.\"\nBut the actual scale of the challenge is best understood through the Council\u2019s housing register. As of early 2026, the registered list of those waiting for a social home was over 3,000 households, possibly representing as many as 10,000 people. Despite the Council\u2019s efforts to prioritize those in the most urgent need, the reality is that less than 10% of those on the register are housed in any given year.\nThis bottleneck has direct consequences for homelessness. Reading\u2019s rough sleeping rates have historically been among the highest in the South East. In 2025, official counts estimated approximately 46 people sleeping rough per 100,000 - this may sound low, but it is a rate significantly higher than the regional average. From View Island, to Kenavon Drive and the Thames towpath, you will find people living in tents and boats that should be condemned.But the homeless woman in her fifties who recently died was living in a tent in a Broad Street bus shelter in Reading, opposite HSBC. Most Reading residents probably walked past her 'home' without a thought.\nAnd beyond the visible rough sleeping and waiting lists for social housing, a hidden and massively expensive homelessness crisis is\u00a0 temporary accommodation.\n\nThe Temporary Accommodation Crisis\nAccording to the latest data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) approximately 387 to 400 households were living in temporary accommodation in Reading in mid-2025.\n\u200bThis represents a nearly 20% increase compared to the same period in 2024, with the number of families with children in temporary accommodation rose significantly, with a 33% increase (an additional 75 households) recorded between 2024 and 2025. (It should be noted that asylum seekers are totally outside this model. They may be housed in the borough but are paid for by the Home Office and have no rights to council accommodation.)\nA complicating factor in Reading's data is the use of the town by other councils for their homeless population. For example, in 2024/25, Oxford City Council placed 34 of its own homeless households in temporary accommodation within Reading because they ran out of space in Oxford. These people are living in Reading, but they are technically counted in Oxford's homelessness statistics, not Reading's, and are paid for by Reading, although all liabilities apart from housing fall locally.\nSupply vs. Right to Buy\nTo be fair, Reading Borough Council has not been totally idle. Under its current Council Plan (2025\u20132028), the administration has committed to delivering over 300 new council homes. But the count of eleven new homes in the past financial year is a scandal that has spured them into some action with the opening of those 46 new homes on the Wensley Road estate and the acquisition of properties on Dwyer Road.\nHowever, a \"leaky bucket\" effect persists thanks to right to buy and restrictions on further building by councils. For every new home built, others are lost through the Right to Buy (RTB) scheme. Recent data indicated that between 2021 and 2023, the total stock of council homes in Reading actually decreased slightly, despite the council's building program.\nAs of early 2026, Reading Borough Council manages approximately 5,800 to 5,900 homes. To put this in perspective, in 1979, roughly 30% of Reading's housing stock was council-owned. \u200bBy 2025, that figure has dropped to approximately 15%.\nSo why does the council simply not build more houses when it can afford to buy office buildings as an investment - Reading Borough Council purchased Kennet Wharf on Queen's Road, the European home of Visa, for \u00a320.1 million in February 2018 as part of a commercial investment strategy, for example.\nWell, In the post-war decades, building council houses wasn't just a policy; it was a national mission. Today, while the spirit might be willing, the financial and legislative machinery is far less amenable.\nThe biggest shift since was the 1980 Housing Act. It introduced \"Right to Buy,\" which has seen over 1.5 million council homes sold into private hands.For decades, councils were forced to sell homes at massive discounts and were legally blocked from keeping all the proceeds to build new ones. Most of that money went back to the Treasury to pay down national debt. Thank you, Margaret.\nWhile the government recently allowed councils to keep 100% of receipts and reduced the discounts, the \"yo-yo\" effect remains. Councils are currently spending millions buying back the same houses they were forced to sell decades ago\u2014often at 5-6 times the original price.\nIn the 50s and 60s, the government essentially wrote a blank cheque for housing. Today, councils operate under the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), a ring-fenced \"business\" that must balance its own books. Even though the \"debt cap\" was removed in 2018, councils are still limited by what they can afford to pay back. High interest rates in 2025\u20132026 mean that borrowing from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) is expensive.\nTo keep social housing affordable, the government often caps how much rent councils can charge (currently pegged agains the Consumer Price Index). This is great for tenants, but it limits the \"profit\" councils need to reinvest in new bricks and mortar.\nIn the past councils had massive powers to buy land cheaply through Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs), but today they have to compete with commercial developer. Until very recently, if a council wanted to buy a field for housing, they had to pay the \"hope value\"\u2014what the land might be worth if it had luxury flats on it. This made land prohibitively expensive. In Reading land is very expensive and swathes of the town, such as the area to the west of Katesgrove and Kennet Island being restricted from development by age old nuclear safety regulations.\nWe are only just seeing the impact of the 2024\u20132025 reforms that allow councils to ignore \"hope value\" for social housing. However, legal battles with landowners are still slowing this down.\nIn the 1960s, you could \"throw up\" a tower block with minimal insulation or safety tech. Today, councils face a mountain of regulatory costs and restrictions - even commercial developmetns have ground to a halt thanks to the consequences of legislation introduced to prevent another Grenfell Tower disaster. The requirement for a second staircase in high rise blocks and the introduction of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), which has become a massive bottleneck in areas like London, resulting in almost all commercial property development grinding to a halt in the capital.\nCouncils are legally required to fix damp, mould, and safety issues in existing stock within strict timelines and new homes must now be nearly zero-carbon. This adds roughly 15\u201320% to the cost of every single house compared to just a few years ago.\nFinally, and perhaps most ironically, the UK has a massive skills shortage in the building sector after Brexit.\n\u00a0\nThe Rise Of Housing Associations\nWhile the Borough Council is the most visible provider of low-cost housing, it does not act alone. Housing Associations -officially known as Private Registered Providers (PRPs) - form the \"third pillar\" of Reading\u2019s housing canopy. Currently, these non-profit organizations manage a portfolio in Reading that nearly matches the Council\u2019s own stock, with over 5,500 units across the borough.\nThe landscape in Reading is a patchwork of large-scale regional providers and specialist local groups. A2Dominion and Housing Solutions are among the largest, managing significant estates and modern apartment blocks. Meanwhile, organizations like Launchpad Reading provide supported housing specifically for those transitioning out of homelessness.\nA major point of contention UK wide is the distinction between \"Social\" and \"Affordable\" rent levels. Social Rent, typically charged by the Council and some older association tenancies, this is set at approximately 50% of local market rates whilst affordable rent is the model adopted by most housing associations where rents can be set at up to 80% of the market rate.\nIn a high-demand town like Reading, where private rents have surged, even an \"affordable\" 80% rate can put significant pressure on low-income families who do not qualify for full housing benefits.\nDespite being separate entities, the Council and Associations operate a unified system. To ensure fairness, Reading uses a 'Common Housing Register'. When a Housing Association property in the town becomes vacant, the Council usually holds \"nomination rights\" for 75% to 100% of those lets. This means that regardless of who owns the brick and mortar, the Council\u2019s waiting list remains the single point of entry for those in need.\nAnd housing associations are not exempt from the political debates surrounding the \"leaky bucket\" of social stock. While Council tenants have the Right to Buy, most Housing Association tenants have a similar, though slightly different 'Right to Acquire'.\nSection 106 agreements place a legal requirements on private developers\u2014such as those building the high-rise apartments near Reading Station\u2014to provide a percentage of homes to housing associations. These quotas are often negotiated down by developers, or replaced with financial contributions elsewhere.\nWhile the Council remains the single largest landlord, several Housing Associations manage thousands of properties across Reading.\u00a0\nHousing associations have merged and now often operate across multiple local authorities, but their presence in Reading is significant enough to shape entire neighborhoods like Coley, Whitley, and Tilehurst. Here are the largest in out town:\nA2Dominion ~1,500+ properties . One of the largest regional providers. Significant presence in central Reading and managed \"Retirement Living\" schemes like Cornerstones in Tilehurst.\nSouthern Housing ~1,200+ properties. Formed from the merger of Optivo and Southern Housing Group. They manage a mix of social rent and shared ownership across the South East, with a major hub in Theale/Reading including Livonia View between the river and railway line in east Reading.\nHousing Solutions ~800+ properties. Focuses heavily on the Berkshire area. They manage diverse stock across Reading, including key worker and family housing.\nStonewater ~600+ properties. A major national provider with a strong local footprint, particularly in retirement living (e.g., Raglan Court) and general needs housing.\nAbri ~400+ properties. Formerly Radian/Yarlington. They are increasingly active in new-build \"affordable\" developments on brownfield sites around the town\nAffinity Housing ~350+ properties. Often works in direct partnership with the Council on specific PFI (Private Finance Initiative) contracts, particularly in North Whitley.\nThe sheer volume of Association-owned property means that the housing issues faced by Reading cannot be solved by the Council alone. The Council has nomination rights to the vast majority of these housing association properties' vacancies, so this directly impacts how fast the 3,000-person waiting list moves.\nRecent governments have spent a lot of legislative time regulating private landlords, but a key political issue now is social landlord accountability. Service charges have been increasing well above the rate of inflation and there is an increasing call for stricter local oversight of housing associations, following resident complaints regarding costs, repair delays and the handling of serious issues such as damp and mold in older blocks.\nThis said, smaller associations like Launchpad Reading and Abbeyfield are essential for supported housing in our town Without them, the Council would face even higher costs in providing specialized care for the elderly or those recovering from homelessness.\n\u00a0\nThe Economic Impact: A Council on the Edge\nThe housing crisis is not just a social issue; it is a fiscal one. Reading Borough Council has had to find nearly \u00a313 million in savings and efficiencies over the last three years, largely driven by the rising cost of essential services.\nThe economic \"knock-on\" is clear: when residents spend 40% or more of their income on rent, local spending in Reading\u2019s retail and hospitality sectors suffers. Furthermore, the high cost of housing makes it difficult for essential workers\u2014nurses, teachers, and bus drivers\u2014to live within the borough, leading to recruitment crises in public services.\nPolitical Choices\nWith homeless people dying on our high street, the far right fearmongering and the cost or renting continuing to rise, the three main parties in Reading are offering distinct visions for the future of social housing.\nThe Labour Administration\nLabour highlights its track record of building the first new council houses in a generation. Their platform focuses on \"fairer communities,\" arguing that despite national headwinds and RTB, they are the only party with a proven delivery model. They are lobbying the national government for a complete overhaul of RTB rules to allow councils to retain 100% of receipts for rebuilding.\nThe Green Party\nHaving seen significant gains in recent years, the Greens argue that the current pace of building is insufficient. They point to the net loss of social stock as evidence of a failed strategy. Their 2026 manifesto calls for a \"moratorium on council house sales\" and a more aggressive use of Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) on empty long-term properties and derelict offices.\nThe Liberal Democrats and Conservatives\nThe Liberal Democrats have focused heavily on the private rental market, calling for better protections for tenants to prevent them from needing social housing in the first place.\u00a0\nThe Conservatives, meanwhile, emphasize the role of the private sector and housing associations, arguing that the Council should focus on \"enabling\" rather than being the primary builder, while supporting the aspiration of homeownership through shared equity schemes.\n\u00a0\nA Difficult Future\nReading is a town of immense potential, but that potential is being throttled by a housing market that no longer serves a large portion of its population. The social housing crisis is the thread that connects homelessness, council insolvency, and economic stagnation. Having homeless people die on our streets cannot make anyone feel good about their town.\n\u00a0", "summary": "As Reading's skyline boasts cranes, a stark contrast emerges between its thriving tech sector and a deepening housing crisis. With over 3,000 households on the social housing register, the Labour party faces significant electoral challenges ahead of the May 2026 local elections.", "date_published": "2026-03-24T13:53:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:09.754311+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/2c9e9b9e.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/2c9e9b9e.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Whatever Happened To Social Housing ?", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 3303, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "As the May 2026 local elections approach, the silhouette of cranes across the Reading skyline tells a story of two towns. One is a thriving technology and logistics hub, buoyed by its proximity to London and the Elizabeth Line with PepsiCo moving its HQ into the town centre and pharma giant Sanofi taking up residence in Thames Valley Park; the other is a community grappling with an increasingly untenable housing crisis where a homeless person fell seriously ill in a tent on Broad Street and died shortly afterwards in hospital.\u00a0
\nIt's not surprising then that for many residents the primary metric of the town\u2019s success is not its GDP, but the length of the housing register and the visibility of those without their own front door - and this may spell electoral problems for the majority Labour party that has long controlled the town, come the forthcoming elections.
\nSocial housing, which became viewed as a right for many Brits after the Second World War until its provision was dismantled by Margaret Thatcher, is currently at the center of a political and economic storm in Reading.
\nTo many, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are seen as a reason for the lack of public housing - a position being milked by the far right - who ironically have no plans at all to build any more social housing. But asylum seekers actually have no right to social housing. The problem isn't immigrants, it's the far right policies implemented by Thatcher and perpetuated by Blair and then thirteen years of subsequent Conservative rule. And it looks like our current Labour regime isn't going to make any difference as they run scared from the far right.\u00a0
With ever rising rents, thousands of households in limbo, and the Council facing unprecedented financial strain, the reality is that Reading needs around a substantial programme of social house building.
\nThe Labour ruling party on Reading Borough Council is being slated for only completing 11 council homes during 2025, and due to 'right to buy', our town probably lost social homes. And their disasterous dismantling of Housing for Reading, which threw another 400 people onto the housing market was a further debacle.
\nRob White, leader of the Greens was highly critical:
\n\"I am deeply worried about affordable housing in Reading. New figures show that Reading Borough Council missed its own target by a huge margin. Last year, only 11 affordable homes were delivered, when the target was 169. That is not a small slip. It is a serious failure.\"
\nLabour leader Liz Terry responded by pointing to more recent developments:
\n\"I was lucky to be at the Wensley Road estate in Coley last week to celebrate the official opening of 46 new homes. It is a particularly special project because all households moving in to them are from Reading\u2019s Wensley Road community.
\n\"We\u2019ve created two 4-bed houses, 26 3-bed houses, two 1-bed and two 2-bed wheelchair accessible ground floor flats, six 1-bed flats and eight 2-bed flats. Many are already occupied with the remainder allocated and soon to be filled. They form part of a wider estate improvement project, which has seen a new play park opened, new landscaping including additional pathways, and new parking spaces and roads.\"
\nBut the actual scale of the challenge is best understood through the Council\u2019s housing register. As of early 2026, the registered list of those waiting for a social home was over 3,000 households, possibly representing as many as 10,000 people. Despite the Council\u2019s efforts to prioritize those in the most urgent need, the reality is that less than 10% of those on the register are housed in any given year.
\nThis bottleneck has direct consequences for homelessness. Reading\u2019s rough sleeping rates have historically been among the highest in the South East. In 2025, official counts estimated approximately 46 people sleeping rough per 100,000 - this may sound low, but it is a rate significantly higher than the regional average. From View Island, to Kenavon Drive and the Thames towpath, you will find people living in tents and boats that should be condemned.
But the homeless woman in her fifties who recently died was living in a tent in a Broad Street bus shelter in Reading, opposite HSBC. Most Reading residents probably walked past her 'home' without a thought.
And beyond the visible rough sleeping and waiting lists for social housing, a hidden and massively expensive homelessness crisis is\u00a0 temporary accommodation.
The Temporary Accommodation Crisis
\nAccording to the latest data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) approximately 387 to 400 households were living in temporary accommodation in Reading in mid-2025.
\n\u200bThis represents a nearly 20% increase compared to the same period in 2024, with the number of families with children in temporary accommodation rose significantly, with a 33% increase (an additional 75 households) recorded between 2024 and 2025. (It should be noted that asylum seekers are totally outside this model. They may be housed in the borough but are paid for by the Home Office and have no rights to council accommodation.)
\nA complicating factor in Reading's data is the use of the town by other councils for their homeless population. For example, in 2024/25, Oxford City Council placed 34 of its own homeless households in temporary accommodation within Reading because they ran out of space in Oxford. These people are living in Reading, but they are technically counted in Oxford's homelessness statistics, not Reading's, and are paid for by Reading, although all liabilities apart from housing fall locally.
Supply vs. Right to Buy
\nTo be fair, Reading Borough Council has not been totally idle. Under its current Council Plan (2025\u20132028), the administration has committed to delivering over 300 new council homes. But the count of eleven new homes in the past financial year is a scandal that has spured them into some action with the opening of those 46 new homes on the Wensley Road estate and the acquisition of properties on Dwyer Road.
\nHowever, a \"leaky bucket\" effect persists thanks to right to buy and restrictions on further building by councils. For every new home built, others are lost through the Right to Buy (RTB) scheme. Recent data indicated that between 2021 and 2023, the total stock of council homes in Reading actually decreased slightly, despite the council's building program.
\nAs of early 2026, Reading Borough Council manages approximately 5,800 to 5,900 homes. To put this in perspective, in 1979, roughly 30% of Reading's housing stock was council-owned. \u200bBy 2025, that figure has dropped to approximately 15%.
So why does the council simply not build more houses when it can afford to buy office buildings as an investment - Reading Borough Council purchased Kennet Wharf on Queen's Road, the European home of Visa, for \u00a320.1 million in February 2018 as part of a commercial investment strategy, for example.
\nWell, In the post-war decades, building council houses wasn't just a policy; it was a national mission. Today, while the spirit might be willing, the financial and legislative machinery is far less amenable.
\nThe biggest shift since was the 1980 Housing Act. It introduced \"Right to Buy,\" which has seen over 1.5 million council homes sold into private hands.For decades, councils were forced to sell homes at massive discounts and were legally blocked from keeping all the proceeds to build new ones. Most of that money went back to the Treasury to pay down national debt. Thank you, Margaret.
\nWhile the government recently allowed councils to keep 100% of receipts and reduced the discounts, the \"yo-yo\" effect remains. Councils are currently spending millions buying back the same houses they were forced to sell decades ago\u2014often at 5-6 times the original price.
\nIn the 50s and 60s, the government essentially wrote a blank cheque for housing. Today, councils operate under the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), a ring-fenced \"business\" that must balance its own books. Even though the \"debt cap\" was removed in 2018, councils are still limited by what they can afford to pay back. High interest rates in 2025\u20132026 mean that borrowing from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) is expensive.
\nTo keep social housing affordable, the government often caps how much rent councils can charge (currently pegged agains the Consumer Price Index). This is great for tenants, but it limits the \"profit\" councils need to reinvest in new bricks and mortar.
\nIn the past councils had massive powers to buy land cheaply through Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs), but today they have to compete with commercial developer. Until very recently, if a council wanted to buy a field for housing, they had to pay the \"hope value\"\u2014what the land might be worth if it had luxury flats on it. This made land prohibitively expensive. In Reading land is very expensive and swathes of the town, such as the area to the west of Katesgrove and Kennet Island being restricted from development by age old nuclear safety regulations.
\nWe are only just seeing the impact of the 2024\u20132025 reforms that allow councils to ignore \"hope value\" for social housing. However, legal battles with landowners are still slowing this down.
\nIn the 1960s, you could \"throw up\" a tower block with minimal insulation or safety tech. Today, councils face a mountain of regulatory costs and restrictions - even commercial developmetns have ground to a halt thanks to the consequences of legislation introduced to prevent another Grenfell Tower disaster. The requirement for a second staircase in high rise blocks and the introduction of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), which has become a massive bottleneck in areas like London, resulting in almost all commercial property development grinding to a halt in the capital.
\nCouncils are legally required to fix damp, mould, and safety issues in existing stock within strict timelines and new homes must now be nearly zero-carbon. This adds roughly 15\u201320% to the cost of every single house compared to just a few years ago.
\nFinally, and perhaps most ironically, the UK has a massive skills shortage in the building sector after Brexit.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Rise Of Housing Associations
\nWhile the Borough Council is the most visible provider of low-cost housing, it does not act alone. Housing Associations -officially known as Private Registered Providers (PRPs) - form the \"third pillar\" of Reading\u2019s housing canopy. Currently, these non-profit organizations manage a portfolio in Reading that nearly matches the Council\u2019s own stock, with over 5,500 units across the borough.
\nThe landscape in Reading is a patchwork of large-scale regional providers and specialist local groups. A2Dominion and Housing Solutions are among the largest, managing significant estates and modern apartment blocks. Meanwhile, organizations like Launchpad Reading provide supported housing specifically for those transitioning out of homelessness.
\nA major point of contention UK wide is the distinction between \"Social\" and \"Affordable\" rent levels. Social Rent, typically charged by the Council and some older association tenancies, this is set at approximately 50% of local market rates whilst affordable rent is the model adopted by most housing associations where rents can be set at up to 80% of the market rate.
\nIn a high-demand town like Reading, where private rents have surged, even an \"affordable\" 80% rate can put significant pressure on low-income families who do not qualify for full housing benefits.
\nDespite being separate entities, the Council and Associations operate a unified system. To ensure fairness, Reading uses a 'Common Housing Register'. When a Housing Association property in the town becomes vacant, the Council usually holds \"nomination rights\" for 75% to 100% of those lets. This means that regardless of who owns the brick and mortar, the Council\u2019s waiting list remains the single point of entry for those in need.
\nAnd housing associations are not exempt from the political debates surrounding the \"leaky bucket\" of social stock. While Council tenants have the Right to Buy, most Housing Association tenants have a similar, though slightly different 'Right to Acquire'.
\nSection 106 agreements place a legal requirements on private developers\u2014such as those building the high-rise apartments near Reading Station\u2014to provide a percentage of homes to housing associations. These quotas are often negotiated down by developers, or replaced with financial contributions elsewhere.
\nWhile the Council remains the single largest landlord, several Housing Associations manage thousands of properties across Reading.\u00a0
\nHousing associations have merged and now often operate across multiple local authorities, but their presence in Reading is significant enough to shape entire neighborhoods like Coley, Whitley, and Tilehurst. Here are the largest in out town:
\nA2Dominion ~1,500+ properties . One of the largest regional providers. Significant presence in central Reading and managed \"Retirement Living\" schemes like Cornerstones in Tilehurst.
\nSouthern Housing ~1,200+ properties. Formed from the merger of Optivo and Southern Housing Group. They manage a mix of social rent and shared ownership across the South East, with a major hub in Theale/Reading including Livonia View between the river and railway line in east Reading.
\nHousing Solutions ~800+ properties. Focuses heavily on the Berkshire area. They manage diverse stock across Reading, including key worker and family housing.
\nStonewater ~600+ properties. A major national provider with a strong local footprint, particularly in retirement living (e.g., Raglan Court) and general needs housing.
\nAbri ~400+ properties. Formerly Radian/Yarlington. They are increasingly active in new-build \"affordable\" developments on brownfield sites around the town
\nAffinity Housing ~350+ properties. Often works in direct partnership with the Council on specific PFI (Private Finance Initiative) contracts, particularly in North Whitley.
\nThe sheer volume of Association-owned property means that the housing issues faced by Reading cannot be solved by the Council alone. The Council has nomination rights to the vast majority of these housing association properties' vacancies, so this directly impacts how fast the 3,000-person waiting list moves.
\nRecent governments have spent a lot of legislative time regulating private landlords, but a key political issue now is social landlord accountability. Service charges have been increasing well above the rate of inflation and there is an increasing call for stricter local oversight of housing associations, following resident complaints regarding costs, repair delays and the handling of serious issues such as damp and mold in older blocks.
\nThis said, smaller associations like Launchpad Reading and Abbeyfield are essential for supported housing in our town Without them, the Council would face even higher costs in providing specialized care for the elderly or those recovering from homelessness.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Economic Impact: A Council on the Edge
\nThe housing crisis is not just a social issue; it is a fiscal one. Reading Borough Council has had to find nearly \u00a313 million in savings and efficiencies over the last three years, largely driven by the rising cost of essential services.
\nThe economic \"knock-on\" is clear: when residents spend 40% or more of their income on rent, local spending in Reading\u2019s retail and hospitality sectors suffers. Furthermore, the high cost of housing makes it difficult for essential workers\u2014nurses, teachers, and bus drivers\u2014to live within the borough, leading to recruitment crises in public services.
Political Choices
\nWith homeless people dying on our high street, the far right fearmongering and the cost or renting continuing to rise, the three main parties in Reading are offering distinct visions for the future of social housing.
\nThe Labour Administration
\nLabour highlights its track record of building the first new council houses in a generation. Their platform focuses on \"fairer communities,\" arguing that despite national headwinds and RTB, they are the only party with a proven delivery model. They are lobbying the national government for a complete overhaul of RTB rules to allow councils to retain 100% of receipts for rebuilding.
\nThe Green Party
\nHaving seen significant gains in recent years, the Greens argue that the current pace of building is insufficient. They point to the net loss of social stock as evidence of a failed strategy. Their 2026 manifesto calls for a \"moratorium on council house sales\" and a more aggressive use of Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) on empty long-term properties and derelict offices.
\nThe Liberal Democrats and Conservatives
\nThe Liberal Democrats have focused heavily on the private rental market, calling for better protections for tenants to prevent them from needing social housing in the first place.\u00a0
\nThe Conservatives, meanwhile, emphasize the role of the private sector and housing associations, arguing that the Council should focus on \"enabling\" rather than being the primary builder, while supporting the aspiration of homeownership through shared equity schemes.
\n\u00a0
\nA Difficult Future
\nReading is a town of immense potential, but that potential is being throttled by a housing market that no longer serves a large portion of its population. The social housing crisis is the thread that connects homelessness, council insolvency, and economic stagnation. Having homeless people die on our streets cannot make anyone feel good about their town.
\n\u00a0
", "description": "As Reading's skyline boasts cranes, a stark contrast emerges between its thriving tech sector and a deepening housing crisis. With over 3,000 households on the social housing register, the Labour party faces significant electoral challenges ahead of the May 2026 local elections.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:09.754311+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-03-24T13:53:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/whatever-happened-to-social-housing/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "314", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-reading-banking-scandal-greed-fraud-and-the-fight-for-justice/", "title": "The Reading Banking Scandal: Greed, Fraud, and the Fight for Justice", "content_html": "As the last bank in Woodley closes, for most ordinary people in Reading, the banking scandal is the lack of basic banking provision in the town, but a much bigger scandal has played out in Resding during first decades of this new millennium.
\r\nOn the surface, it appeared to be a standard provincial banking hub. But behind the glass of the HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland) branch in Reading, a criminal enterprise was flourishing—one that would eventually cost Lloyds Banking Group hundreds of millions in compensation and destroy the lives of scores of entrepreneurs.
\r\nThis is the story of the HBOS Reading scandal: a decade-long saga of rapacious greed, corporate cover-ups, and a celebrity’s fight for justice that brought one of Britain’s largest financial institutions to its knees.
\r\nThe \"Devil\" and the Banker: 2003–2007
\r\nThe fraud centered on the bank’s Impaired Assets Office, a unit ostensibly designed to help struggling businesses get back on their feet. At its helm was Lynden Scourfield, a senior manager with the power to approve loans and dictate the fate of small companies.
\r\nRather than providing lifeboats, Scourfield was pushing businesses into the abyss. He formed a corrupt alliance with David Mills, a turnaround consultant whom a judge would later describe as the \"devil\" to whom Scourfield \"sold his soul.\"
\r\nThe Pattern of Exploitation:
\r\n* The Referral: Scourfield would force struggling business owners to use Mills’ consultancy, Quayside Corporate Services.
\r\n* The Debt Trap: Under the guise of \"rescue,\" Scourfield would authorize massive, inappropriate loans to these businesses.
\r\n* The Siphon: Mills and his associates would then charge the businesses exorbitant fees, effectively stripping their assets and siphoning the bank's money into their own pockets.
\r\n* The Collapse: When the businesses inevitably failed under the weight of the debt and fees, the owners were left bankrupt, while the fraudsters moved on to the next victim.
\r\nWhile businesses collapsed, the perpetrators lived a life of staggering excess. The court heard how the group squandered the £245 million scam on superyachts, luxury holidays in Barbados, and high-end prostitutes.
\r\nThe Famous Victim: Noel Edmonds
\r\nAmong the hundreds of lives ruined was that of TV presenter Noel Edmonds. In 2005, his business, Unique Group, was thriving until it crossed paths with the Reading branch.
\r\nEdmonds alleged that his business was systematically destroyed by the fraud. He later revealed the dark toll the scandal took on his mental health, admitting he considered taking his own life in 2005.
\r\n> \"I am disappointed but not surprised that the pledge by [Lloyds] to compensate me and the other fraud victims swiftly, appropriately and fairly has not been honoured,\" Edmonds stated during his years-long battle.
\r\n>
\r\nHe became the public face of the victims, launching a relentless campaign against Lloyds (which acquired HBOS in 2009). He even set up a \"countdown clock\" for compensation and threatened a £300 million lawsuit.
\r\nThe Cover-Up and the \"Project Lord Turnbull\"
\r\nThe scandal is not just about the fraud itself, but the years of silence that followed. Although whistleblowers like Paul and Nikki Turner began raising alarms as early as 2006, the bank repeatedly dismissed their claims.
\r\nIn 2013, a senior risk officer at Lloyds, Sally Masterton, produced the \"Project Lord Turnbull\" report. It was a bombshell document alleging that the bank had known about the fraud for years and had actively sought to conceal it from shareholders and regulators. For her honesty, Masterton was initially pushed out of the bank (though she later received an apology and settlement).
\r\nJustice and the Aftermath
\r\nThe criminal trial finally concluded in 2017. Six individuals were sentenced to a total of 47 years in prison.
\r\n* Lynden Scourfield: 11 years and 3 months.
\r\n* David Mills: 15 years.
\r\n* Mark Dobson (HBOS Manager): 4.5 years.
\r\nJudge Martin Beddoe’s sentencing remarks were scathing:
\r\n> \"You got your tentacles into the businesses of ordinary and honest people and ripped them apart without a thought for those affected.\"
\r\n>
\r\nThe Long Road to Redress
\r\nFollowing the convictions, Lloyds was forced to establish the Griggs Review to compensate victims. However, the process was widely criticized as \"flawed\" and \"minimalist.\" It took a second independent review by Sir Ross Cranston in 2019 to conclude that the bank’s initial compensation scheme had \"serious shortcomings.\"
\r\nIn 2019, Noel Edmonds reached a confidential settlement with Lloyds, reportedly worth £5 million, though he had originally sought much more. To date, Lloyds has set aside over £600 million to deal with the fallout of the Reading branch—a staggering price for a fraud that the bank spent a decade trying to ignore.
\r\nInteractive Next Step
\r\nThe Dobbs Review into whether Lloyds executives covered up the fraud is one of the longest-running inquiries in UK banking history. Would you like me to look into the current status of the Dobbs Review or provide a timeline of the whistleblowers' journey?
\r\nThe saga of HBOS Reading has shifted from a criminal investigation into a battle over corporate accountability. As of 2026, the primary focus remains the elusive Dobbs Review, which has now become a scandal in its own right due to its extraordinary duration.
\r\nHere is the update on the current status and the key figures who refused to stay silent.
\r\n1. The Dobbs Review: A Decade in the Making
\r\nLaunched in April 2017, the review led by Dame Linda Dobbs was commissioned to determine if Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) executives covered up the fraud or failed to report it to the authorities.
\r\n* Current Status (2026): The review is still not fully public. In late 2025, Dame Linda reported that evidence gathering was \"all but complete,\" but the process of \"Maxwellisation\"—allowing individuals criticized in the report to respond before publication—is ongoing.
\r\n* The Delay: Originally expected to take \"a matter of months,\" the review is now in its ninth year. Dame Linda has cited \"unexpected obstacles\" and the massive volume of documents (hundreds of thousands) as reasons for the delay.
\r\n* The Transparency Battle: Politicians and victim groups, such as the Transparency Task Force, are pressuring Lloyds to release the full, unredacted report. Lloyds has only committed to sharing the \"findings\" with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), leading to fears of a \"whitewashed\" public version.
\r\n2. The Whistleblowers: Paul and Nikki Turner
\r\nIf Lynden Scourfield and David Mills are the villains of this story, Paul and Nikki Turner are its heroes. Their persistence is the only reason the fraud was ever exposed.
\r\n| Year | Milestone in the Turners' Battle |
\r\n|---|---|
\r\n| 2003 | The Turners' music publishing business is targeted by the Reading branch. |
\r\n| 2007 | After their business is destroyed, they begin a private investigation, uncovering the link between Scourfield and Mills. |
\r\n| 2010 | They produce a \"dossier of evidence\" and present it to the police, who initially refuse to investigate. |
\r\n| 2011 | Their persistence forces the Thames Valley Police to launch \"Operation Hornet.\" |
\r\n| 2017 | They witness the convictions of the fraudsters they spent a decade tracking. |
\r\nThe Turners famously fought off 22 repossession attempts on their home by the bank. Even after the criminal trial, they remained critical of Lloyds, arguing that the bank’s compensation schemes (the Griggs and subsequent Foskett reviews) were designed to minimize payouts rather than provide true justice.
\r\n3. The \"Masterton Report\" and the Cover-Up Allegations
\r\nA central pillar of the current investigation is the work of Sally Masterton, a former senior risk officer.
\r\n* The Report: In 2013, she wrote a report (Project Lord Turnbull) alleging that HBOS knew about the Reading fraud as early as 2008—before Lloyds even bought the bank.
\r\n* The Fallout: Lloyds initially told the authorities the report was \"soured\" and \"unsubstantiated.\" Masterton was forced out of her job.
\r\n* Vindication: Years later, Lloyds was forced to apologize to her and admit her report was a \"good faith\" document that should have been taken seriously.
\r\n> \"The bank's culture was one of denial,\" Masterton’s supporters argue. \"They treated the whistleblowers as the problem, rather than the fraud itself.\"
\r\n>
\r\nThe Final Toll
\r\nAs of 2026, Lloyds has paid out an estimated £1.3 billion in compensation and costs related to the Reading scandal. However, for the victims who lost their homes, marriages, and health, the financial payout has never felt like a full settlement of the debt.
\r\nWould you like me to detail the specific criminal tactics used by David Mills (the \"Quayside\" model) or look into the current political pressure being applied to the FCA regarding the report?
\r\n\r\n
As the doors of the Lloyds Bank on Crockhamwell Road close for the final time in June 2026, Woodley marks the end of an era. For the first time in over 60 years, the town—once a bustling hub of financial activity—is left without a single dedicated bank branch.
\r\nThis transition from a \"bank on every corner\" to a \"banking desert\" is a story that stretches back nearly a millennium, from the shadow of the great Reading Abbey to the digital revolution of the 21st century.
\r\nThe Origins: Reading Abbey and the Royal Mint
\r\nLong before Woodley became a residential suburb, the financial life of the region was dictated by Reading Abbey, founded by Henry I in 1121. While we think of \"banking\" as modern, the Abbey functioned as the area's first financial powerhouse.
\r\n* The Power of the Mint: In 1125, King Henry I granted the Abbey the right to a mint and one moneyer. This meant that currency was physically struck within the Abbey walls, making Reading a primary site for the creation of wealth.
\r\n* A \"Bank\" for the Soul and Soil: The Abbey wasn't just religious; it was a massive landlord. It managed vast estates, collected \"tithes\" (taxes), and held complex financial jurisdictions over the town and its precincts.
\r\n* Monastic Credit: The monks often acted as informal bankers, providing safe storage for valuables and managing the capital generated by the local wool trade and agriculture.
\r\nThe Rise of Local Banking: The Simonds Era
\r\nFollowing the dissolution of the monasteries, banking became the province of local merchants. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Simonds family—famous for their brewery—essentially defined local banking in the Reading area.
\r\nIn 1781, William Blackall Simonds established the Simonds Reading Bank. For a century, this was the primary financial institution for local farmers and tradesmen in the Woodley and Earley area. Unlike the faceless corporations of today, these local banks issued their own private banknotes under license. If you were a Woodley farmer in 1820, your money didn't say \"Bank of England\"—it likely bore the name of a local businessman.
\r\nThe Simonds Bank eventually merged with Barclays in 1913, marking the transition from independent local banks to the \"Big Four\" national giants.
\r\nThe Peak: 1960s to 1990s
\r\nWoodley’s modern identity was forged in the 1960s with the development of the Crockhamwell Road precinct. This was the \"Golden Age\" of local banking.
\r\nBy 1995, Woodley reached its peak as a financial hub. The town centre was home to:
\r\n* 6 Major Banks: Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest, Midland (now HSBC), National Provincial, and Westminster (later NatWest).
\r\n* Thames Valley Trustee Savings Bank (TSB): A popular choice for local families.
\r\n* Building Societies: Including Nationwide, which remains the last financial institution standing today (though technically a building society, not a bank).
\r\nDuring this period, the focus was on community relationship banking. The bank manager was a local figurehead who knew small business owners by name, and the \"Saturday morning dash\" to the bank was a central part of Woodley’s social fabric.
\r\nThe Digital Sunset
\r\nThe decline began in the 2010s. Barclays closed its prominent precinct branch in August 2021, followed by NatWest in 2023. When Lloyds announced its closure for June 2026, it cited a staggering drop in footfall—with some branches seeing counter transactions fall by over 20% in just two years as residents moved to mobile apps.
\r\nWhat's Next for Woodley?
\r\nWith the loss of the final bank, Woodley is now at the heart of a national debate regarding Banking Hubs.
\r\n* The Campaign: Local residents and Wokingham Borough Council are currently petitioning LINK for a shared hub where staff from different banks visit on specific days.
\r\n* The Alternative: For now, the three Post Offices in the area (Crockhamwell Road, Brecon Road, and Wheelers Green) have become the de facto banks for those needing to deposit cash or cheques.
\r\nWhile the physical vaults are closing, the story of Woodley’s wealth continues—moving from the clink of the Abbey’s minted coins to the silent data packets of a smartphone.
\r\nWould you like me to help you draft a letter to your local MP or LINK to support the campaign for a Woodley Banking Hub?
", "content_text": "As the last bank in Woodley closes, for most ordinary people in Reading, the banking scandal is the lack of basic banking provision in the town, but a much bigger scandal has played out in Resding during first decades of this new millennium.\r\nOn the surface, it appeared to be a standard provincial banking hub. But behind the glass of the HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland) branch in Reading, a criminal enterprise was flourishing—one that would eventually cost Lloyds Banking Group hundreds of millions in compensation and destroy the lives of scores of entrepreneurs.\r\nThis is the story of the HBOS Reading scandal: a decade-long saga of rapacious greed, corporate cover-ups, and a celebrity’s fight for justice that brought one of Britain’s largest financial institutions to its knees.\r\nThe \"Devil\" and the Banker: 2003–2007\r\nThe fraud centered on the bank’s Impaired Assets Office, a unit ostensibly designed to help struggling businesses get back on their feet. At its helm was Lynden Scourfield, a senior manager with the power to approve loans and dictate the fate of small companies.\r\nRather than providing lifeboats, Scourfield was pushing businesses into the abyss. He formed a corrupt alliance with David Mills, a turnaround consultant whom a judge would later describe as the \"devil\" to whom Scourfield \"sold his soul.\"\r\nThe Pattern of Exploitation:\r\n * The Referral: Scourfield would force struggling business owners to use Mills’ consultancy, Quayside Corporate Services.\r\n * The Debt Trap: Under the guise of \"rescue,\" Scourfield would authorize massive, inappropriate loans to these businesses.\r\n * The Siphon: Mills and his associates would then charge the businesses exorbitant fees, effectively stripping their assets and siphoning the bank's money into their own pockets.\r\n * The Collapse: When the businesses inevitably failed under the weight of the debt and fees, the owners were left bankrupt, while the fraudsters moved on to the next victim.\r\nWhile businesses collapsed, the perpetrators lived a life of staggering excess. The court heard how the group squandered the £245 million scam on superyachts, luxury holidays in Barbados, and high-end prostitutes.\r\nThe Famous Victim: Noel Edmonds\r\nAmong the hundreds of lives ruined was that of TV presenter Noel Edmonds. In 2005, his business, Unique Group, was thriving until it crossed paths with the Reading branch.\r\nEdmonds alleged that his business was systematically destroyed by the fraud. He later revealed the dark toll the scandal took on his mental health, admitting he considered taking his own life in 2005.\r\n> \"I am disappointed but not surprised that the pledge by [Lloyds] to compensate me and the other fraud victims swiftly, appropriately and fairly has not been honoured,\" Edmonds stated during his years-long battle.\r\n> \r\nHe became the public face of the victims, launching a relentless campaign against Lloyds (which acquired HBOS in 2009). He even set up a \"countdown clock\" for compensation and threatened a £300 million lawsuit.\r\nThe Cover-Up and the \"Project Lord Turnbull\"\r\nThe scandal is not just about the fraud itself, but the years of silence that followed. Although whistleblowers like Paul and Nikki Turner began raising alarms as early as 2006, the bank repeatedly dismissed their claims.\r\nIn 2013, a senior risk officer at Lloyds, Sally Masterton, produced the \"Project Lord Turnbull\" report. It was a bombshell document alleging that the bank had known about the fraud for years and had actively sought to conceal it from shareholders and regulators. For her honesty, Masterton was initially pushed out of the bank (though she later received an apology and settlement).\r\nJustice and the Aftermath\r\nThe criminal trial finally concluded in 2017. Six individuals were sentenced to a total of 47 years in prison.\r\n * Lynden Scourfield: 11 years and 3 months.\r\n * David Mills: 15 years.\r\n * Mark Dobson (HBOS Manager): 4.5 years.\r\nJudge Martin Beddoe’s sentencing remarks were scathing:\r\n> \"You got your tentacles into the businesses of ordinary and honest people and ripped them apart without a thought for those affected.\"\r\n> \r\nThe Long Road to Redress\r\nFollowing the convictions, Lloyds was forced to establish the Griggs Review to compensate victims. However, the process was widely criticized as \"flawed\" and \"minimalist.\" It took a second independent review by Sir Ross Cranston in 2019 to conclude that the bank’s initial compensation scheme had \"serious shortcomings.\"\r\nIn 2019, Noel Edmonds reached a confidential settlement with Lloyds, reportedly worth £5 million, though he had originally sought much more. To date, Lloyds has set aside over £600 million to deal with the fallout of the Reading branch—a staggering price for a fraud that the bank spent a decade trying to ignore.\r\nInteractive Next Step\r\nThe Dobbs Review into whether Lloyds executives covered up the fraud is one of the longest-running inquiries in UK banking history. Would you like me to look into the current status of the Dobbs Review or provide a timeline of the whistleblowers' journey?\r\nThe saga of HBOS Reading has shifted from a criminal investigation into a battle over corporate accountability. As of 2026, the primary focus remains the elusive Dobbs Review, which has now become a scandal in its own right due to its extraordinary duration.\r\nHere is the update on the current status and the key figures who refused to stay silent.\r\n1. The Dobbs Review: A Decade in the Making\r\nLaunched in April 2017, the review led by Dame Linda Dobbs was commissioned to determine if Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) executives covered up the fraud or failed to report it to the authorities.\r\n * Current Status (2026): The review is still not fully public. In late 2025, Dame Linda reported that evidence gathering was \"all but complete,\" but the process of \"Maxwellisation\"—allowing individuals criticized in the report to respond before publication—is ongoing.\r\n * The Delay: Originally expected to take \"a matter of months,\" the review is now in its ninth year. Dame Linda has cited \"unexpected obstacles\" and the massive volume of documents (hundreds of thousands) as reasons for the delay.\r\n * The Transparency Battle: Politicians and victim groups, such as the Transparency Task Force, are pressuring Lloyds to release the full, unredacted report. Lloyds has only committed to sharing the \"findings\" with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), leading to fears of a \"whitewashed\" public version.\r\n2. The Whistleblowers: Paul and Nikki Turner\r\nIf Lynden Scourfield and David Mills are the villains of this story, Paul and Nikki Turner are its heroes. Their persistence is the only reason the fraud was ever exposed.\r\n| Year | Milestone in the Turners' Battle |\r\n|---|---|\r\n| 2003 | The Turners' music publishing business is targeted by the Reading branch. |\r\n| 2007 | After their business is destroyed, they begin a private investigation, uncovering the link between Scourfield and Mills. |\r\n| 2010 | They produce a \"dossier of evidence\" and present it to the police, who initially refuse to investigate. |\r\n| 2011 | Their persistence forces the Thames Valley Police to launch \"Operation Hornet.\" |\r\n| 2017 | They witness the convictions of the fraudsters they spent a decade tracking. |\r\nThe Turners famously fought off 22 repossession attempts on their home by the bank. Even after the criminal trial, they remained critical of Lloyds, arguing that the bank’s compensation schemes (the Griggs and subsequent Foskett reviews) were designed to minimize payouts rather than provide true justice.\r\n3. The \"Masterton Report\" and the Cover-Up Allegations\r\nA central pillar of the current investigation is the work of Sally Masterton, a former senior risk officer.\r\n * The Report: In 2013, she wrote a report (Project Lord Turnbull) alleging that HBOS knew about the Reading fraud as early as 2008—before Lloyds even bought the bank.\r\n * The Fallout: Lloyds initially told the authorities the report was \"soured\" and \"unsubstantiated.\" Masterton was forced out of her job.\r\n * Vindication: Years later, Lloyds was forced to apologize to her and admit her report was a \"good faith\" document that should have been taken seriously.\r\n> \"The bank's culture was one of denial,\" Masterton’s supporters argue. \"They treated the whistleblowers as the problem, rather than the fraud itself.\"\r\n> \r\nThe Final Toll\r\nAs of 2026, Lloyds has paid out an estimated £1.3 billion in compensation and costs related to the Reading scandal. However, for the victims who lost their homes, marriages, and health, the financial payout has never felt like a full settlement of the debt.\r\nWould you like me to detail the specific criminal tactics used by David Mills (the \"Quayside\" model) or look into the current political pressure being applied to the FCA regarding the report?\r\n \r\nAs the doors of the Lloyds Bank on Crockhamwell Road close for the final time in June 2026, Woodley marks the end of an era. For the first time in over 60 years, the town—once a bustling hub of financial activity—is left without a single dedicated bank branch.\r\nThis transition from a \"bank on every corner\" to a \"banking desert\" is a story that stretches back nearly a millennium, from the shadow of the great Reading Abbey to the digital revolution of the 21st century.\r\nThe Origins: Reading Abbey and the Royal Mint\r\nLong before Woodley became a residential suburb, the financial life of the region was dictated by Reading Abbey, founded by Henry I in 1121. While we think of \"banking\" as modern, the Abbey functioned as the area's first financial powerhouse.\r\n * The Power of the Mint: In 1125, King Henry I granted the Abbey the right to a mint and one moneyer. This meant that currency was physically struck within the Abbey walls, making Reading a primary site for the creation of wealth.\r\n * A \"Bank\" for the Soul and Soil: The Abbey wasn't just religious; it was a massive landlord. It managed vast estates, collected \"tithes\" (taxes), and held complex financial jurisdictions over the town and its precincts.\r\n * Monastic Credit: The monks often acted as informal bankers, providing safe storage for valuables and managing the capital generated by the local wool trade and agriculture.\r\nThe Rise of Local Banking: The Simonds Era\r\nFollowing the dissolution of the monasteries, banking became the province of local merchants. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Simonds family—famous for their brewery—essentially defined local banking in the Reading area.\r\nIn 1781, William Blackall Simonds established the Simonds Reading Bank. For a century, this was the primary financial institution for local farmers and tradesmen in the Woodley and Earley area. Unlike the faceless corporations of today, these local banks issued their own private banknotes under license. If you were a Woodley farmer in 1820, your money didn't say \"Bank of England\"—it likely bore the name of a local businessman.\r\nThe Simonds Bank eventually merged with Barclays in 1913, marking the transition from independent local banks to the \"Big Four\" national giants.\r\nThe Peak: 1960s to 1990s\r\nWoodley’s modern identity was forged in the 1960s with the development of the Crockhamwell Road precinct. This was the \"Golden Age\" of local banking.\r\nBy 1995, Woodley reached its peak as a financial hub. The town centre was home to:\r\n * 6 Major Banks: Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest, Midland (now HSBC), National Provincial, and Westminster (later NatWest).\r\n * Thames Valley Trustee Savings Bank (TSB): A popular choice for local families.\r\n * Building Societies: Including Nationwide, which remains the last financial institution standing today (though technically a building society, not a bank).\r\nDuring this period, the focus was on community relationship banking. The bank manager was a local figurehead who knew small business owners by name, and the \"Saturday morning dash\" to the bank was a central part of Woodley’s social fabric.\r\nThe Digital Sunset\r\nThe decline began in the 2010s. Barclays closed its prominent precinct branch in August 2021, followed by NatWest in 2023. When Lloyds announced its closure for June 2026, it cited a staggering drop in footfall—with some branches seeing counter transactions fall by over 20% in just two years as residents moved to mobile apps.\r\nWhat's Next for Woodley?\r\nWith the loss of the final bank, Woodley is now at the heart of a national debate regarding Banking Hubs.\r\n * The Campaign: Local residents and Wokingham Borough Council are currently petitioning LINK for a shared hub where staff from different banks visit on specific days.\r\n * The Alternative: For now, the three Post Offices in the area (Crockhamwell Road, Brecon Road, and Wheelers Green) have become the de facto banks for those needing to deposit cash or cheques.\r\nWhile the physical vaults are closing, the story of Woodley’s wealth continues—moving from the clink of the Abbey’s minted coins to the silent data packets of a smartphone.\r\nWould you like me to help you draft a letter to your local MP or LINK to support the campaign for a Woodley Banking Hub?", "summary": "Discover the shocking HBOS Reading scandal, a decade-long saga of corruption, corporate cover-ups, and ruined lives. Learn how a criminal enterprise within a major bank destroyed businesses and led to a celebrity's fight for justice.", "date_published": "2026-03-24T13:05:39.969028+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-03-24T13:06:47.590797+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/user13/2026/03/32e61b06.png", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "location": "Reading, UK", "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/user13/2026/03/32e61b06.png", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "The Reading Banking Scandal: Greed, Fraud, and the Fight for Justice", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 2467, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "As the last bank in Woodley closes, for most ordinary people in Reading, the banking scandal is the lack of basic banking provision in the town, but a much bigger scandal has played out in Resding during first decades of this new millennium.
\r\nOn the surface, it appeared to be a standard provincial banking hub. But behind the glass of the HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland) branch in Reading, a criminal enterprise was flourishing—one that would eventually cost Lloyds Banking Group hundreds of millions in compensation and destroy the lives of scores of entrepreneurs.
\r\nThis is the story of the HBOS Reading scandal: a decade-long saga of rapacious greed, corporate cover-ups, and a celebrity’s fight for justice that brought one of Britain’s largest financial institutions to its knees.
\r\nThe \"Devil\" and the Banker: 2003–2007
\r\nThe fraud centered on the bank’s Impaired Assets Office, a unit ostensibly designed to help struggling businesses get back on their feet. At its helm was Lynden Scourfield, a senior manager with the power to approve loans and dictate the fate of small companies.
\r\nRather than providing lifeboats, Scourfield was pushing businesses into the abyss. He formed a corrupt alliance with David Mills, a turnaround consultant whom a judge would later describe as the \"devil\" to whom Scourfield \"sold his soul.\"
\r\nThe Pattern of Exploitation:
\r\n* The Referral: Scourfield would force struggling business owners to use Mills’ consultancy, Quayside Corporate Services.
\r\n* The Debt Trap: Under the guise of \"rescue,\" Scourfield would authorize massive, inappropriate loans to these businesses.
\r\n* The Siphon: Mills and his associates would then charge the businesses exorbitant fees, effectively stripping their assets and siphoning the bank's money into their own pockets.
\r\n* The Collapse: When the businesses inevitably failed under the weight of the debt and fees, the owners were left bankrupt, while the fraudsters moved on to the next victim.
\r\nWhile businesses collapsed, the perpetrators lived a life of staggering excess. The court heard how the group squandered the £245 million scam on superyachts, luxury holidays in Barbados, and high-end prostitutes.
\r\nThe Famous Victim: Noel Edmonds
\r\nAmong the hundreds of lives ruined was that of TV presenter Noel Edmonds. In 2005, his business, Unique Group, was thriving until it crossed paths with the Reading branch.
\r\nEdmonds alleged that his business was systematically destroyed by the fraud. He later revealed the dark toll the scandal took on his mental health, admitting he considered taking his own life in 2005.
\r\n> \"I am disappointed but not surprised that the pledge by [Lloyds] to compensate me and the other fraud victims swiftly, appropriately and fairly has not been honoured,\" Edmonds stated during his years-long battle.
\r\n>
\r\nHe became the public face of the victims, launching a relentless campaign against Lloyds (which acquired HBOS in 2009). He even set up a \"countdown clock\" for compensation and threatened a £300 million lawsuit.
\r\nThe Cover-Up and the \"Project Lord Turnbull\"
\r\nThe scandal is not just about the fraud itself, but the years of silence that followed. Although whistleblowers like Paul and Nikki Turner began raising alarms as early as 2006, the bank repeatedly dismissed their claims.
\r\nIn 2013, a senior risk officer at Lloyds, Sally Masterton, produced the \"Project Lord Turnbull\" report. It was a bombshell document alleging that the bank had known about the fraud for years and had actively sought to conceal it from shareholders and regulators. For her honesty, Masterton was initially pushed out of the bank (though she later received an apology and settlement).
\r\nJustice and the Aftermath
\r\nThe criminal trial finally concluded in 2017. Six individuals were sentenced to a total of 47 years in prison.
\r\n* Lynden Scourfield: 11 years and 3 months.
\r\n* David Mills: 15 years.
\r\n* Mark Dobson (HBOS Manager): 4.5 years.
\r\nJudge Martin Beddoe’s sentencing remarks were scathing:
\r\n> \"You got your tentacles into the businesses of ordinary and honest people and ripped them apart without a thought for those affected.\"
\r\n>
\r\nThe Long Road to Redress
\r\nFollowing the convictions, Lloyds was forced to establish the Griggs Review to compensate victims. However, the process was widely criticized as \"flawed\" and \"minimalist.\" It took a second independent review by Sir Ross Cranston in 2019 to conclude that the bank’s initial compensation scheme had \"serious shortcomings.\"
\r\nIn 2019, Noel Edmonds reached a confidential settlement with Lloyds, reportedly worth £5 million, though he had originally sought much more. To date, Lloyds has set aside over £600 million to deal with the fallout of the Reading branch—a staggering price for a fraud that the bank spent a decade trying to ignore.
\r\nInteractive Next Step
\r\nThe Dobbs Review into whether Lloyds executives covered up the fraud is one of the longest-running inquiries in UK banking history. Would you like me to look into the current status of the Dobbs Review or provide a timeline of the whistleblowers' journey?
\r\nThe saga of HBOS Reading has shifted from a criminal investigation into a battle over corporate accountability. As of 2026, the primary focus remains the elusive Dobbs Review, which has now become a scandal in its own right due to its extraordinary duration.
\r\nHere is the update on the current status and the key figures who refused to stay silent.
\r\n1. The Dobbs Review: A Decade in the Making
\r\nLaunched in April 2017, the review led by Dame Linda Dobbs was commissioned to determine if Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) executives covered up the fraud or failed to report it to the authorities.
\r\n* Current Status (2026): The review is still not fully public. In late 2025, Dame Linda reported that evidence gathering was \"all but complete,\" but the process of \"Maxwellisation\"—allowing individuals criticized in the report to respond before publication—is ongoing.
\r\n* The Delay: Originally expected to take \"a matter of months,\" the review is now in its ninth year. Dame Linda has cited \"unexpected obstacles\" and the massive volume of documents (hundreds of thousands) as reasons for the delay.
\r\n* The Transparency Battle: Politicians and victim groups, such as the Transparency Task Force, are pressuring Lloyds to release the full, unredacted report. Lloyds has only committed to sharing the \"findings\" with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), leading to fears of a \"whitewashed\" public version.
\r\n2. The Whistleblowers: Paul and Nikki Turner
\r\nIf Lynden Scourfield and David Mills are the villains of this story, Paul and Nikki Turner are its heroes. Their persistence is the only reason the fraud was ever exposed.
\r\n| Year | Milestone in the Turners' Battle |
\r\n|---|---|
\r\n| 2003 | The Turners' music publishing business is targeted by the Reading branch. |
\r\n| 2007 | After their business is destroyed, they begin a private investigation, uncovering the link between Scourfield and Mills. |
\r\n| 2010 | They produce a \"dossier of evidence\" and present it to the police, who initially refuse to investigate. |
\r\n| 2011 | Their persistence forces the Thames Valley Police to launch \"Operation Hornet.\" |
\r\n| 2017 | They witness the convictions of the fraudsters they spent a decade tracking. |
\r\nThe Turners famously fought off 22 repossession attempts on their home by the bank. Even after the criminal trial, they remained critical of Lloyds, arguing that the bank’s compensation schemes (the Griggs and subsequent Foskett reviews) were designed to minimize payouts rather than provide true justice.
\r\n3. The \"Masterton Report\" and the Cover-Up Allegations
\r\nA central pillar of the current investigation is the work of Sally Masterton, a former senior risk officer.
\r\n* The Report: In 2013, she wrote a report (Project Lord Turnbull) alleging that HBOS knew about the Reading fraud as early as 2008—before Lloyds even bought the bank.
\r\n* The Fallout: Lloyds initially told the authorities the report was \"soured\" and \"unsubstantiated.\" Masterton was forced out of her job.
\r\n* Vindication: Years later, Lloyds was forced to apologize to her and admit her report was a \"good faith\" document that should have been taken seriously.
\r\n> \"The bank's culture was one of denial,\" Masterton’s supporters argue. \"They treated the whistleblowers as the problem, rather than the fraud itself.\"
\r\n>
\r\nThe Final Toll
\r\nAs of 2026, Lloyds has paid out an estimated £1.3 billion in compensation and costs related to the Reading scandal. However, for the victims who lost their homes, marriages, and health, the financial payout has never felt like a full settlement of the debt.
\r\nWould you like me to detail the specific criminal tactics used by David Mills (the \"Quayside\" model) or look into the current political pressure being applied to the FCA regarding the report?
\r\n\r\n
As the doors of the Lloyds Bank on Crockhamwell Road close for the final time in June 2026, Woodley marks the end of an era. For the first time in over 60 years, the town—once a bustling hub of financial activity—is left without a single dedicated bank branch.
\r\nThis transition from a \"bank on every corner\" to a \"banking desert\" is a story that stretches back nearly a millennium, from the shadow of the great Reading Abbey to the digital revolution of the 21st century.
\r\nThe Origins: Reading Abbey and the Royal Mint
\r\nLong before Woodley became a residential suburb, the financial life of the region was dictated by Reading Abbey, founded by Henry I in 1121. While we think of \"banking\" as modern, the Abbey functioned as the area's first financial powerhouse.
\r\n* The Power of the Mint: In 1125, King Henry I granted the Abbey the right to a mint and one moneyer. This meant that currency was physically struck within the Abbey walls, making Reading a primary site for the creation of wealth.
\r\n* A \"Bank\" for the Soul and Soil: The Abbey wasn't just religious; it was a massive landlord. It managed vast estates, collected \"tithes\" (taxes), and held complex financial jurisdictions over the town and its precincts.
\r\n* Monastic Credit: The monks often acted as informal bankers, providing safe storage for valuables and managing the capital generated by the local wool trade and agriculture.
\r\nThe Rise of Local Banking: The Simonds Era
\r\nFollowing the dissolution of the monasteries, banking became the province of local merchants. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Simonds family—famous for their brewery—essentially defined local banking in the Reading area.
\r\nIn 1781, William Blackall Simonds established the Simonds Reading Bank. For a century, this was the primary financial institution for local farmers and tradesmen in the Woodley and Earley area. Unlike the faceless corporations of today, these local banks issued their own private banknotes under license. If you were a Woodley farmer in 1820, your money didn't say \"Bank of England\"—it likely bore the name of a local businessman.
\r\nThe Simonds Bank eventually merged with Barclays in 1913, marking the transition from independent local banks to the \"Big Four\" national giants.
\r\nThe Peak: 1960s to 1990s
\r\nWoodley’s modern identity was forged in the 1960s with the development of the Crockhamwell Road precinct. This was the \"Golden Age\" of local banking.
\r\nBy 1995, Woodley reached its peak as a financial hub. The town centre was home to:
\r\n* 6 Major Banks: Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest, Midland (now HSBC), National Provincial, and Westminster (later NatWest).
\r\n* Thames Valley Trustee Savings Bank (TSB): A popular choice for local families.
\r\n* Building Societies: Including Nationwide, which remains the last financial institution standing today (though technically a building society, not a bank).
\r\nDuring this period, the focus was on community relationship banking. The bank manager was a local figurehead who knew small business owners by name, and the \"Saturday morning dash\" to the bank was a central part of Woodley’s social fabric.
\r\nThe Digital Sunset
\r\nThe decline began in the 2010s. Barclays closed its prominent precinct branch in August 2021, followed by NatWest in 2023. When Lloyds announced its closure for June 2026, it cited a staggering drop in footfall—with some branches seeing counter transactions fall by over 20% in just two years as residents moved to mobile apps.
\r\nWhat's Next for Woodley?
\r\nWith the loss of the final bank, Woodley is now at the heart of a national debate regarding Banking Hubs.
\r\n* The Campaign: Local residents and Wokingham Borough Council are currently petitioning LINK for a shared hub where staff from different banks visit on specific days.
\r\n* The Alternative: For now, the three Post Offices in the area (Crockhamwell Road, Brecon Road, and Wheelers Green) have become the de facto banks for those needing to deposit cash or cheques.
\r\nWhile the physical vaults are closing, the story of Woodley’s wealth continues—moving from the clink of the Abbey’s minted coins to the silent data packets of a smartphone.
\r\nWould you like me to help you draft a letter to your local MP or LINK to support the campaign for a Woodley Banking Hub?
", "description": "Discover the shocking HBOS Reading scandal, a decade-long saga of corruption, corporate cover-ups, and ruined lives. Learn how a criminal enterprise within a major bank destroyed businesses and led to a celebrity's fight for justice.", "dateModified": "2026-03-24T13:06:47.590797+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-03-24T13:05:39.969028+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "contentLocation": { "name": "Reading, UK", "@type": "Place" }, "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/the-reading-banking-scandal-greed-fraud-and-the-fight-for-justice/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "430", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/reading-innovations/", "title": "Reading Innovations", "content_html": "This year marks the 100th anniversary of one of the town’s biggest employers and most important institutions: the University of Reading. This month we take a deep dive into the history and future of this institution.
\r\n
Every year since 17 March 1926, thousands of teenagers – and mature students – have made Reading their home for at least three years of study. The campus offers a wide range of degrees in disciplines that include art, agriculture, history, meteorology, computer science, chemistry, and typography. Its courses are renowned and its academics in demand when the media need expert voices.
The University has evolved, just as the town has. Courses, halls of residence, lecture halls, the library, and the students' union have all seen upgrades over the years. While many of the buildings, especially on the London Road campus, look the same on the outside, changing technology, times, and demands keep it relevant.
Staff at the University have always sought to ensure the students are part of the town’s life, after all many make Reading their home once their studies are over. This means that many residents will have their own memories of life on campus to share, whether it's their hall of residence, walking around Harris Gardens, graduation at the London Road campus, or taking part in sporting activities.
Throughout this year, several special events will be held to help the town celebrate the University's work and its role in Reading’s story over the past century. Last year, many alumni submitted their memories to help shape a new celebration that will go on display online and across the Whiteknights and London Road campuses. The trail of curated pictures has been organised by arts collective jelly and helps tell the story of many students’ happy memories.
One way to catch a glimpse of this is through special heritage tours the University is organising throughout the year. They will highlight historic campus buildings, beautiful green spaces, wartime history and generations of voices of the people who have studied, worked, and lived at the University, helping to inspire the institution to this day.
They run on different days and times, and cover different subjects, including the history of different parts of campus such as Foxhill House, Earley Gate, and the London Road base. There will also be focuses on the University’s RAG (raising and giving) parades – the climax of fundraising weeks – and the university’s role during wars.
Molli Cleaver, Community Engagement Manager at the University of Reading, said: \"Our Centenary is such a special occasion to connect with our local community. We really want everyone to be part of our celebrations.
“We know there is so much interest in the history of the University, our people and our campuses and buildings. The Centenary Heritage Tours are a unique opportunity to step into our rich history and learn more about the university on your doorstep.”
Places are free, but must be booked from Eventbrite. Some of the tours are run by Terry Dixon, and he requests a donation for Reading-area charities. https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/centenary-heritage-tours-4799755?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=creatorshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=odclsxcollection&utm-source=cp&aff=escb
The Museum of English Rural Life is also joining in with some centenary celebrations for the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Based on the London Road campus opposite the Royal Berkshire Hospital, MERL is an absolute unit when it comes to charting life in the country.
The exhibition highlights CPRE's major achievements over the past century, including the creation of England's national parks and green belts, campaigns to limit light pollution and litter, regulation of housing development, advocacy for local food production and more.
Dr Ollie Douglas, Curator of MERL Collections, said: \"This exhibition tells the story of one of the most influential conservation charities in England's history.
“For 100 years, CPRE has been at the forefront of protecting our countryside, from creating the national parks we still treasure today to fighting for dark skies and green spaces. We're proud to celebrate their centenary and show how grassroots campaigning has shaped the rural landscapes we all enjoy.\"
Alongside Voices of the Countryside, The MERL is launching Radical Rural, a trail through the museum's galleries highlighting additional movements, artists, and writers who champion rural England's people and places. The contents of the trail range from rural artworks and protest banners, to a costume of Old Crockern, the legendary folk spirit who protects Dartmoor.
The Voices of the Countryside exhibition and the Radical Rural trail both run until 24 May.
There are several other events in May.
The now annual Community Festival will be held on Whiteknights Campus on Saturday, 16 May. The free event features a range of activities for all ages including performances, tours, games and food.
A real blast from the past comes in the form of a RAG Parade. For more than 50 years, it was a highlight in the university’s calendar as students and the wider Reading population came together to raise funds for good causes. While most people will think of the RAG Mag – a collection of jokes and curiosities – and bed pushing, for others the parade will be what they recall.
For one day only, this parade is set to return, and the University is hoping that students, staff and alumni will put on an event that the Reading community will remember. It is set to take place on Sunday, 17 May.
A week later, the Whiteknights Campus is to become a theatre set for a specially commissioned promenade production that celebrates student life.
Sparks, Parks, Halls & Balls recreates the bustle of a 1950s common room, the energy and protest of the 1970s, and the unmistakable sounds of the 1990s – bringing past moments vividly into the present. The stage is the campus and as audiences walk through the site, they can encounter stories, memories and moments that reflect the lives of those who have studied, worked and gathered at Reading over the last hundred years.
The play is part of South Street Arts Centre's acclaimed SITELINES programme, which creates immersive theatre in unusual locations.
Professor Robert Van de Noort, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading, said: \"Our centenary is not just about marking a date in history. It is about recognising the people, ideas and everyday moments that have shaped this University over a century. This production will capture that spirit in a unique way.”
The project has been made possible by a grant from the University’s Centenary Fund, secured by Rachel Helsby, Head of the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor’s Office, who is also co-producing the production.
She said: “By working with SITELINES, we are inviting audiences to experience our campus in a new way, through stories rooted in real memories and real places. It is a celebration of community, creativity and the shared experiences that continue to define Reading.”
There will be six performances from Friday, 22 May, to Sunday, 24 May, and numbers are strictly limited. They can be booked via the Reading Arts website, https://whatsonreading.com/venues/sitelines/whats-on/sparks-parks-halls-balls
May’s celebration events come to an end on Saturday, 30 May with a special day of sporting action as alumni return to participate in a series of sporting matches against current students.
For more details on the events planned, log on to: https://www.reading.ac.uk/centenary/
", "content_text": "This year marks the 100th anniversary of one of the town’s biggest employers and most important institutions: the University of Reading. This month we take a deep dive into the history and future of this institution.\r\nEvery year since 17 March 1926, thousands of teenagers – and mature students – have made Reading their home for at least three years of study. The campus offers a wide range of degrees in disciplines that include art, agriculture, history, meteorology, computer science, chemistry, and typography. Its courses are renowned and its academics in demand when the media need expert voices. \r\nThe University has evolved, just as the town has. Courses, halls of residence, lecture halls, the library, and the students' union have all seen upgrades over the years. While many of the buildings, especially on the London Road campus, look the same on the outside, changing technology, times, and demands keep it relevant. \r\nStaff at the University have always sought to ensure the students are part of the town’s life, after all many make Reading their home once their studies are over. This means that many residents will have their own memories of life on campus to share, whether it's their hall of residence, walking around Harris Gardens, graduation at the London Road campus, or taking part in sporting activities.\r\nThroughout this year, several special events will be held to help the town celebrate the University's work and its role in Reading’s story over the past century. Last year, many alumni submitted their memories to help shape a new celebration that will go on display online and across the Whiteknights and London Road campuses. The trail of curated pictures has been organised by arts collective jelly and helps tell the story of many students’ happy memories. \r\nOne way to catch a glimpse of this is through special heritage tours the University is organising throughout the year. They will highlight historic campus buildings, beautiful green spaces, wartime history and generations of voices of the people who have studied, worked, and lived at the University, helping to inspire the institution to this day.\r\nThey run on different days and times, and cover different subjects, including the history of different parts of campus such as Foxhill House, Earley Gate, and the London Road base. There will also be focuses on the University’s RAG (raising and giving) parades – the climax of fundraising weeks – and the university’s role during wars. \r\nMolli Cleaver, Community Engagement Manager at the University of Reading, said: \"Our Centenary is such a special occasion to connect with our local community. We really want everyone to be part of our celebrations.\r\n“We know there is so much interest in the history of the University, our people and our campuses and buildings. The Centenary Heritage Tours are a unique opportunity to step into our rich history and learn more about the university on your doorstep.”\r\nPlaces are free, but must be booked from Eventbrite. Some of the tours are run by Terry Dixon, and he requests a donation for Reading-area charities. https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/centenary-heritage-tours-4799755?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=creatorshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=odclsxcollection&utm-source=cp&aff=escb\r\nThe Museum of English Rural Life is also joining in with some centenary celebrations for the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Based on the London Road campus opposite the Royal Berkshire Hospital, MERL is an absolute unit when it comes to charting life in the country. \r\nThe exhibition highlights CPRE's major achievements over the past century, including the creation of England's national parks and green belts, campaigns to limit light pollution and litter, regulation of housing development, advocacy for local food production and more.\r\nDr Ollie Douglas, Curator of MERL Collections, said: \"This exhibition tells the story of one of the most influential conservation charities in England's history. \r\n“For 100 years, CPRE has been at the forefront of protecting our countryside, from creating the national parks we still treasure today to fighting for dark skies and green spaces. We're proud to celebrate their centenary and show how grassroots campaigning has shaped the rural landscapes we all enjoy.\"\r\nAlongside Voices of the Countryside, The MERL is launching Radical Rural, a trail through the museum's galleries highlighting additional movements, artists, and writers who champion rural England's people and places. The contents of the trail range from rural artworks and protest banners, to a costume of Old Crockern, the legendary folk spirit who protects Dartmoor.\r\nThe Voices of the Countryside exhibition and the Radical Rural trail both run until 24 May.\r\nThere are several other events in May. \r\nThe now annual Community Festival will be held on Whiteknights Campus on Saturday, 16 May. The free event features a range of activities for all ages including performances, tours, games and food. \r\nA real blast from the past comes in the form of a RAG Parade. For more than 50 years, it was a highlight in the university’s calendar as students and the wider Reading population came together to raise funds for good causes. While most people will think of the RAG Mag – a collection of jokes and curiosities – and bed pushing, for others the parade will be what they recall. \r\nFor one day only, this parade is set to return, and the University is hoping that students, staff and alumni will put on an event that the Reading community will remember. It is set to take place on Sunday, 17 May. \r\nA week later, the Whiteknights Campus is to become a theatre set for a specially commissioned promenade production that celebrates student life. \r\nSparks, Parks, Halls & Balls recreates the bustle of a 1950s common room, the energy and protest of the 1970s, and the unmistakable sounds of the 1990s – bringing past moments vividly into the present. The stage is the campus and as audiences walk through the site, they can encounter stories, memories and moments that reflect the lives of those who have studied, worked and gathered at Reading over the last hundred years.\r\nThe play is part of South Street Arts Centre's acclaimed SITELINES programme, which creates immersive theatre in unusual locations. \r\nProfessor Robert Van de Noort, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading, said: \"Our centenary is not just about marking a date in history. It is about recognising the people, ideas and everyday moments that have shaped this University over a century. This production will capture that spirit in a unique way.”\r\nThe project has been made possible by a grant from the University’s Centenary Fund, secured by Rachel Helsby, Head of the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor’s Office, who is also co-producing the production.\r\nShe said: “By working with SITELINES, we are inviting audiences to experience our campus in a new way, through stories rooted in real memories and real places. It is a celebration of community, creativity and the shared experiences that continue to define Reading.”\r\nThere will be six performances from Friday, 22 May, to Sunday, 24 May, and numbers are strictly limited. They can be booked via the Reading Arts website, https://whatsonreading.com/venues/sitelines/whats-on/sparks-parks-halls-ballsMay’s celebration events come to an end on Saturday, 30 May with a special day of sporting action as alumni return to participate in a series of sporting matches against current students. \r\nFor more details on the events planned, log on to: https://www.reading.ac.uk/centenary/ \r\n ", "summary": "As the University of Reading marks its 100th anniversary, we explore its rich history, its evolving impact on the town, and how residents can join the centenary celebrations through exclusive heritage tours.", "date_published": "2026-03-01T10:30:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-27T10:31:17.582290+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/a8fd0c48.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/a8fd0c48.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Reading University At A Hundered", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1226, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
This year marks the 100th anniversary of one of the town’s biggest employers and most important institutions: the University of Reading. This month we take a deep dive into the history and future of this institution.
\r\n
Every year since 17 March 1926, thousands of teenagers – and mature students – have made Reading their home for at least three years of study. The campus offers a wide range of degrees in disciplines that include art, agriculture, history, meteorology, computer science, chemistry, and typography. Its courses are renowned and its academics in demand when the media need expert voices.
The University has evolved, just as the town has. Courses, halls of residence, lecture halls, the library, and the students' union have all seen upgrades over the years. While many of the buildings, especially on the London Road campus, look the same on the outside, changing technology, times, and demands keep it relevant.
Staff at the University have always sought to ensure the students are part of the town’s life, after all many make Reading their home once their studies are over. This means that many residents will have their own memories of life on campus to share, whether it's their hall of residence, walking around Harris Gardens, graduation at the London Road campus, or taking part in sporting activities.
Throughout this year, several special events will be held to help the town celebrate the University's work and its role in Reading’s story over the past century. Last year, many alumni submitted their memories to help shape a new celebration that will go on display online and across the Whiteknights and London Road campuses. The trail of curated pictures has been organised by arts collective jelly and helps tell the story of many students’ happy memories.
One way to catch a glimpse of this is through special heritage tours the University is organising throughout the year. They will highlight historic campus buildings, beautiful green spaces, wartime history and generations of voices of the people who have studied, worked, and lived at the University, helping to inspire the institution to this day.
They run on different days and times, and cover different subjects, including the history of different parts of campus such as Foxhill House, Earley Gate, and the London Road base. There will also be focuses on the University’s RAG (raising and giving) parades – the climax of fundraising weeks – and the university’s role during wars.
Molli Cleaver, Community Engagement Manager at the University of Reading, said: \"Our Centenary is such a special occasion to connect with our local community. We really want everyone to be part of our celebrations.
“We know there is so much interest in the history of the University, our people and our campuses and buildings. The Centenary Heritage Tours are a unique opportunity to step into our rich history and learn more about the university on your doorstep.”
Places are free, but must be booked from Eventbrite. Some of the tours are run by Terry Dixon, and he requests a donation for Reading-area charities. https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/centenary-heritage-tours-4799755?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=creatorshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=odclsxcollection&utm-source=cp&aff=escb
The Museum of English Rural Life is also joining in with some centenary celebrations for the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Based on the London Road campus opposite the Royal Berkshire Hospital, MERL is an absolute unit when it comes to charting life in the country.
The exhibition highlights CPRE's major achievements over the past century, including the creation of England's national parks and green belts, campaigns to limit light pollution and litter, regulation of housing development, advocacy for local food production and more.
Dr Ollie Douglas, Curator of MERL Collections, said: \"This exhibition tells the story of one of the most influential conservation charities in England's history.
“For 100 years, CPRE has been at the forefront of protecting our countryside, from creating the national parks we still treasure today to fighting for dark skies and green spaces. We're proud to celebrate their centenary and show how grassroots campaigning has shaped the rural landscapes we all enjoy.\"
Alongside Voices of the Countryside, The MERL is launching Radical Rural, a trail through the museum's galleries highlighting additional movements, artists, and writers who champion rural England's people and places. The contents of the trail range from rural artworks and protest banners, to a costume of Old Crockern, the legendary folk spirit who protects Dartmoor.
The Voices of the Countryside exhibition and the Radical Rural trail both run until 24 May.
There are several other events in May.
The now annual Community Festival will be held on Whiteknights Campus on Saturday, 16 May. The free event features a range of activities for all ages including performances, tours, games and food.
A real blast from the past comes in the form of a RAG Parade. For more than 50 years, it was a highlight in the university’s calendar as students and the wider Reading population came together to raise funds for good causes. While most people will think of the RAG Mag – a collection of jokes and curiosities – and bed pushing, for others the parade will be what they recall.
For one day only, this parade is set to return, and the University is hoping that students, staff and alumni will put on an event that the Reading community will remember. It is set to take place on Sunday, 17 May.
A week later, the Whiteknights Campus is to become a theatre set for a specially commissioned promenade production that celebrates student life.
Sparks, Parks, Halls & Balls recreates the bustle of a 1950s common room, the energy and protest of the 1970s, and the unmistakable sounds of the 1990s – bringing past moments vividly into the present. The stage is the campus and as audiences walk through the site, they can encounter stories, memories and moments that reflect the lives of those who have studied, worked and gathered at Reading over the last hundred years.
The play is part of South Street Arts Centre's acclaimed SITELINES programme, which creates immersive theatre in unusual locations.
Professor Robert Van de Noort, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading, said: \"Our centenary is not just about marking a date in history. It is about recognising the people, ideas and everyday moments that have shaped this University over a century. This production will capture that spirit in a unique way.”
The project has been made possible by a grant from the University’s Centenary Fund, secured by Rachel Helsby, Head of the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor’s Office, who is also co-producing the production.
She said: “By working with SITELINES, we are inviting audiences to experience our campus in a new way, through stories rooted in real memories and real places. It is a celebration of community, creativity and the shared experiences that continue to define Reading.”
There will be six performances from Friday, 22 May, to Sunday, 24 May, and numbers are strictly limited. They can be booked via the Reading Arts website, https://whatsonreading.com/venues/sitelines/whats-on/sparks-parks-halls-balls
May’s celebration events come to an end on Saturday, 30 May with a special day of sporting action as alumni return to participate in a series of sporting matches against current students.
For more details on the events planned, log on to: https://www.reading.ac.uk/centenary/
", "description": "As the University of Reading marks its 100th anniversary, we explore its rich history, its evolving impact on the town, and how residents can join the centenary celebrations through exclusive heritage tours.", "dateModified": "2026-05-27T10:31:17.582290+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-03-01T10:30:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/reading-university-at-a-hundered/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "326", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/reading-people-jacqueline-bisset/", "title": "Reading People - Jacqueline Bisset", "content_html": "
Winifred Jacqueline Fraser Bisset was born in Weybridge, in 1944, the daughter of George Maxwell Fraser Bisset, a GP, and Arlette Alexander, a lawyer-turned-housewife whose mother was of French and English descent and her father was Scottish descent. Bisset's mother cycled from Paris and boarded a British troopship to escape the Germans during the 1940 Battle of France.
\nBisset grew up in a 17th-century country cottage called Lane End in Westwood Row, Tilehurst, along with her older brother, Max, now a US based business consultant. \u00a0Her mother taught her to speak French fluently, and she was later educated at the Lyc\u00e9e Fran\u00e7ais de Londres in London. She took ballet lessons as a child and began taking acting lessons while working as a fashion model to pay for them. When Bisset was a teenager, her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and home life was described by her as \u2018chaotic\u2019. Bisset's parents divorced in 1968 after 28 years of marriage. During the height of her Hollywood career she regularly visited her mother in Tilehurst and \u00a0owned the cottage until recently when it was sold with building permission for an additional detached house in the grounds that caused some local consternation.
\nIn an interview in Bissett, described the cottage when she was a child as \"chaotic\", adding: \"Not one newspaper that came into the house ever left it.
\n\"There were masses of books everywhere and furniture enough for three homes. My brother and I were extremely upset by it - and have now turned into clean freaks.\"
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/a36c8cf328fb.jpeg\")
With her alluring looks, Hollywood noticed her quickly. The late 1960s were a period of transition: the studio system was weakening, youth culture was ascendant, and American cinema was tentatively allowing women to appear less polished and more real. Bisset, with her unforced glamour and faintly European bearing, fit the moment perfectly.
\nHer breakout roles\u2014The Sweet Ride (1968), Bullitt (1968), and Airport (1970)\u2014placed her squarely in the public eye. In Bullitt, she plays opposite Steve McQueen, and what lingers is not just her beauty but her calm. Where many actresses of the era projected need or seduction, Bisset projected self-possession.
\nYet Hollywood never quite knew what to do with her. She was too intelligent to be decorative, too sensuous to be academic, too independent to be reliably pliable. She worked constantly, but not feverishly; successfully, but not obsessively. Unlike many contemporaries, she did not build a persona around scandal, reinvention, or public confession. She remained, by design or instinct, slightly out of reach and very private, often returning to stay and look after her mum for months at a time at her childhood home.
\nBy the 1970s, Bisset had begun to drift\u2014purposefully\u2014toward Europe. Films such as Day for Night (1973), directed by Fran\u00e7ois Truffaut, placed her inside a different cinematic tradition, one less concerned with star power and more interested in process, ambiguity, and emotional texture. Her performance is subtle, even self-effacing, and that is precisely the point: she becomes part of the film\u2019s rhythm rather than its focal glare.
\nThis European turn was not an abandonment of Hollywood so much as a widening of possibility. Bisset seemed to understand earlier than most that longevity for women in film required mobility\u2014across genres, across languages, across expectations. She acted in Italian, French, and British productions, choosing roles that allowed her to age onscreen without apology.
\nThere is something quietly radical about her career. At a time when actresses were expected to either freeze themselves in time or disappear, Bisset allowed herself to change. Her voice deepened. Her face softened. Her performances became less about being seen and more about seeing.
\nShe appeared in films that were forgotten and others that endured. She moved easily between romance, thriller, drama, and television. She cultivated a kind of professional equanimity\u2014an acceptance that allowed her to continue working without desperation.
\n\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/ca4ae2928c32.jpeg\")
This patience was rewarded. In 2014, when she won the Golden Globe for her role in the BBC miniseries Dancing on the Edge. Her acceptance speech\u2014unguarded, rambling, sincere\u2014went viral. It was the opposite of polished. She spoke about love, self-doubt, perseverance, and the difficulty of being kind to oneself. In a culture obsessed with rehearsed gratitude and brand-safe emotion, her speech felt almost shocking in its honesty.
\nBisset has never married and has no children, but had long-term romances with Canadian actor Michael Sarrazin, Moroccan real estate magnate Victor Drai, Russian dancer/actor Alexander Godunov, Swiss actor Vincent Perez and Turkish martial arts instructor Emin Boztepe. And she is Angelina Jolie\u2019s godmother. She has often spoken candidly about the choices and compromises of a life devoted to work. At 81 she now lives in Beverley Hills and is a less frequent visitor to her roots in Reading, but continues to act, with her most recent role in the Western, Long Shadows, released in November 2025.
", "content_text": "Winifred Jacqueline Fraser Bisset was born in Weybridge, in 1944, the daughter of George Maxwell Fraser Bisset, a GP, and Arlette Alexander, a lawyer-turned-housewife whose mother was of French and English descent and her father was Scottish descent. Bisset's mother cycled from Paris and boarded a British troopship to escape the Germans during the 1940 Battle of France.\nBisset grew up in a 17th-century country cottage called Lane End in Westwood Row, Tilehurst, along with her older brother, Max, now a US based business consultant. \u00a0Her mother taught her to speak French fluently, and she was later educated at the Lyc\u00e9e Fran\u00e7ais de Londres in London. She took ballet lessons as a child and began taking acting lessons while working as a fashion model to pay for them. When Bisset was a teenager, her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and home life was described by her as \u2018chaotic\u2019. Bisset's parents divorced in 1968 after 28 years of marriage. During the height of her Hollywood career she regularly visited her mother in Tilehurst and \u00a0owned the cottage until recently when it was sold with building permission for an additional detached house in the grounds that caused some local consternation.\nIn an interview in Bissett, described the cottage when she was a child as \"chaotic\", adding: \"Not one newspaper that came into the house ever left it.\n\"There were masses of books everywhere and furniture enough for three homes. My brother and I were extremely upset by it - and have now turned into clean freaks.\"\n\nWith her alluring looks, Hollywood noticed her quickly. The late 1960s were a period of transition: the studio system was weakening, youth culture was ascendant, and American cinema was tentatively allowing women to appear less polished and more real. Bisset, with her unforced glamour and faintly European bearing, fit the moment perfectly.\nHer breakout roles\u2014The Sweet Ride (1968), Bullitt (1968), and Airport (1970)\u2014placed her squarely in the public eye. In Bullitt, she plays opposite Steve McQueen, and what lingers is not just her beauty but her calm. Where many actresses of the era projected need or seduction, Bisset projected self-possession.\nYet Hollywood never quite knew what to do with her. She was too intelligent to be decorative, too sensuous to be academic, too independent to be reliably pliable. She worked constantly, but not feverishly; successfully, but not obsessively. Unlike many contemporaries, she did not build a persona around scandal, reinvention, or public confession. She remained, by design or instinct, slightly out of reach and very private, often returning to stay and look after her mum for months at a time at her childhood home.\nBy the 1970s, Bisset had begun to drift\u2014purposefully\u2014toward Europe. Films such as Day for Night (1973), directed by Fran\u00e7ois Truffaut, placed her inside a different cinematic tradition, one less concerned with star power and more interested in process, ambiguity, and emotional texture. Her performance is subtle, even self-effacing, and that is precisely the point: she becomes part of the film\u2019s rhythm rather than its focal glare.\nThis European turn was not an abandonment of Hollywood so much as a widening of possibility. Bisset seemed to understand earlier than most that longevity for women in film required mobility\u2014across genres, across languages, across expectations. She acted in Italian, French, and British productions, choosing roles that allowed her to age onscreen without apology.\nThere is something quietly radical about her career. At a time when actresses were expected to either freeze themselves in time or disappear, Bisset allowed herself to change. Her voice deepened. Her face softened. Her performances became less about being seen and more about seeing.\nShe appeared in films that were forgotten and others that endured. She moved easily between romance, thriller, drama, and television. She cultivated a kind of professional equanimity\u2014an acceptance that allowed her to continue working without desperation.\n\u00a0\n\nThis patience was rewarded. In 2014, when she won the Golden Globe for her role in the BBC miniseries Dancing on the Edge. Her acceptance speech\u2014unguarded, rambling, sincere\u2014went viral. It was the opposite of polished. She spoke about love, self-doubt, perseverance, and the difficulty of being kind to oneself. In a culture obsessed with rehearsed gratitude and brand-safe emotion, her speech felt almost shocking in its honesty.\nBisset has never married and has no children, but had long-term romances with Canadian actor Michael Sarrazin, Moroccan real estate magnate Victor Drai, Russian dancer/actor Alexander Godunov, Swiss actor Vincent Perez and Turkish martial arts instructor Emin Boztepe. And she is Angelina Jolie\u2019s godmother. She has often spoken candidly about the choices and compromises of a life devoted to work. At 81 she now lives in Beverley Hills and is a less frequent visitor to her roots in Reading, but continues to act, with her most recent role in the Western, Long Shadows, released in November 2025.", "summary": "Discover the fascinating journey of Weybridge-born actress Jacqueline Bisset, from her childhood in Tilehurst to becoming a celebrated icon of European cinema, known for her independent spirit and evolving career.", "date_published": "2026-02-01T18:37:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:10.653182+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/user13/2026/03/288c4618.jpeg", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "location": "Reading, UK", "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/user13/2026/03/288c4618.jpeg", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Reading People - Jacqueline Bisset", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 903, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "Winifred Jacqueline Fraser Bisset was born in Weybridge, in 1944, the daughter of George Maxwell Fraser Bisset, a GP, and Arlette Alexander, a lawyer-turned-housewife whose mother was of French and English descent and her father was Scottish descent. Bisset's mother cycled from Paris and boarded a British troopship to escape the Germans during the 1940 Battle of France.
\nBisset grew up in a 17th-century country cottage called Lane End in Westwood Row, Tilehurst, along with her older brother, Max, now a US based business consultant. \u00a0Her mother taught her to speak French fluently, and she was later educated at the Lyc\u00e9e Fran\u00e7ais de Londres in London. She took ballet lessons as a child and began taking acting lessons while working as a fashion model to pay for them. When Bisset was a teenager, her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and home life was described by her as \u2018chaotic\u2019. Bisset's parents divorced in 1968 after 28 years of marriage. During the height of her Hollywood career she regularly visited her mother in Tilehurst and \u00a0owned the cottage until recently when it was sold with building permission for an additional detached house in the grounds that caused some local consternation.
\nIn an interview in Bissett, described the cottage when she was a child as \"chaotic\", adding: \"Not one newspaper that came into the house ever left it.
\n\"There were masses of books everywhere and furniture enough for three homes. My brother and I were extremely upset by it - and have now turned into clean freaks.\"
\n
With her alluring looks, Hollywood noticed her quickly. The late 1960s were a period of transition: the studio system was weakening, youth culture was ascendant, and American cinema was tentatively allowing women to appear less polished and more real. Bisset, with her unforced glamour and faintly European bearing, fit the moment perfectly.
\nHer breakout roles\u2014The Sweet Ride (1968), Bullitt (1968), and Airport (1970)\u2014placed her squarely in the public eye. In Bullitt, she plays opposite Steve McQueen, and what lingers is not just her beauty but her calm. Where many actresses of the era projected need or seduction, Bisset projected self-possession.
\nYet Hollywood never quite knew what to do with her. She was too intelligent to be decorative, too sensuous to be academic, too independent to be reliably pliable. She worked constantly, but not feverishly; successfully, but not obsessively. Unlike many contemporaries, she did not build a persona around scandal, reinvention, or public confession. She remained, by design or instinct, slightly out of reach and very private, often returning to stay and look after her mum for months at a time at her childhood home.
\nBy the 1970s, Bisset had begun to drift\u2014purposefully\u2014toward Europe. Films such as Day for Night (1973), directed by Fran\u00e7ois Truffaut, placed her inside a different cinematic tradition, one less concerned with star power and more interested in process, ambiguity, and emotional texture. Her performance is subtle, even self-effacing, and that is precisely the point: she becomes part of the film\u2019s rhythm rather than its focal glare.
\nThis European turn was not an abandonment of Hollywood so much as a widening of possibility. Bisset seemed to understand earlier than most that longevity for women in film required mobility\u2014across genres, across languages, across expectations. She acted in Italian, French, and British productions, choosing roles that allowed her to age onscreen without apology.
\nThere is something quietly radical about her career. At a time when actresses were expected to either freeze themselves in time or disappear, Bisset allowed herself to change. Her voice deepened. Her face softened. Her performances became less about being seen and more about seeing.
\nShe appeared in films that were forgotten and others that endured. She moved easily between romance, thriller, drama, and television. She cultivated a kind of professional equanimity\u2014an acceptance that allowed her to continue working without desperation.
\n\u00a0
\n
This patience was rewarded. In 2014, when she won the Golden Globe for her role in the BBC miniseries Dancing on the Edge. Her acceptance speech\u2014unguarded, rambling, sincere\u2014went viral. It was the opposite of polished. She spoke about love, self-doubt, perseverance, and the difficulty of being kind to oneself. In a culture obsessed with rehearsed gratitude and brand-safe emotion, her speech felt almost shocking in its honesty.
\nBisset has never married and has no children, but had long-term romances with Canadian actor Michael Sarrazin, Moroccan real estate magnate Victor Drai, Russian dancer/actor Alexander Godunov, Swiss actor Vincent Perez and Turkish martial arts instructor Emin Boztepe. And she is Angelina Jolie\u2019s godmother. She has often spoken candidly about the choices and compromises of a life devoted to work. At 81 she now lives in Beverley Hills and is a less frequent visitor to her roots in Reading, but continues to act, with her most recent role in the Western, Long Shadows, released in November 2025.
", "description": "Discover the fascinating journey of Weybridge-born actress Jacqueline Bisset, from her childhood in Tilehurst to becoming a celebrated icon of European cinema, known for her independent spirit and evolving career.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:10.653182+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-02-01T18:37:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "contentLocation": { "name": "Reading, UK", "@type": "Place" }, "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/reading-people-jacqueline-bisset/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "325", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/reading-in-2026/", "title": "Reading in 2026", "content_html": "Will 2026 see any major changes in Reading, or will it largely be business as usual ? We have a peek in our crystal ball for what the coming year holds in store for our town.
\nNew Developments: Office Conversions Dominate
\nWith the Labour government restating their objective to build a million and a half new homes in the lifetime of its government, there is little doubt that we will continue to see large scale development in the town.
\nBy 2026, the Station Hill development\u2014the massive \u00a3850 million project transforming the town centre is reaching its final stages, and on the other side of the station the Riverside redevelopment of the SSE site on the river is also taking shape. However, plans to redevelop the furniture shops at Forbury Retail Park have lapsed.
\nIt seems that the main development theme of 2026 in the centre of town will be the redevelopment of swathes of empty offices into residential accommodation. Already a second building in the old M&G campus - formerly the site of the Huntley & Palmers HQ, are being redeveloped into housing and now permission is being sought to convert the old Regus office building in Thames Valley Park into housing as there is less and less demand for office space in and around the town.
\nMeanwhile Loddon Valley Garden Village seems likely to break ground. This up to 4,5000 home extension proposed by the University of Reading will likely see a final planning determination, setting the stage for one of the largest residential expansions in the town\u2019s history.
\nDespite its use for most of 2025 as a film set, plans are yet to emerge for Reading Gaol under the ownership of the Ziran Education Foundation, but 2026 is tipped to be the year we see formal architectural plans for \"The ReCentre,\" a culture-led hub featuring art galleries and a boutique hotel within the historic prison walls.
\nSee the map below for an updated overview of all the developments in central Reading.
\n
Tough Times For Retail
As the endless Evri, Royal Mail and DPD delivery vans seen all over town testify, things are getting tougher and tougher for retail shops in the face of online competitions from US and Chinese giants such as Amazon and Temu.
\nThe introduction of the new \u2018small packages tax\u2019 which will see duty levied on all overseas deliveries may swing things slightly in favour of U.K. retailers, but both the Oracle and Broad Street Mall will see 2026 as a pivotal year where major residential developments take over from any retail expansion.
\n
Local Government: More Money From Government
Reading Borough Council enters 2026 with a projected \u00a3211 million revenue budget - a significant increase over previous year as the government reallocated funds from richer councils such as Wokingham, but the focus will be on closing a funding gap. According to the Council:
\u00a0
\"Despite having identified additional in year savings of \u00a35.6 million this year, the latest in-year budget projections for 2025/26 still show an overall deficit of \u00a34 million. This includes a net deficit of \u00a35.4 million on Children\u2019s Services, mainly due to increased placement costs related to looking after vulnerable children and young people, many of whom are presenting with more complex needs.
\"The Council will finalise its budget for 2026/27 and the savings needed to deliver a balanced budget in February next year, following the publication of the Local Government Finance Settlement, which sets out how much funding councils will receive from central government.
\"At this time however, the increase in demand for Council services, combined with the increasing cost of meeting that demand, is driving a projected funding gap of \u00a34.4 million for next year (2026/27), moving to a projected \u00a33.5 million by 2028/29. This results in a cumulative gap of \u00a314.8 million over the next three years. The Council currently has \u00a317.5 million of un-ringfenced usable reserves that have not been earmarked for spend in other areas (forecast for March 2026).
\"The above numbers assume an annual increase in Council Tax of 2.99% and the Adult Social Care precept of 2.00%. If the Council were to keep Council Tax and the Adult Social Care precept at the current level, this would make the budget gap next year bigger by \u00a36.4 million, resulting in a gap of \u00a310.8 million for 2026/27.\"
There is good news for motorists and cyclists as the council will continue its \u00a311.7 million highways programme, meaning 2026 will be a year of continued road resurfacing and the rollout of more electric refuse vehicles, which are expected to make up over 95% of the fleet. Reading buses will also continue to convert to electricity and hydrogen.
\nYou can give your thoughts on the budget via a consultation that is open until 17th January at https://reading.govocal.com/en-GB/projects/budget-engagement-2026-27
\n
Political Winds
Reading follows the \u2018rule of thirds\u2019 with a third of council seats up for re-election every year. This year\u2019s elections will be on Thursday 7th May and will, perhaps, be the most significant for some time with the nationwide rise of the fascist Reform U.K. party.
\nCurrent predictions see the Greens improving their performance in central Reading with Reform U.K. \u00a0making considerable gains in the outskirts of town.
\nA hung council in Reading, following the same outcome last year in Wokingham may be a possibility.
\nApril 2026 is the deadline to register to vote for the local elections, with polling on May 7, 2026 between 7 am \u2013 10 pm (a photo id is required) with results announced on May 8, 2026 at Rivermead Leisure Centre count.
\n\u00a0
\nBills, Bills, Bills
\nOne thing is for certain - household bills will largely go up again in 2026, although the period of very high price rises seems set to steady. somewhat.
\nFor the first quarter of 2026, Ofgem has set the energy price cap at \u00a31,758 per year for a typical dual-fuel household paying by direct debit. This represents a minor 0.2% increase (about \u00a33) compared to the end of 2025. Electricity rates are averaging 27.69p per kWh with a daily standing charge of 54.75p. Gas rates are averaging 5.93p per kWh with a daily standing charge of 35.09p.\u00a0While wholesale prices have stabilized, major suppliers like British Gas and EDF have signaled that the cap could jump toward \u00a31,840 in April 2026 before potentially dipping again in the summer. The move to EVs and the rush to build data centres means that energy demand is higher than ever, despite nearly half of U.K. energy now coming from renewables.
\nDespite increases in funding from central government Reading Borough Council is facing a projected funding gap of over \u00a34 million for the 2026/27 financial year. To bridge this, the council\u2019s current budgeting assumes a total increase of 2.99% adding around \u00a380 to the average household.
\nFor Reading's least loved company, Thames Water, 2026 marks the beginning of a new five-year \"Price Review\" period (PR24). While Thames Water initially requested much higher hikes, the latest determinations suggest a more moderated but still significant rise with most dual-service (water and waste) households in Reading likely to see bill hikes of around 5% for the 2026/27 period, although Thames Water is arguing for much higher rises despite the massive 31% jump seen in 2025.
\nThe cost of the weekly shop in Reading\u2019s supermarkets is finally expected to outpace general inflation in the right direction in 2026. Food and drink inflation is projected to slow to roughly 3.1% by December 2026, down from peaks of over 5% in late 2025.
\n
Going Out In 2026
With the redevelopment of much of Oracle Riverside, it is likely that the town\u2019s eating out scene will gravitate towards the new openings of Kings Road and the Village and Station Hill, where Wokingham Italian Angelo\u2019s is about to open a branch, along with a new offering from the owners of the Osaka Japanese restaurant, joining new coffee bar Notes which has already opened.
\n\u00a0The Hexagon's Face-lift: 2026 marks a major phase in the \u00a316.6 million redevelopment of the Hexagon Theatre. A brand-new performance space and revamped foyer are set to make it a more competitive venue for touring West End shows and big-name comedians.
\u00a0
Reading Festival 2026
\nThe 2026 Reading Festival is shaping up to be a historic milestone for the UK music scene. In a bold move, organizers have unveiled a headline roster that consists exclusively of British and Irish talent\u2014the first time the festival has committed to such a lineup in a quarter of a century. This homecoming theme marks a significant pivot for the August Bank Holiday weekend, emphasizing the current global dominance of local artists across pop, rap, and alternative genres.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/7b807c55d125.webp\")
Leading the charge is Charli XCX, who arrives at Richfield Avenue following the seismic cultural impact of her \"Brat\" era. Her appearance is billed as her only UK festival performance of 2026, making it one of the most anticipated sets in the festival\u2019s recent history. Joining her is the Mercury Prize-winning Dave, whose status as the definitive voice of British rap was further cemented by his third consecutive number-one album, The Boy Who Played the Harp.
\nThe lineup continues its high-caliber run with Florence + The Machine, returning to the Reading stage for the first time since 2012. Florence Welch\u2019s set is expected to draw heavily from her critically acclaimed project Everybody Scream, promising a characteristically ethereal and high-energy performance. Meanwhile, RAYE\u2014fresh from a record-breaking year of industry awards\u2014makes her triumphant return to the festival she first attended as a teenager, now occupying the top of the bill as a global pop powerhouse.
\nRounding out the main stage headliners are Dublin\u2019s Fontaines D.C. and the legendary electronic duo Chase & Status. For Fontaines D.C., the 2026 slot represents a definitive ascent to rock royalty, while Chase & Status are set to deliver a high-octane finale in what is currently their only scheduled live performance for the entire year.
\nWhile the headliners have captured the headlines, the supporting bill offers a deep dive into the diverse sounds currently defining the UK charts and underground scenes. Grime pioneer Skepta is set to return, alongside the provocative Irish trio Kneecap, who are expected to bring their unique brand of political hip-hop to a massive audience.
\nThe festival also continues its tradition of platforming rising stars and genre-bending acts. Attendees can expect sets from JADE (following her successful transition into a solo career), indie-rockers Geese, and the soulful Sombr. Electronic music fans have much to look forward to as well, with Kettama and Josh Baker confirmed, while DJ Chris Stussy will perform an exclusive set specifically for the Reading site.
\nThe 2026 Reading Festival will take place from Friday, August 28 to Sunday, August 30. While the sister site in Leeds is introducing a new tradition with a Thursday main stage kickoff headlined by Kasabian, Reading will stick to its classic three-day arena format. Tickets for the weekend are already on general sale, and with several artists performing \"exclusive\" sets, demand is expected to reach record highs.
\n
A Royal Recovery for Reading FC ?
After years of financial instability and points deductions, 2026 is set to be the year Reading FC finally trades \"survival mode\" for a long-term rebuilding under its new ownership with a push to get back into the Championship and beyond.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/c02d1574f31d.jpeg\")
One of the most concrete predictions for 2026 is a massive overhaul of the playing facilities at the Select Car Leasing Stadium. Following exploratory groundworks in late 2025, the club has scheduled a full-scale pitch reconstruction for the summer of 2026. This will involve installing a high-performance hybrid surface (interwoven natural grass and synthetic fibers) similar to those used by Premier League giants.
\nUnder the new leadership of Chairman Rob Couhig, 2026 will see the results of a consultation with stadium infrastructure specialists. Expect upgraded digital connectivity (Wi-Fi 6) and a push to make the stadium a \"best in class\" conference and event destination on non-matchdays with development going on around the site with new flats and other facilities - plans for a new 4,000-capacity conference center and ice rink next to the stadium will likely see a \"go/no-go\" decision in mid-2026, as the new owners decide how much of the surrounding land to develop for ancillary revenue.
\nThe 2025/26 season is the first full campaign under manager Leam Richardson (appointed in late 2024) and it has had mixed results. Reading currently sit eleventh in the third tier of English football, just behind local rivals Wycombe and seven points off the play-off places.
\n\u00a0Perhaps most significantly, the new year will be the first year the club operates entirely free of the EFL's \"business plan\" restrictions. Expect a significant\u2014but calculated\u2014investment in the January 2026 window to bolster a promotion charge, with a focus on Championship-proven talent rather than high-risk gambles.
\u00a0
The Reading Academy system continues to excel despite the challenges of recent years and academy graduate Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan and midfielder Michael Craig are expected to either lead the club back to the Championship - unless they command multi-million pound transfer fees that will fund the club's next three years of operation. It will be a fascinating and crucial transfer window for the club\u2019s future.
\u00a0
After a heartbreaking drop to the fifth tier in 2024, 2026 is predicted to be the year the Reading FC Women begin their serious climb back up the pyramid, with increased integration into the main club\u2019s training facilities at Bearwood Park.
\u00a0
\nReading Sports Excelling
\nWhile Reading FC often dominates the headlines, 2026 is shaping up to be a defining year for the town\u2019s broader sporting elite. East of town, and on opposite sides of Old Bath Road, our hockey and rugby sides are amongst the best in the country.
\nFor Reading Hockey Club, 2026 represents a year of reaching to be the best in England. Following a transformative 2025 season where the women\u2019s team reclaimed their status as national champions and the men secured a long-awaited return to the Premier Division, the club is now operating at the pinnacle of the English game.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/bab33a335666.jpeg\")
The early months of 2026 will see the men's first team battling to solidify their position in the top flight. After surviving the initial split of the league in late 2025, the focus for the spring will be on securing a top-six finish to ensure they are safe from the relegation playoffs. Meanwhile, the women\u2019s team enters 2026 with a target on their backs as defending champions. Their primary objective for the year is a return to European competition, with the Premier Division Finals in early May serving as the ultimate stage to prove their 2025 title was the start of a new dynasty rather than a one-off success.
\nIn the world of rugby, the spotlight falls squarely on Rams RFC. The club has spent several seasons knocking on the door of the Championship, the second tier of professional English rugby. The first half of 2026 will be the most critical period in the club's history. By April 11, when they face a high-stakes away trip to Rotherham Titans, the shape of the promotion race will be clear.
\nThe final home games of the season at Old Bath Road in late April, against Rosslyn Park and Sedgley Park, are expected to be sell-out events. If the Rams can secure the National League 1 title or succeed in the newly introduced promotion playoff in May, 2026 will be the year professional rugby officially returns to the Reading area. This ascent would not only raise the club's profile but also likely trigger infrastructure upgrades at their home ground to meet Championship standards.
\nBeyond the elite promotion chases, the town\u2019s other leading rugby clubs, Reading RFC and Reading Abbey, are focusing on long-term sustainability. In 2026, both clubs are rolling out expanded youth and women\u2019s programs, partially funded by the legacy of the 2025 Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup. For Reading Abbey, specifically, the year is about maintaining their reputation as a community hub, with 2026 seeing the completion of several facility refreshments aimed at increasing mid-week community use at their Emmer Green home.
\nOn the court, the Reading Rockets are entering 2026 with a revamped identity and a roster bolstered by high-profile American signings like Malik Bryant and Jax Bouknight. Competing in the British Basketball Championship, the Rockets are spending the spring of 2026 chasing \"The Double\"\u2014looking to follow up a regular-season title charge with a deep run in the postseason playoffs. Their consistent success at the Loddon Valley Leisure Centre has also fueled ongoing 2026 discussions regarding a potential move to a more central, high-capacity venue as the \"Rocket Family\" fan base continues to outgrow its current home.
\nThe year ahead bodes well for these and many other sports in our town. Check out our directory below if you would like to support or take part in sports at whatever level in 2026.
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
", "content_text": "Will 2026 see any major changes in Reading, or will it largely be business as usual ? We have a peek in our crystal ball for what the coming year holds in store for our town.\nNew Developments: Office Conversions Dominate\nWith the Labour government restating their objective to build a million and a half new homes in the lifetime of its government, there is little doubt that we will continue to see large scale development in the town.\nBy 2026, the Station Hill development\u2014the massive \u00a3850 million project transforming the town centre is reaching its final stages, and on the other side of the station the Riverside redevelopment of the SSE site on the river is also taking shape. However, plans to redevelop the furniture shops at Forbury Retail Park have lapsed.\nIt seems that the main development theme of 2026 in the centre of town will be the redevelopment of swathes of empty offices into residential accommodation. Already a second building in the old M&G campus - formerly the site of the Huntley & Palmers HQ, are being redeveloped into housing and now permission is being sought to convert the old Regus office building in Thames Valley Park into housing as there is less and less demand for office space in and around the town.\nMeanwhile Loddon Valley Garden Village seems likely to break ground. This up to 4,5000 home extension proposed by the University of Reading will likely see a final planning determination, setting the stage for one of the largest residential expansions in the town\u2019s history.\nDespite its use for most of 2025 as a film set, plans are yet to emerge for Reading Gaol under the ownership of the Ziran Education Foundation, but 2026 is tipped to be the year we see formal architectural plans for \"The ReCentre,\" a culture-led hub featuring art galleries and a boutique hotel within the historic prison walls.\nSee the map below for an updated overview of all the developments in central Reading.\nTough Times For Retail\nAs the endless Evri, Royal Mail and DPD delivery vans seen all over town testify, things are getting tougher and tougher for retail shops in the face of online competitions from US and Chinese giants such as Amazon and Temu.\nThe introduction of the new \u2018small packages tax\u2019 which will see duty levied on all overseas deliveries may swing things slightly in favour of U.K. retailers, but both the Oracle and Broad Street Mall will see 2026 as a pivotal year where major residential developments take over from any retail expansion.\nLocal Government: More Money From Government\nReading Borough Council enters 2026 with a projected \u00a3211 million revenue budget - a significant increase over previous year as the government reallocated funds from richer councils such as Wokingham, but the focus will be on closing a funding gap. According to the Council:\u00a0\"Despite having identified additional in year savings of \u00a35.6 million this year, the latest in-year budget projections for 2025/26 still show an overall deficit of \u00a34 million. This includes a net deficit of \u00a35.4 million on Children\u2019s Services, mainly due to increased placement costs related to looking after vulnerable children and young people, many of whom are presenting with more complex needs.\n\"The Council will finalise its budget for 2026/27 and the savings needed to deliver a balanced budget in February next year, following the publication of the Local Government Finance Settlement, which sets out how much funding councils will receive from central government.\"At this time however, the increase in demand for Council services, combined with the increasing cost of meeting that demand, is driving a projected funding gap of \u00a34.4 million for next year (2026/27), moving to a projected \u00a33.5 million by 2028/29. This results in a cumulative gap of \u00a314.8 million over the next three years. The Council currently has \u00a317.5 million of un-ringfenced usable reserves that have not been earmarked for spend in other areas (forecast for March 2026).\"The above numbers assume an annual increase in Council Tax of 2.99% and the Adult Social Care precept of 2.00%. If the Council were to keep Council Tax and the Adult Social Care precept at the current level, this would make the budget gap next year bigger by \u00a36.4 million, resulting in a gap of \u00a310.8 million for 2026/27.\"\nThere is good news for motorists and cyclists as the council will continue its \u00a311.7 million highways programme, meaning 2026 will be a year of continued road resurfacing and the rollout of more electric refuse vehicles, which are expected to make up over 95% of the fleet. Reading buses will also continue to convert to electricity and hydrogen.\nYou can give your thoughts on the budget via a consultation that is open until 17th January at https://reading.govocal.com/en-GB/projects/budget-engagement-2026-27\nPolitical Winds\nReading follows the \u2018rule of thirds\u2019 with a third of council seats up for re-election every year. This year\u2019s elections will be on Thursday 7th May and will, perhaps, be the most significant for some time with the nationwide rise of the fascist Reform U.K. party.\nCurrent predictions see the Greens improving their performance in central Reading with Reform U.K. \u00a0making considerable gains in the outskirts of town.\nA hung council in Reading, following the same outcome last year in Wokingham may be a possibility.\nApril 2026 is the deadline to register to vote for the local elections, with polling on May 7, 2026 between 7 am \u2013 10 pm (a photo id is required) with results announced on May 8, 2026 at Rivermead Leisure Centre count.\n\u00a0\nBills, Bills, Bills\nOne thing is for certain - household bills will largely go up again in 2026, although the period of very high price rises seems set to steady. somewhat.\nFor the first quarter of 2026, Ofgem has set the energy price cap at \u00a31,758 per year for a typical dual-fuel household paying by direct debit. This represents a minor 0.2% increase (about \u00a33) compared to the end of 2025. Electricity rates are averaging 27.69p per kWh with a daily standing charge of 54.75p. Gas rates are averaging 5.93p per kWh with a daily standing charge of 35.09p.\u00a0While wholesale prices have stabilized, major suppliers like British Gas and EDF have signaled that the cap could jump toward \u00a31,840 in April 2026 before potentially dipping again in the summer. The move to EVs and the rush to build data centres means that energy demand is higher than ever, despite nearly half of U.K. energy now coming from renewables.\nDespite increases in funding from central government Reading Borough Council is facing a projected funding gap of over \u00a34 million for the 2026/27 financial year. To bridge this, the council\u2019s current budgeting assumes a total increase of 2.99% adding around \u00a380 to the average household.\nFor Reading's least loved company, Thames Water, 2026 marks the beginning of a new five-year \"Price Review\" period (PR24). While Thames Water initially requested much higher hikes, the latest determinations suggest a more moderated but still significant rise with most dual-service (water and waste) households in Reading likely to see bill hikes of around 5% for the 2026/27 period, although Thames Water is arguing for much higher rises despite the massive 31% jump seen in 2025.\nThe cost of the weekly shop in Reading\u2019s supermarkets is finally expected to outpace general inflation in the right direction in 2026. Food and drink inflation is projected to slow to roughly 3.1% by December 2026, down from peaks of over 5% in late 2025.\nGoing Out In 2026\nWith the redevelopment of much of Oracle Riverside, it is likely that the town\u2019s eating out scene will gravitate towards the new openings of Kings Road and the Village and Station Hill, where Wokingham Italian Angelo\u2019s is about to open a branch, along with a new offering from the owners of the Osaka Japanese restaurant, joining new coffee bar Notes which has already opened.\n\u00a0The Hexagon's Face-lift: 2026 marks a major phase in the \u00a316.6 million redevelopment of the Hexagon Theatre. A brand-new performance space and revamped foyer are set to make it a more competitive venue for touring West End shows and big-name comedians.\u00a0\nReading Festival 2026\nThe 2026 Reading Festival is shaping up to be a historic milestone for the UK music scene. In a bold move, organizers have unveiled a headline roster that consists exclusively of British and Irish talent\u2014the first time the festival has committed to such a lineup in a quarter of a century. This homecoming theme marks a significant pivot for the August Bank Holiday weekend, emphasizing the current global dominance of local artists across pop, rap, and alternative genres.\n\nLeading the charge is Charli XCX, who arrives at Richfield Avenue following the seismic cultural impact of her \"Brat\" era. Her appearance is billed as her only UK festival performance of 2026, making it one of the most anticipated sets in the festival\u2019s recent history. Joining her is the Mercury Prize-winning Dave, whose status as the definitive voice of British rap was further cemented by his third consecutive number-one album, The Boy Who Played the Harp.\nThe lineup continues its high-caliber run with Florence + The Machine, returning to the Reading stage for the first time since 2012. Florence Welch\u2019s set is expected to draw heavily from her critically acclaimed project Everybody Scream, promising a characteristically ethereal and high-energy performance. Meanwhile, RAYE\u2014fresh from a record-breaking year of industry awards\u2014makes her triumphant return to the festival she first attended as a teenager, now occupying the top of the bill as a global pop powerhouse.\nRounding out the main stage headliners are Dublin\u2019s Fontaines D.C. and the legendary electronic duo Chase & Status. For Fontaines D.C., the 2026 slot represents a definitive ascent to rock royalty, while Chase & Status are set to deliver a high-octane finale in what is currently their only scheduled live performance for the entire year.\nWhile the headliners have captured the headlines, the supporting bill offers a deep dive into the diverse sounds currently defining the UK charts and underground scenes. Grime pioneer Skepta is set to return, alongside the provocative Irish trio Kneecap, who are expected to bring their unique brand of political hip-hop to a massive audience.\nThe festival also continues its tradition of platforming rising stars and genre-bending acts. Attendees can expect sets from JADE (following her successful transition into a solo career), indie-rockers Geese, and the soulful Sombr. Electronic music fans have much to look forward to as well, with Kettama and Josh Baker confirmed, while DJ Chris Stussy will perform an exclusive set specifically for the Reading site.\nThe 2026 Reading Festival will take place from Friday, August 28 to Sunday, August 30. While the sister site in Leeds is introducing a new tradition with a Thursday main stage kickoff headlined by Kasabian, Reading will stick to its classic three-day arena format. Tickets for the weekend are already on general sale, and with several artists performing \"exclusive\" sets, demand is expected to reach record highs.\nA Royal Recovery for Reading FC ?\nAfter years of financial instability and points deductions, 2026 is set to be the year Reading FC finally trades \"survival mode\" for a long-term rebuilding under its new ownership with a push to get back into the Championship and beyond.\n\nOne of the most concrete predictions for 2026 is a massive overhaul of the playing facilities at the Select Car Leasing Stadium. Following exploratory groundworks in late 2025, the club has scheduled a full-scale pitch reconstruction for the summer of 2026. This will involve installing a high-performance hybrid surface (interwoven natural grass and synthetic fibers) similar to those used by Premier League giants.\nUnder the new leadership of Chairman Rob Couhig, 2026 will see the results of a consultation with stadium infrastructure specialists. Expect upgraded digital connectivity (Wi-Fi 6) and a push to make the stadium a \"best in class\" conference and event destination on non-matchdays with development going on around the site with new flats and other facilities - plans for a new 4,000-capacity conference center and ice rink next to the stadium will likely see a \"go/no-go\" decision in mid-2026, as the new owners decide how much of the surrounding land to develop for ancillary revenue.\nThe 2025/26 season is the first full campaign under manager Leam Richardson (appointed in late 2024) and it has had mixed results. Reading currently sit eleventh in the third tier of English football, just behind local rivals Wycombe and seven points off the play-off places.\n\u00a0Perhaps most significantly, the new year will be the first year the club operates entirely free of the EFL's \"business plan\" restrictions. Expect a significant\u2014but calculated\u2014investment in the January 2026 window to bolster a promotion charge, with a focus on Championship-proven talent rather than high-risk gambles.\u00a0The Reading Academy system continues to excel despite the challenges of recent years and academy graduate Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan and midfielder Michael Craig are expected to either lead the club back to the Championship - unless they command multi-million pound transfer fees that will fund the club's next three years of operation. It will be a fascinating and crucial transfer window for the club\u2019s future.\u00a0After a heartbreaking drop to the fifth tier in 2024, 2026 is predicted to be the year the Reading FC Women begin their serious climb back up the pyramid, with increased integration into the main club\u2019s training facilities at Bearwood Park.\n\u00a0\nReading Sports Excelling\nWhile Reading FC often dominates the headlines, 2026 is shaping up to be a defining year for the town\u2019s broader sporting elite. East of town, and on opposite sides of Old Bath Road, our hockey and rugby sides are amongst the best in the country.\nFor Reading Hockey Club, 2026 represents a year of reaching to be the best in England. Following a transformative 2025 season where the women\u2019s team reclaimed their status as national champions and the men secured a long-awaited return to the Premier Division, the club is now operating at the pinnacle of the English game.\n\nThe early months of 2026 will see the men's first team battling to solidify their position in the top flight. After surviving the initial split of the league in late 2025, the focus for the spring will be on securing a top-six finish to ensure they are safe from the relegation playoffs. Meanwhile, the women\u2019s team enters 2026 with a target on their backs as defending champions. Their primary objective for the year is a return to European competition, with the Premier Division Finals in early May serving as the ultimate stage to prove their 2025 title was the start of a new dynasty rather than a one-off success.\nIn the world of rugby, the spotlight falls squarely on Rams RFC. The club has spent several seasons knocking on the door of the Championship, the second tier of professional English rugby. The first half of 2026 will be the most critical period in the club's history. By April 11, when they face a high-stakes away trip to Rotherham Titans, the shape of the promotion race will be clear.\nThe final home games of the season at Old Bath Road in late April, against Rosslyn Park and Sedgley Park, are expected to be sell-out events. If the Rams can secure the National League 1 title or succeed in the newly introduced promotion playoff in May, 2026 will be the year professional rugby officially returns to the Reading area. This ascent would not only raise the club's profile but also likely trigger infrastructure upgrades at their home ground to meet Championship standards.\nBeyond the elite promotion chases, the town\u2019s other leading rugby clubs, Reading RFC and Reading Abbey, are focusing on long-term sustainability. In 2026, both clubs are rolling out expanded youth and women\u2019s programs, partially funded by the legacy of the 2025 Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup. For Reading Abbey, specifically, the year is about maintaining their reputation as a community hub, with 2026 seeing the completion of several facility refreshments aimed at increasing mid-week community use at their Emmer Green home.\nOn the court, the Reading Rockets are entering 2026 with a revamped identity and a roster bolstered by high-profile American signings like Malik Bryant and Jax Bouknight. Competing in the British Basketball Championship, the Rockets are spending the spring of 2026 chasing \"The Double\"\u2014looking to follow up a regular-season title charge with a deep run in the postseason playoffs. Their consistent success at the Loddon Valley Leisure Centre has also fueled ongoing 2026 discussions regarding a potential move to a more central, high-capacity venue as the \"Rocket Family\" fan base continues to outgrow its current home.\nThe year ahead bodes well for these and many other sports in our town. Check out our directory below if you would like to support or take part in sports at whatever level in 2026.\n\u00a0\n\u00a0", "summary": "Get a glimpse into Reading's transformation by 2026. Discover major development plans including office conversions to housing, the evolving retail landscape, and the financial outlook for Reading Borough Council.", "date_published": "2026-02-01T18:32:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:17.179136+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/user13/2026/03/7559838b.jpeg", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "location": "Reading, UK", "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/user13/2026/03/7559838b.jpeg", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Reading in 2026", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 3166, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "Will 2026 see any major changes in Reading, or will it largely be business as usual ? We have a peek in our crystal ball for what the coming year holds in store for our town.
\nNew Developments: Office Conversions Dominate
\nWith the Labour government restating their objective to build a million and a half new homes in the lifetime of its government, there is little doubt that we will continue to see large scale development in the town.
\nBy 2026, the Station Hill development\u2014the massive \u00a3850 million project transforming the town centre is reaching its final stages, and on the other side of the station the Riverside redevelopment of the SSE site on the river is also taking shape. However, plans to redevelop the furniture shops at Forbury Retail Park have lapsed.
\nIt seems that the main development theme of 2026 in the centre of town will be the redevelopment of swathes of empty offices into residential accommodation. Already a second building in the old M&G campus - formerly the site of the Huntley & Palmers HQ, are being redeveloped into housing and now permission is being sought to convert the old Regus office building in Thames Valley Park into housing as there is less and less demand for office space in and around the town.
\nMeanwhile Loddon Valley Garden Village seems likely to break ground. This up to 4,5000 home extension proposed by the University of Reading will likely see a final planning determination, setting the stage for one of the largest residential expansions in the town\u2019s history.
\nDespite its use for most of 2025 as a film set, plans are yet to emerge for Reading Gaol under the ownership of the Ziran Education Foundation, but 2026 is tipped to be the year we see formal architectural plans for \"The ReCentre,\" a culture-led hub featuring art galleries and a boutique hotel within the historic prison walls.
\nSee the map below for an updated overview of all the developments in central Reading.
\n
Tough Times For Retail
As the endless Evri, Royal Mail and DPD delivery vans seen all over town testify, things are getting tougher and tougher for retail shops in the face of online competitions from US and Chinese giants such as Amazon and Temu.
\nThe introduction of the new \u2018small packages tax\u2019 which will see duty levied on all overseas deliveries may swing things slightly in favour of U.K. retailers, but both the Oracle and Broad Street Mall will see 2026 as a pivotal year where major residential developments take over from any retail expansion.
\n
Local Government: More Money From Government
Reading Borough Council enters 2026 with a projected \u00a3211 million revenue budget - a significant increase over previous year as the government reallocated funds from richer councils such as Wokingham, but the focus will be on closing a funding gap. According to the Council:
\u00a0
\"Despite having identified additional in year savings of \u00a35.6 million this year, the latest in-year budget projections for 2025/26 still show an overall deficit of \u00a34 million. This includes a net deficit of \u00a35.4 million on Children\u2019s Services, mainly due to increased placement costs related to looking after vulnerable children and young people, many of whom are presenting with more complex needs.
\"The Council will finalise its budget for 2026/27 and the savings needed to deliver a balanced budget in February next year, following the publication of the Local Government Finance Settlement, which sets out how much funding councils will receive from central government.
\"At this time however, the increase in demand for Council services, combined with the increasing cost of meeting that demand, is driving a projected funding gap of \u00a34.4 million for next year (2026/27), moving to a projected \u00a33.5 million by 2028/29. This results in a cumulative gap of \u00a314.8 million over the next three years. The Council currently has \u00a317.5 million of un-ringfenced usable reserves that have not been earmarked for spend in other areas (forecast for March 2026).
\"The above numbers assume an annual increase in Council Tax of 2.99% and the Adult Social Care precept of 2.00%. If the Council were to keep Council Tax and the Adult Social Care precept at the current level, this would make the budget gap next year bigger by \u00a36.4 million, resulting in a gap of \u00a310.8 million for 2026/27.\"
There is good news for motorists and cyclists as the council will continue its \u00a311.7 million highways programme, meaning 2026 will be a year of continued road resurfacing and the rollout of more electric refuse vehicles, which are expected to make up over 95% of the fleet. Reading buses will also continue to convert to electricity and hydrogen.
\nYou can give your thoughts on the budget via a consultation that is open until 17th January at https://reading.govocal.com/en-GB/projects/budget-engagement-2026-27
\n
Political Winds
Reading follows the \u2018rule of thirds\u2019 with a third of council seats up for re-election every year. This year\u2019s elections will be on Thursday 7th May and will, perhaps, be the most significant for some time with the nationwide rise of the fascist Reform U.K. party.
\nCurrent predictions see the Greens improving their performance in central Reading with Reform U.K. \u00a0making considerable gains in the outskirts of town.
\nA hung council in Reading, following the same outcome last year in Wokingham may be a possibility.
\nApril 2026 is the deadline to register to vote for the local elections, with polling on May 7, 2026 between 7 am \u2013 10 pm (a photo id is required) with results announced on May 8, 2026 at Rivermead Leisure Centre count.
\n\u00a0
\nBills, Bills, Bills
\nOne thing is for certain - household bills will largely go up again in 2026, although the period of very high price rises seems set to steady. somewhat.
\nFor the first quarter of 2026, Ofgem has set the energy price cap at \u00a31,758 per year for a typical dual-fuel household paying by direct debit. This represents a minor 0.2% increase (about \u00a33) compared to the end of 2025. Electricity rates are averaging 27.69p per kWh with a daily standing charge of 54.75p. Gas rates are averaging 5.93p per kWh with a daily standing charge of 35.09p.\u00a0While wholesale prices have stabilized, major suppliers like British Gas and EDF have signaled that the cap could jump toward \u00a31,840 in April 2026 before potentially dipping again in the summer. The move to EVs and the rush to build data centres means that energy demand is higher than ever, despite nearly half of U.K. energy now coming from renewables.
\nDespite increases in funding from central government Reading Borough Council is facing a projected funding gap of over \u00a34 million for the 2026/27 financial year. To bridge this, the council\u2019s current budgeting assumes a total increase of 2.99% adding around \u00a380 to the average household.
\nFor Reading's least loved company, Thames Water, 2026 marks the beginning of a new five-year \"Price Review\" period (PR24). While Thames Water initially requested much higher hikes, the latest determinations suggest a more moderated but still significant rise with most dual-service (water and waste) households in Reading likely to see bill hikes of around 5% for the 2026/27 period, although Thames Water is arguing for much higher rises despite the massive 31% jump seen in 2025.
\nThe cost of the weekly shop in Reading\u2019s supermarkets is finally expected to outpace general inflation in the right direction in 2026. Food and drink inflation is projected to slow to roughly 3.1% by December 2026, down from peaks of over 5% in late 2025.
\n
Going Out In 2026
With the redevelopment of much of Oracle Riverside, it is likely that the town\u2019s eating out scene will gravitate towards the new openings of Kings Road and the Village and Station Hill, where Wokingham Italian Angelo\u2019s is about to open a branch, along with a new offering from the owners of the Osaka Japanese restaurant, joining new coffee bar Notes which has already opened.
\n\u00a0The Hexagon's Face-lift: 2026 marks a major phase in the \u00a316.6 million redevelopment of the Hexagon Theatre. A brand-new performance space and revamped foyer are set to make it a more competitive venue for touring West End shows and big-name comedians.
\u00a0
Reading Festival 2026
\nThe 2026 Reading Festival is shaping up to be a historic milestone for the UK music scene. In a bold move, organizers have unveiled a headline roster that consists exclusively of British and Irish talent\u2014the first time the festival has committed to such a lineup in a quarter of a century. This homecoming theme marks a significant pivot for the August Bank Holiday weekend, emphasizing the current global dominance of local artists across pop, rap, and alternative genres.
\n
Leading the charge is Charli XCX, who arrives at Richfield Avenue following the seismic cultural impact of her \"Brat\" era. Her appearance is billed as her only UK festival performance of 2026, making it one of the most anticipated sets in the festival\u2019s recent history. Joining her is the Mercury Prize-winning Dave, whose status as the definitive voice of British rap was further cemented by his third consecutive number-one album, The Boy Who Played the Harp.
\nThe lineup continues its high-caliber run with Florence + The Machine, returning to the Reading stage for the first time since 2012. Florence Welch\u2019s set is expected to draw heavily from her critically acclaimed project Everybody Scream, promising a characteristically ethereal and high-energy performance. Meanwhile, RAYE\u2014fresh from a record-breaking year of industry awards\u2014makes her triumphant return to the festival she first attended as a teenager, now occupying the top of the bill as a global pop powerhouse.
\nRounding out the main stage headliners are Dublin\u2019s Fontaines D.C. and the legendary electronic duo Chase & Status. For Fontaines D.C., the 2026 slot represents a definitive ascent to rock royalty, while Chase & Status are set to deliver a high-octane finale in what is currently their only scheduled live performance for the entire year.
\nWhile the headliners have captured the headlines, the supporting bill offers a deep dive into the diverse sounds currently defining the UK charts and underground scenes. Grime pioneer Skepta is set to return, alongside the provocative Irish trio Kneecap, who are expected to bring their unique brand of political hip-hop to a massive audience.
\nThe festival also continues its tradition of platforming rising stars and genre-bending acts. Attendees can expect sets from JADE (following her successful transition into a solo career), indie-rockers Geese, and the soulful Sombr. Electronic music fans have much to look forward to as well, with Kettama and Josh Baker confirmed, while DJ Chris Stussy will perform an exclusive set specifically for the Reading site.
\nThe 2026 Reading Festival will take place from Friday, August 28 to Sunday, August 30. While the sister site in Leeds is introducing a new tradition with a Thursday main stage kickoff headlined by Kasabian, Reading will stick to its classic three-day arena format. Tickets for the weekend are already on general sale, and with several artists performing \"exclusive\" sets, demand is expected to reach record highs.
\n
A Royal Recovery for Reading FC ?
After years of financial instability and points deductions, 2026 is set to be the year Reading FC finally trades \"survival mode\" for a long-term rebuilding under its new ownership with a push to get back into the Championship and beyond.
\n
One of the most concrete predictions for 2026 is a massive overhaul of the playing facilities at the Select Car Leasing Stadium. Following exploratory groundworks in late 2025, the club has scheduled a full-scale pitch reconstruction for the summer of 2026. This will involve installing a high-performance hybrid surface (interwoven natural grass and synthetic fibers) similar to those used by Premier League giants.
\nUnder the new leadership of Chairman Rob Couhig, 2026 will see the results of a consultation with stadium infrastructure specialists. Expect upgraded digital connectivity (Wi-Fi 6) and a push to make the stadium a \"best in class\" conference and event destination on non-matchdays with development going on around the site with new flats and other facilities - plans for a new 4,000-capacity conference center and ice rink next to the stadium will likely see a \"go/no-go\" decision in mid-2026, as the new owners decide how much of the surrounding land to develop for ancillary revenue.
\nThe 2025/26 season is the first full campaign under manager Leam Richardson (appointed in late 2024) and it has had mixed results. Reading currently sit eleventh in the third tier of English football, just behind local rivals Wycombe and seven points off the play-off places.
\n\u00a0Perhaps most significantly, the new year will be the first year the club operates entirely free of the EFL's \"business plan\" restrictions. Expect a significant\u2014but calculated\u2014investment in the January 2026 window to bolster a promotion charge, with a focus on Championship-proven talent rather than high-risk gambles.
\u00a0
The Reading Academy system continues to excel despite the challenges of recent years and academy graduate Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan and midfielder Michael Craig are expected to either lead the club back to the Championship - unless they command multi-million pound transfer fees that will fund the club's next three years of operation. It will be a fascinating and crucial transfer window for the club\u2019s future.
\u00a0
After a heartbreaking drop to the fifth tier in 2024, 2026 is predicted to be the year the Reading FC Women begin their serious climb back up the pyramid, with increased integration into the main club\u2019s training facilities at Bearwood Park.
\u00a0
\nReading Sports Excelling
\nWhile Reading FC often dominates the headlines, 2026 is shaping up to be a defining year for the town\u2019s broader sporting elite. East of town, and on opposite sides of Old Bath Road, our hockey and rugby sides are amongst the best in the country.
\nFor Reading Hockey Club, 2026 represents a year of reaching to be the best in England. Following a transformative 2025 season where the women\u2019s team reclaimed their status as national champions and the men secured a long-awaited return to the Premier Division, the club is now operating at the pinnacle of the English game.
\n
The early months of 2026 will see the men's first team battling to solidify their position in the top flight. After surviving the initial split of the league in late 2025, the focus for the spring will be on securing a top-six finish to ensure they are safe from the relegation playoffs. Meanwhile, the women\u2019s team enters 2026 with a target on their backs as defending champions. Their primary objective for the year is a return to European competition, with the Premier Division Finals in early May serving as the ultimate stage to prove their 2025 title was the start of a new dynasty rather than a one-off success.
\nIn the world of rugby, the spotlight falls squarely on Rams RFC. The club has spent several seasons knocking on the door of the Championship, the second tier of professional English rugby. The first half of 2026 will be the most critical period in the club's history. By April 11, when they face a high-stakes away trip to Rotherham Titans, the shape of the promotion race will be clear.
\nThe final home games of the season at Old Bath Road in late April, against Rosslyn Park and Sedgley Park, are expected to be sell-out events. If the Rams can secure the National League 1 title or succeed in the newly introduced promotion playoff in May, 2026 will be the year professional rugby officially returns to the Reading area. This ascent would not only raise the club's profile but also likely trigger infrastructure upgrades at their home ground to meet Championship standards.
\nBeyond the elite promotion chases, the town\u2019s other leading rugby clubs, Reading RFC and Reading Abbey, are focusing on long-term sustainability. In 2026, both clubs are rolling out expanded youth and women\u2019s programs, partially funded by the legacy of the 2025 Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup. For Reading Abbey, specifically, the year is about maintaining their reputation as a community hub, with 2026 seeing the completion of several facility refreshments aimed at increasing mid-week community use at their Emmer Green home.
\nOn the court, the Reading Rockets are entering 2026 with a revamped identity and a roster bolstered by high-profile American signings like Malik Bryant and Jax Bouknight. Competing in the British Basketball Championship, the Rockets are spending the spring of 2026 chasing \"The Double\"\u2014looking to follow up a regular-season title charge with a deep run in the postseason playoffs. Their consistent success at the Loddon Valley Leisure Centre has also fueled ongoing 2026 discussions regarding a potential move to a more central, high-capacity venue as the \"Rocket Family\" fan base continues to outgrow its current home.
\nThe year ahead bodes well for these and many other sports in our town. Check out our directory below if you would like to support or take part in sports at whatever level in 2026.
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
", "description": "Get a glimpse into Reading's transformation by 2026. Discover major development plans including office conversions to housing, the evolving retail landscape, and the financial outlook for Reading Borough Council.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:17.179136+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-02-01T18:32:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "contentLocation": { "name": "Reading, UK", "@type": "Place" }, "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/reading-in-2026/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "322", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/reading-buildings-battle-hospital/", "title": "Reading Buildings - Battle Hospital", "content_html": "\u00a0
\nWhile the Royal Berkshire Hospital on London Road often claims the spotlight, for generations of West Reading residents, the true heart of local healthcare was Battle Hospital. Situated on the Oxford Road, Battle was a site of grit, transition, and survival\u2014evolving from a Victorian place of last resort into a frontline military hub and, eventually, a bustling general hospital before its final closure in 2005.
\nFrom Workhouse to Ward
\nThe origins of Battle Hospital were far humbler than the grand Bath stone of the \"Royal.\" Opened in 1867 as the Reading Union Workhouse, it was initially a grim Victorian institution designed for the \"destitute and infirm.\" At the time, healthcare was an adjunct to poverty relief; the site included a chapel, a bakery, and a laundry, operating as a self-contained village for those with nowhere else to go.
\nDespite the name and the hospital\u2019s significant military history during the World Wars, the title \"Battle Hospital\" was not a tribute to any specific military engagement. Instead, the origin is much more geographical and local.
\nThe Geography of \"Battle\"
\nThe hospital was named after the Battle Ward, the local municipal district in West Reading where it was located. This ward, in turn, takes its name from Battle Farm, which once occupied much of the land in that area of the town.
\nThe \"Battle\" nomenclature stretches back even further to the medieval era. The land was originally owned by Battle Abbey in Sussex. Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, William the Conqueror granted significant holdings in the Reading area to the monks of Battle Abbey as a means of providing them with an income. This historic link to the Sussex abbey (itself named after the Battle of Hastings) became permanently etched into the local map of Reading.
\nWhile the site had been a workhouse and an infirmary for decades, the name was officially changed to Battle Hospital in 1930. This change was a deliberate attempt by the Reading Borough Council to remove the stigma attached to its previous incarnation.
\nIt is a striking historical irony that a hospital named after a Sussex abbey and a local farm ended up playing such a vital frontline role in the medical \"battles\" of two World Wars.
\n\u00a0
\nThe \"No. 1\" War Hospital
\nThe site\u2019s identity was forever altered by the outbreak of the First World War. In 1914, it was requisitioned by the War Office and designated as the Reading No. 1 War Hospital. This was an important moment in Reading's war history; the town became one of the most significant hubs for the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in the country.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/0bd1bd962763.jpg\")
\u00a0
\nThe scale was immense. Battle served as the \"hub\" for a network of 5 section hospitals and 38 auxiliary sites. Between 1914 and 1920, thousands of soldiers arrived by train at the nearby West Reading station, their stretchers carried through the gates to be treated for war wounds, trench foot, gas inhalation, and shrapnel wounds. It was during this era that the hospital shed its \"workhouse\" stigma and became one of the war\u2019s largest medical establishments.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/1bfbd10903ab.jpg\")
\u00a0
\nThe interwar years at the Oxford Road site\u2014the period between the demobilization of the \"Reading No. 1 War Hospital\" in 1920 and the birth of the NHS in 1948\u2014represented a complex era of transition. It was during this time that the facility evolved from a military casualty hub into a permanent, civilian municipal hospital, finally shedding the grim reputation of the Victorian workhouse.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Post-War Handover
\nWhen the military vacated the site in early 1920, the complex was handed back to the Reading Board of Guardians. However, the town had changed. The war had proven that the site was capable of far more than just housing the \"destitute.\" In a significant move in 1921, the institution was renamed the Reading Battle Infirmary.
\nWhile it technically remained under the administration of the Poor Law, the 1920s saw a shift toward professionalization. The infirmary began to operate more like a general hospital, accepting acute cases that the Royal Berkshire Hospital could not accommodate.
\nThe 1929 Local Government Act
\nThe most significant turning point occurred in 1930. Following the Local Government Act of 1929, the Board of Guardians was abolished, and control of the infirmary passed to the Reading Borough Council. This was a landmark moment: for the first time, the hospital was a true municipal asset, funded by the local authority rather than charity or the \"workhouse\" levy.
\nIt was at this point, in 1930, that the site was officially renamed Battle Hospital. Under the council's leadership, the 1930s became a decade of modernization:
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Maternity Shift: Until this period, many births in Reading occurred at home or in small private nursing homes. Battle began to develop a dedicated maternity wing, establishing its reputation as the town's primary \"birthplace\"\u2014a legacy that would last until 2005.
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Specialist Services: The hospital began to specialize in infectious diseases and elderly care, areas that the Royal Berkshire Hospital (which focused on surgery and acute trauma) tended to avoid.
\n
The Second World War: The \"EMC\" Era
As the 1930s drew to a close, Battle Hospital was once again prepared for conflict. In 1939, it became part of the Emergency Medical Service (EMS). This was a government-coordinated scheme to organize hospitals into a national network to deal with expected air-raid casualties.
\nDuring the Second World War, Battle served a dual purpose. It remained a civilian hospital for the people of West Reading, but it also became a major center for the treatment of wounded soldiers and, crucially, victims of the Blitz. The hospital\u2019s proximity to the Great Western Railway made it a primary destination for \"ambulance trains\" arriving from London and, later, from the coast following the D-Day landings in 1944.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Road to 1948
\nBy the time the war ended in 1945, Battle Hospital was no longer an \"infirmary\" for the poor; it was a battle-hardened, multi-disciplinary medical center. It had developed robust pathology labs, an X-ray department, and a dedicated nursing school.
\nWhen Aneurin Bevan launched the National Health Service on July 5, 1948, Battle was seamlessly integrated. It ceased being a local council responsibility and became part of the new national healthcare system. The \"Battle spirit\"\u2014forged in the workhouse, tested in two world wars, and refined by municipal pride\u2014became a cornerstone of the Reading healthcare experience for the next half-century.
\n\u00a0
\nThe NHS Era and the \"Battle\" Spirit
\nFor the next five decades, it was known for its \"no-nonsense\" character. While the Royal Berks handled high-profile cases and complex surgeries, Battle was the workhorse of the town, housing the maternity units where thousands of \"Dings\" were born, as well as specialized elderly care and rehabilitation wards.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/c9b0f992082b.avif\")
Key personalities like Lionel Williams, the former Chief Medical Photographer, have spent decades documenting this era, preserving the memory of the \"Florence Nightingales\" of West Reading who managed the transition from primitive wartime medicine to the high-tech digital age.
The Final Transition: 2005 and Beyond
\nBy the 1990s, maintaining two separate large-scale hospitals in Reading became strategically difficult. In 1993, the Royal Berkshire and Battle Hospitals NHS Trust was formed to manage their consolidation.
\nThe final chapter for the Oxford Road site began in 2005, when all remaining clinical services were transferred to the expanded London Road site. The closure marked the end of 138 years of medical history on the site. However, the legacy of Battle Hospital lives on in two ways:
\nThe \"Battle Block\": A major wing at the current Royal Berkshire Hospital was named in its honor, ensuring the name remains part of the local medical vocabulary.
\nThe \"West Village\": The original site was redeveloped into a vibrant residential community. Most of the old hospital buildings were demolished to make way for hundreds of homes and a large Tesco supermarket, though the original gatehouse remains a silent sentinel to the thousands of lives that passed through its doors.
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
", "content_text": "\u00a0\nWhile the Royal Berkshire Hospital on London Road often claims the spotlight, for generations of West Reading residents, the true heart of local healthcare was Battle Hospital. Situated on the Oxford Road, Battle was a site of grit, transition, and survival\u2014evolving from a Victorian place of last resort into a frontline military hub and, eventually, a bustling general hospital before its final closure in 2005.\nFrom Workhouse to Ward\nThe origins of Battle Hospital were far humbler than the grand Bath stone of the \"Royal.\" Opened in 1867 as the Reading Union Workhouse, it was initially a grim Victorian institution designed for the \"destitute and infirm.\" At the time, healthcare was an adjunct to poverty relief; the site included a chapel, a bakery, and a laundry, operating as a self-contained village for those with nowhere else to go.\nDespite the name and the hospital\u2019s significant military history during the World Wars, the title \"Battle Hospital\" was not a tribute to any specific military engagement. Instead, the origin is much more geographical and local.\nThe Geography of \"Battle\"\nThe hospital was named after the Battle Ward, the local municipal district in West Reading where it was located. This ward, in turn, takes its name from Battle Farm, which once occupied much of the land in that area of the town.\nThe \"Battle\" nomenclature stretches back even further to the medieval era. The land was originally owned by Battle Abbey in Sussex. Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, William the Conqueror granted significant holdings in the Reading area to the monks of Battle Abbey as a means of providing them with an income. This historic link to the Sussex abbey (itself named after the Battle of Hastings) became permanently etched into the local map of Reading.\nWhile the site had been a workhouse and an infirmary for decades, the name was officially changed to Battle Hospital in 1930. This change was a deliberate attempt by the Reading Borough Council to remove the stigma attached to its previous incarnation.\nIt is a striking historical irony that a hospital named after a Sussex abbey and a local farm ended up playing such a vital frontline role in the medical \"battles\" of two World Wars.\n\u00a0\nThe \"No. 1\" War Hospital\nThe site\u2019s identity was forever altered by the outbreak of the First World War. In 1914, it was requisitioned by the War Office and designated as the Reading No. 1 War Hospital. This was an important moment in Reading's war history; the town became one of the most significant hubs for the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in the country.\n\n\u00a0\nThe scale was immense. Battle served as the \"hub\" for a network of 5 section hospitals and 38 auxiliary sites. Between 1914 and 1920, thousands of soldiers arrived by train at the nearby West Reading station, their stretchers carried through the gates to be treated for war wounds, trench foot, gas inhalation, and shrapnel wounds. It was during this era that the hospital shed its \"workhouse\" stigma and became one of the war\u2019s largest medical establishments.\n\n\u00a0\nThe interwar years at the Oxford Road site\u2014the period between the demobilization of the \"Reading No. 1 War Hospital\" in 1920 and the birth of the NHS in 1948\u2014represented a complex era of transition. It was during this time that the facility evolved from a military casualty hub into a permanent, civilian municipal hospital, finally shedding the grim reputation of the Victorian workhouse.\n\u00a0\nThe Post-War Handover\nWhen the military vacated the site in early 1920, the complex was handed back to the Reading Board of Guardians. However, the town had changed. The war had proven that the site was capable of far more than just housing the \"destitute.\" In a significant move in 1921, the institution was renamed the Reading Battle Infirmary.\nWhile it technically remained under the administration of the Poor Law, the 1920s saw a shift toward professionalization. The infirmary began to operate more like a general hospital, accepting acute cases that the Royal Berkshire Hospital could not accommodate.\nThe 1929 Local Government Act\nThe most significant turning point occurred in 1930. Following the Local Government Act of 1929, the Board of Guardians was abolished, and control of the infirmary passed to the Reading Borough Council. This was a landmark moment: for the first time, the hospital was a true municipal asset, funded by the local authority rather than charity or the \"workhouse\" levy.\nIt was at this point, in 1930, that the site was officially renamed Battle Hospital. Under the council's leadership, the 1930s became a decade of modernization:\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Maternity Shift: Until this period, many births in Reading occurred at home or in small private nursing homes. Battle began to develop a dedicated maternity wing, establishing its reputation as the town's primary \"birthplace\"\u2014a legacy that would last until 2005.\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Specialist Services: The hospital began to specialize in infectious diseases and elderly care, areas that the Royal Berkshire Hospital (which focused on surgery and acute trauma) tended to avoid.\nThe Second World War: The \"EMC\" Era\nAs the 1930s drew to a close, Battle Hospital was once again prepared for conflict. In 1939, it became part of the Emergency Medical Service (EMS). This was a government-coordinated scheme to organize hospitals into a national network to deal with expected air-raid casualties.\nDuring the Second World War, Battle served a dual purpose. It remained a civilian hospital for the people of West Reading, but it also became a major center for the treatment of wounded soldiers and, crucially, victims of the Blitz. The hospital\u2019s proximity to the Great Western Railway made it a primary destination for \"ambulance trains\" arriving from London and, later, from the coast following the D-Day landings in 1944.\n\u00a0\nThe Road to 1948\nBy the time the war ended in 1945, Battle Hospital was no longer an \"infirmary\" for the poor; it was a battle-hardened, multi-disciplinary medical center. It had developed robust pathology labs, an X-ray department, and a dedicated nursing school.\nWhen Aneurin Bevan launched the National Health Service on July 5, 1948, Battle was seamlessly integrated. It ceased being a local council responsibility and became part of the new national healthcare system. The \"Battle spirit\"\u2014forged in the workhouse, tested in two world wars, and refined by municipal pride\u2014became a cornerstone of the Reading healthcare experience for the next half-century.\n\u00a0\nThe NHS Era and the \"Battle\" Spirit\nFor the next five decades, it was known for its \"no-nonsense\" character. While the Royal Berks handled high-profile cases and complex surgeries, Battle was the workhorse of the town, housing the maternity units where thousands of \"Dings\" were born, as well as specialized elderly care and rehabilitation wards.\n\nKey personalities like Lionel Williams, the former Chief Medical Photographer, have spent decades documenting this era, preserving the memory of the \"Florence Nightingales\" of West Reading who managed the transition from primitive wartime medicine to the high-tech digital age.\nThe Final Transition: 2005 and Beyond\nBy the 1990s, maintaining two separate large-scale hospitals in Reading became strategically difficult. In 1993, the Royal Berkshire and Battle Hospitals NHS Trust was formed to manage their consolidation.\nThe final chapter for the Oxford Road site began in 2005, when all remaining clinical services were transferred to the expanded London Road site. The closure marked the end of 138 years of medical history on the site. However, the legacy of Battle Hospital lives on in two ways:\nThe \"Battle Block\": A major wing at the current Royal Berkshire Hospital was named in its honor, ensuring the name remains part of the local medical vocabulary.\nThe \"West Village\": The original site was redeveloped into a vibrant residential community. Most of the old hospital buildings were demolished to make way for hundreds of homes and a large Tesco supermarket, though the original gatehouse remains a silent sentinel to the thousands of lives that passed through its doors.\n\u00a0\n\u00a0\n\u00a0\n\u00a0", "summary": "Discover the rich history of Battle Hospital, a West Reading landmark that transformed from a Victorian workhouse into a vital general hospital and military hub before its closure in 2005.", "date_published": "2026-02-01T17:59:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:17.959760+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/user13/2026/03/076a1821.jpg", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/user13/2026/03/076a1821.jpg", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Reading Buildings - Battle Hospital", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1799, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "\u00a0
\nWhile the Royal Berkshire Hospital on London Road often claims the spotlight, for generations of West Reading residents, the true heart of local healthcare was Battle Hospital. Situated on the Oxford Road, Battle was a site of grit, transition, and survival\u2014evolving from a Victorian place of last resort into a frontline military hub and, eventually, a bustling general hospital before its final closure in 2005.
\nFrom Workhouse to Ward
\nThe origins of Battle Hospital were far humbler than the grand Bath stone of the \"Royal.\" Opened in 1867 as the Reading Union Workhouse, it was initially a grim Victorian institution designed for the \"destitute and infirm.\" At the time, healthcare was an adjunct to poverty relief; the site included a chapel, a bakery, and a laundry, operating as a self-contained village for those with nowhere else to go.
\nDespite the name and the hospital\u2019s significant military history during the World Wars, the title \"Battle Hospital\" was not a tribute to any specific military engagement. Instead, the origin is much more geographical and local.
\nThe Geography of \"Battle\"
\nThe hospital was named after the Battle Ward, the local municipal district in West Reading where it was located. This ward, in turn, takes its name from Battle Farm, which once occupied much of the land in that area of the town.
\nThe \"Battle\" nomenclature stretches back even further to the medieval era. The land was originally owned by Battle Abbey in Sussex. Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, William the Conqueror granted significant holdings in the Reading area to the monks of Battle Abbey as a means of providing them with an income. This historic link to the Sussex abbey (itself named after the Battle of Hastings) became permanently etched into the local map of Reading.
\nWhile the site had been a workhouse and an infirmary for decades, the name was officially changed to Battle Hospital in 1930. This change was a deliberate attempt by the Reading Borough Council to remove the stigma attached to its previous incarnation.
\nIt is a striking historical irony that a hospital named after a Sussex abbey and a local farm ended up playing such a vital frontline role in the medical \"battles\" of two World Wars.
\n\u00a0
\nThe \"No. 1\" War Hospital
\nThe site\u2019s identity was forever altered by the outbreak of the First World War. In 1914, it was requisitioned by the War Office and designated as the Reading No. 1 War Hospital. This was an important moment in Reading's war history; the town became one of the most significant hubs for the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in the country.
\n
\u00a0
\nThe scale was immense. Battle served as the \"hub\" for a network of 5 section hospitals and 38 auxiliary sites. Between 1914 and 1920, thousands of soldiers arrived by train at the nearby West Reading station, their stretchers carried through the gates to be treated for war wounds, trench foot, gas inhalation, and shrapnel wounds. It was during this era that the hospital shed its \"workhouse\" stigma and became one of the war\u2019s largest medical establishments.
\n
\u00a0
\nThe interwar years at the Oxford Road site\u2014the period between the demobilization of the \"Reading No. 1 War Hospital\" in 1920 and the birth of the NHS in 1948\u2014represented a complex era of transition. It was during this time that the facility evolved from a military casualty hub into a permanent, civilian municipal hospital, finally shedding the grim reputation of the Victorian workhouse.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Post-War Handover
\nWhen the military vacated the site in early 1920, the complex was handed back to the Reading Board of Guardians. However, the town had changed. The war had proven that the site was capable of far more than just housing the \"destitute.\" In a significant move in 1921, the institution was renamed the Reading Battle Infirmary.
\nWhile it technically remained under the administration of the Poor Law, the 1920s saw a shift toward professionalization. The infirmary began to operate more like a general hospital, accepting acute cases that the Royal Berkshire Hospital could not accommodate.
\nThe 1929 Local Government Act
\nThe most significant turning point occurred in 1930. Following the Local Government Act of 1929, the Board of Guardians was abolished, and control of the infirmary passed to the Reading Borough Council. This was a landmark moment: for the first time, the hospital was a true municipal asset, funded by the local authority rather than charity or the \"workhouse\" levy.
\nIt was at this point, in 1930, that the site was officially renamed Battle Hospital. Under the council's leadership, the 1930s became a decade of modernization:
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Maternity Shift: Until this period, many births in Reading occurred at home or in small private nursing homes. Battle began to develop a dedicated maternity wing, establishing its reputation as the town's primary \"birthplace\"\u2014a legacy that would last until 2005.
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Specialist Services: The hospital began to specialize in infectious diseases and elderly care, areas that the Royal Berkshire Hospital (which focused on surgery and acute trauma) tended to avoid.
\n
The Second World War: The \"EMC\" Era
As the 1930s drew to a close, Battle Hospital was once again prepared for conflict. In 1939, it became part of the Emergency Medical Service (EMS). This was a government-coordinated scheme to organize hospitals into a national network to deal with expected air-raid casualties.
\nDuring the Second World War, Battle served a dual purpose. It remained a civilian hospital for the people of West Reading, but it also became a major center for the treatment of wounded soldiers and, crucially, victims of the Blitz. The hospital\u2019s proximity to the Great Western Railway made it a primary destination for \"ambulance trains\" arriving from London and, later, from the coast following the D-Day landings in 1944.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Road to 1948
\nBy the time the war ended in 1945, Battle Hospital was no longer an \"infirmary\" for the poor; it was a battle-hardened, multi-disciplinary medical center. It had developed robust pathology labs, an X-ray department, and a dedicated nursing school.
\nWhen Aneurin Bevan launched the National Health Service on July 5, 1948, Battle was seamlessly integrated. It ceased being a local council responsibility and became part of the new national healthcare system. The \"Battle spirit\"\u2014forged in the workhouse, tested in two world wars, and refined by municipal pride\u2014became a cornerstone of the Reading healthcare experience for the next half-century.
\n\u00a0
\nThe NHS Era and the \"Battle\" Spirit
\nFor the next five decades, it was known for its \"no-nonsense\" character. While the Royal Berks handled high-profile cases and complex surgeries, Battle was the workhorse of the town, housing the maternity units where thousands of \"Dings\" were born, as well as specialized elderly care and rehabilitation wards.
\n
Key personalities like Lionel Williams, the former Chief Medical Photographer, have spent decades documenting this era, preserving the memory of the \"Florence Nightingales\" of West Reading who managed the transition from primitive wartime medicine to the high-tech digital age.
The Final Transition: 2005 and Beyond
\nBy the 1990s, maintaining two separate large-scale hospitals in Reading became strategically difficult. In 1993, the Royal Berkshire and Battle Hospitals NHS Trust was formed to manage their consolidation.
\nThe final chapter for the Oxford Road site began in 2005, when all remaining clinical services were transferred to the expanded London Road site. The closure marked the end of 138 years of medical history on the site. However, the legacy of Battle Hospital lives on in two ways:
\nThe \"Battle Block\": A major wing at the current Royal Berkshire Hospital was named in its honor, ensuring the name remains part of the local medical vocabulary.
\nThe \"West Village\": The original site was redeveloped into a vibrant residential community. Most of the old hospital buildings were demolished to make way for hundreds of homes and a large Tesco supermarket, though the original gatehouse remains a silent sentinel to the thousands of lives that passed through its doors.
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
", "description": "Discover the rich history of Battle Hospital, a West Reading landmark that transformed from a Victorian workhouse into a vital general hospital and military hub before its closure in 2005.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:17.959760+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-02-01T17:59:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/reading-buildings-battle-hospital/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "323", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/lets-play-darts/", "title": "Let's Play Darts !", "content_html": "\u00a0
\nDarts has become a firm favourite over the past couple of years, as the likes of Luke Littler, Stephen Bunting and Newbury\u2019s Luke Humphries capture the nation\u2019s imagination. After all, you can\u2019t beat a bit of Bully.\u00a0
\nThe PDC Premier League is about to launch: the first night takes place on Thursday, February 5 in Newcastle. It then continues weekly until May, with venues including Antwerp, Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff and Dublin. The final will be in London, with all nights shown live on Sky Sports.\u00a0
\nAmong those taking part are Luke Littler - the defending champion, Gian van Veen, Michael van Gerwen, Jonny Clayton, Josh Rock and Gerwyn Price.
\nIf watching the darts means you fancy becoming a thrower, first become a knower, thanks to our guide to darts in Reading.\u00a0
\nDarts, like any sport, needs practice. After all, you can't just rock up to an oche and expect to throw 180s or that perfect nine-dart finish. To do that, you need some space to play and some kit to play with.\u00a0
\nThe easiest way is to pop into the likes of Decathlon and Argos and stock up on some gear\u2026 or look out for cheap boards on special offer in Lidl and Aldi. These aren\u2019t always the greatest boards, and may not last repeated attempts at hitting the bullseye: the cheap price doesn\u2019t always mean good value.
\nThere are specialist darts shops and there is one in Wokingham.\u00a0Double Top Darts\u00a0can help kit out a beginner and offers a mail order service with click and collect \u2013 sadly, it doesn't have a showroom open to the public, but they do offer advice and a friendly service.\u00a0
\nWhat would you need? A dartboard is the main thing, and it needs to be at the correct height: the bull should be 5ft 8in (1.73m) off the floor, and the thrower should be 7ft 9.25in (2.37m) from the board.\u00a0
\nIt can be mounted on a wall or the back of a door, or you can buy specialist stands if you need to pack it away at the end of a session. A surround will help capture those stray darts. If you really want to take it seriously, extras such as lights and camera-based scoring systems are available.\u00a0
\nAs for the darts? It will take some trial and error to find the type and weight that works best for you. Be aware that there are two main kinds: soft and steel tips. The ones you need will depend on the board you get\u2026 to emulate Luke The Nuke and other darting stars, you\u2019ll need steel tip darts.\u00a0
\nPrices will vary accordingly, and for beginners looking to find their way it may pay dividends to get a selection of cheaper or clearance darts and flights to experiment with. In essence, you can spend a little or spend a lot.\u00a0
\nThere are plenty of training videos on the likes of YouTube that can help with stance, throwing, exercises to try and games to play.\u00a0
\nAnd then, it\u2019s a case of throw, throw, throw and build up your confidence.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/441da56aff4f.jpg\")
Many pubs have dartboards, and will let you play on them. Some will be well used and look like they\u2019ve seen better days. Others - well, you can tell they are loved by their landlords.\u00a0
\nMany will let you play with your own arrows, while some will have a set behind the bar. The quality will vary, after all, they are used by any Tom, Dick or Harry.\u00a0
\nSome nights there will be matches on, as many pubs take part in the\u00a0Reading Darts League. Many will welcome new players, which is why that practice will make perfect. After all, if you need to finish on a double you need to be able to hit them.\u00a0
\nAnother place to play will be in sports and social clubs.\u00a0Burghfield Community Sports Association\u00a0is one of the best and regularly hosts special evenings where some of the legends of the game will drop in for an exhibition match. Events are posted on its Facebook page:\u00a0https://www.facebook.com/p/Burghfield-Darts-Events-100070688776558/
\nAlso worth checking out is\u00a0The Crucible\u00a0\u2013 not in Sheffield, but in Richfield Avenue. It has several rooms with boards in, some of which have augmented reality features to allow for social darts, and help people with their games. The venue is serious about darts: it hosts the World Seniors Darts Tour qualifying events. Those who have the talent can go on to compete with the likes of Phil \u2018The Power\u2019 Taylor and Martin \u2018Woolfie\u2019 Adams.\u00a0
\nSocial darts is becoming a big thing, and Reading now boasts several places where you can book an oche for a fun night out.\u00a0
\nIn addition to the board, a few pints and a fun atmosphere, there will be camera systems and screens above the board to allow people to play a range of fun games. No previous experience is necessary, just the ability to throw the darts in the right direction.\u00a0
\nSpinners\u00a0in Broad St. Mall has a range of social games to play including virtual clay pigeon shooting, ten pin bowling and Electric Darts. It costs from \u00a325 per oche for 55 minutes and uses an interactive darts system that tracks scores and offers multiple games. They promise it is easy to learn and hard to put down.\u00a0
\nThe former music shop on Caversham Bridge Road is now\u00a0Bowl Central Reading.\u00a0In addition to its arcade machines, ten pin bowling and a bar, it has its own social darts scene, offering the chance to select games to play and cameras again keep track of scores. It promises \u2018real darts, real dartboard, real fun\u2019.\u00a0
\nIn addition to throwing axes, you can throw arrows at\u00a0Boom Battle Bar\u00a0in Station Road, where the old Revolution bar used to be. Its Augmented Reality Darts aims to take some of the pressure off by offering state-of-the-art technology. Its oches can take up to eight people and there are five available. Each hour-long hire costs between \u00a340 and \u00a345, and the bar welcomes under 11s before 9pm, when it becomes over 18s only.\u00a0
\nLike other social darts venues, it offers different games for people to play.\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/d01687789b0b.jpg\")
And coming soon is\u00a0Flight Club, as part of the new Station Hill development\u00a0 between Friar Street and the railway station. The company says its bars fuse a Victorian fairground feel with a local pub, while its menu includes food, cocktails and pints. And then there are the games: Flight Club calls it Social Darts, and promises automatic scoring, instant video replays and highlights sent to your inbox the next day.\u00a0
\nThe opening date has yet to be announced, but if you can't wait the company has bars in Oxford, and Victoria and Bloomsbury in London.\u00a0
", "content_text": "\u00a0\nDarts has become a firm favourite over the past couple of years, as the likes of Luke Littler, Stephen Bunting and Newbury\u2019s Luke Humphries capture the nation\u2019s imagination. After all, you can\u2019t beat a bit of Bully.\u00a0\nThe PDC Premier League is about to launch: the first night takes place on Thursday, February 5 in Newcastle. It then continues weekly until May, with venues including Antwerp, Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff and Dublin. The final will be in London, with all nights shown live on Sky Sports.\u00a0\nAmong those taking part are Luke Littler - the defending champion, Gian van Veen, Michael van Gerwen, Jonny Clayton, Josh Rock and Gerwyn Price.\nIf watching the darts means you fancy becoming a thrower, first become a knower, thanks to our guide to darts in Reading.\u00a0\nIf You Want To Play At Home\nDarts, like any sport, needs practice. After all, you can't just rock up to an oche and expect to throw 180s or that perfect nine-dart finish. To do that, you need some space to play and some kit to play with.\u00a0\nThe easiest way is to pop into the likes of Decathlon and Argos and stock up on some gear\u2026 or look out for cheap boards on special offer in Lidl and Aldi. These aren\u2019t always the greatest boards, and may not last repeated attempts at hitting the bullseye: the cheap price doesn\u2019t always mean good value.\nThere are specialist darts shops and there is one in Wokingham.\u00a0Double Top Darts\u00a0can help kit out a beginner and offers a mail order service with click and collect \u2013 sadly, it doesn't have a showroom open to the public, but they do offer advice and a friendly service.\u00a0\nWhat would you need? A dartboard is the main thing, and it needs to be at the correct height: the bull should be 5ft 8in (1.73m) off the floor, and the thrower should be 7ft 9.25in (2.37m) from the board.\u00a0\nIt can be mounted on a wall or the back of a door, or you can buy specialist stands if you need to pack it away at the end of a session. A surround will help capture those stray darts. If you really want to take it seriously, extras such as lights and camera-based scoring systems are available.\u00a0\nAs for the darts? It will take some trial and error to find the type and weight that works best for you. Be aware that there are two main kinds: soft and steel tips. The ones you need will depend on the board you get\u2026 to emulate Luke The Nuke and other darting stars, you\u2019ll need steel tip darts.\u00a0\nPrices will vary accordingly, and for beginners looking to find their way it may pay dividends to get a selection of cheaper or clearance darts and flights to experiment with. In essence, you can spend a little or spend a lot.\u00a0\nThere are plenty of training videos on the likes of YouTube that can help with stance, throwing, exercises to try and games to play.\u00a0\nAnd then, it\u2019s a case of throw, throw, throw and build up your confidence.\n\nTaking Darts Out Of The Home\nMany pubs have dartboards, and will let you play on them. Some will be well used and look like they\u2019ve seen better days. Others - well, you can tell they are loved by their landlords.\u00a0\nMany will let you play with your own arrows, while some will have a set behind the bar. The quality will vary, after all, they are used by any Tom, Dick or Harry.\u00a0\nSome nights there will be matches on, as many pubs take part in the\u00a0Reading Darts League. Many will welcome new players, which is why that practice will make perfect. After all, if you need to finish on a double you need to be able to hit them.\u00a0\nAnother place to play will be in sports and social clubs.\u00a0Burghfield Community Sports Association\u00a0is one of the best and regularly hosts special evenings where some of the legends of the game will drop in for an exhibition match. Events are posted on its Facebook page:\u00a0https://www.facebook.com/p/Burghfield-Darts-Events-100070688776558/\nAlso worth checking out is\u00a0The Crucible\u00a0\u2013 not in Sheffield, but in Richfield Avenue. It has several rooms with boards in, some of which have augmented reality features to allow for social darts, and help people with their games. The venue is serious about darts: it hosts the World Seniors Darts Tour qualifying events. Those who have the talent can go on to compete with the likes of Phil \u2018The Power\u2019 Taylor and Martin \u2018Woolfie\u2019 Adams.\u00a0\nDarts With Friends\nSocial darts is becoming a big thing, and Reading now boasts several places where you can book an oche for a fun night out.\u00a0\nIn addition to the board, a few pints and a fun atmosphere, there will be camera systems and screens above the board to allow people to play a range of fun games. No previous experience is necessary, just the ability to throw the darts in the right direction.\u00a0\nSpinners\u00a0in Broad St. Mall has a range of social games to play including virtual clay pigeon shooting, ten pin bowling and Electric Darts. It costs from \u00a325 per oche for 55 minutes and uses an interactive darts system that tracks scores and offers multiple games. They promise it is easy to learn and hard to put down.\u00a0\nThe former music shop on Caversham Bridge Road is now\u00a0Bowl Central Reading.\u00a0In addition to its arcade machines, ten pin bowling and a bar, it has its own social darts scene, offering the chance to select games to play and cameras again keep track of scores. It promises \u2018real darts, real dartboard, real fun\u2019.\u00a0\nIn addition to throwing axes, you can throw arrows at\u00a0Boom Battle Bar\u00a0in Station Road, where the old Revolution bar used to be. Its Augmented Reality Darts aims to take some of the pressure off by offering state-of-the-art technology. Its oches can take up to eight people and there are five available. Each hour-long hire costs between \u00a340 and \u00a345, and the bar welcomes under 11s before 9pm, when it becomes over 18s only.\u00a0\nLike other social darts venues, it offers different games for people to play.\u00a0\n\nAnd coming soon is\u00a0Flight Club, as part of the new Station Hill development\u00a0 between Friar Street and the railway station. The company says its bars fuse a Victorian fairground feel with a local pub, while its menu includes food, cocktails and pints. And then there are the games: Flight Club calls it Social Darts, and promises automatic scoring, instant video replays and highlights sent to your inbox the next day.\u00a0\nThe opening date has yet to be announced, but if you can't wait the company has bars in Oxford, and Victoria and Bloomsbury in London.\u00a0", "summary": "Inspired by the PDC Premier League and stars like Luke Littler? Discover how to set up your own home dartboard and find local pubs and clubs in Reading to hone your skills and join the fun.", "date_published": "2026-02-01T17:22:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:18.745338+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/eaef44fb.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/eaef44fb.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Let's Play Darts !", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1420, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "\u00a0
\nDarts has become a firm favourite over the past couple of years, as the likes of Luke Littler, Stephen Bunting and Newbury\u2019s Luke Humphries capture the nation\u2019s imagination. After all, you can\u2019t beat a bit of Bully.\u00a0
\nThe PDC Premier League is about to launch: the first night takes place on Thursday, February 5 in Newcastle. It then continues weekly until May, with venues including Antwerp, Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff and Dublin. The final will be in London, with all nights shown live on Sky Sports.\u00a0
\nAmong those taking part are Luke Littler - the defending champion, Gian van Veen, Michael van Gerwen, Jonny Clayton, Josh Rock and Gerwyn Price.
\nIf watching the darts means you fancy becoming a thrower, first become a knower, thanks to our guide to darts in Reading.\u00a0
\nDarts, like any sport, needs practice. After all, you can't just rock up to an oche and expect to throw 180s or that perfect nine-dart finish. To do that, you need some space to play and some kit to play with.\u00a0
\nThe easiest way is to pop into the likes of Decathlon and Argos and stock up on some gear\u2026 or look out for cheap boards on special offer in Lidl and Aldi. These aren\u2019t always the greatest boards, and may not last repeated attempts at hitting the bullseye: the cheap price doesn\u2019t always mean good value.
\nThere are specialist darts shops and there is one in Wokingham.\u00a0Double Top Darts\u00a0can help kit out a beginner and offers a mail order service with click and collect \u2013 sadly, it doesn't have a showroom open to the public, but they do offer advice and a friendly service.\u00a0
\nWhat would you need? A dartboard is the main thing, and it needs to be at the correct height: the bull should be 5ft 8in (1.73m) off the floor, and the thrower should be 7ft 9.25in (2.37m) from the board.\u00a0
\nIt can be mounted on a wall or the back of a door, or you can buy specialist stands if you need to pack it away at the end of a session. A surround will help capture those stray darts. If you really want to take it seriously, extras such as lights and camera-based scoring systems are available.\u00a0
\nAs for the darts? It will take some trial and error to find the type and weight that works best for you. Be aware that there are two main kinds: soft and steel tips. The ones you need will depend on the board you get\u2026 to emulate Luke The Nuke and other darting stars, you\u2019ll need steel tip darts.\u00a0
\nPrices will vary accordingly, and for beginners looking to find their way it may pay dividends to get a selection of cheaper or clearance darts and flights to experiment with. In essence, you can spend a little or spend a lot.\u00a0
\nThere are plenty of training videos on the likes of YouTube that can help with stance, throwing, exercises to try and games to play.\u00a0
\nAnd then, it\u2019s a case of throw, throw, throw and build up your confidence.
\n
Many pubs have dartboards, and will let you play on them. Some will be well used and look like they\u2019ve seen better days. Others - well, you can tell they are loved by their landlords.\u00a0
\nMany will let you play with your own arrows, while some will have a set behind the bar. The quality will vary, after all, they are used by any Tom, Dick or Harry.\u00a0
\nSome nights there will be matches on, as many pubs take part in the\u00a0Reading Darts League. Many will welcome new players, which is why that practice will make perfect. After all, if you need to finish on a double you need to be able to hit them.\u00a0
\nAnother place to play will be in sports and social clubs.\u00a0Burghfield Community Sports Association\u00a0is one of the best and regularly hosts special evenings where some of the legends of the game will drop in for an exhibition match. Events are posted on its Facebook page:\u00a0https://www.facebook.com/p/Burghfield-Darts-Events-100070688776558/
\nAlso worth checking out is\u00a0The Crucible\u00a0\u2013 not in Sheffield, but in Richfield Avenue. It has several rooms with boards in, some of which have augmented reality features to allow for social darts, and help people with their games. The venue is serious about darts: it hosts the World Seniors Darts Tour qualifying events. Those who have the talent can go on to compete with the likes of Phil \u2018The Power\u2019 Taylor and Martin \u2018Woolfie\u2019 Adams.\u00a0
\nSocial darts is becoming a big thing, and Reading now boasts several places where you can book an oche for a fun night out.\u00a0
\nIn addition to the board, a few pints and a fun atmosphere, there will be camera systems and screens above the board to allow people to play a range of fun games. No previous experience is necessary, just the ability to throw the darts in the right direction.\u00a0
\nSpinners\u00a0in Broad St. Mall has a range of social games to play including virtual clay pigeon shooting, ten pin bowling and Electric Darts. It costs from \u00a325 per oche for 55 minutes and uses an interactive darts system that tracks scores and offers multiple games. They promise it is easy to learn and hard to put down.\u00a0
\nThe former music shop on Caversham Bridge Road is now\u00a0Bowl Central Reading.\u00a0In addition to its arcade machines, ten pin bowling and a bar, it has its own social darts scene, offering the chance to select games to play and cameras again keep track of scores. It promises \u2018real darts, real dartboard, real fun\u2019.\u00a0
\nIn addition to throwing axes, you can throw arrows at\u00a0Boom Battle Bar\u00a0in Station Road, where the old Revolution bar used to be. Its Augmented Reality Darts aims to take some of the pressure off by offering state-of-the-art technology. Its oches can take up to eight people and there are five available. Each hour-long hire costs between \u00a340 and \u00a345, and the bar welcomes under 11s before 9pm, when it becomes over 18s only.\u00a0
\nLike other social darts venues, it offers different games for people to play.\u00a0
\n
And coming soon is\u00a0Flight Club, as part of the new Station Hill development\u00a0 between Friar Street and the railway station. The company says its bars fuse a Victorian fairground feel with a local pub, while its menu includes food, cocktails and pints. And then there are the games: Flight Club calls it Social Darts, and promises automatic scoring, instant video replays and highlights sent to your inbox the next day.\u00a0
\nThe opening date has yet to be announced, but if you can't wait the company has bars in Oxford, and Victoria and Bloomsbury in London.\u00a0
", "description": "Inspired by the PDC Premier League and stars like Luke Littler? Discover how to set up your own home dartboard and find local pubs and clubs in Reading to hone your skills and join the fun.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:18.745338+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-02-01T17:22:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/lets-play-darts/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "321", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/a-reading-health-check/", "title": "A Reading Health Check", "content_html": "\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/026a31ab1084.jpg\")
In late January 2026 the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) revealed that The Royal Berkshire Hospital has been placed in the final 'wave' of the New Hospitals Programme. This means construction is now slated to begin between 2037 and 2039, with completion potentially pushed to 2040. So this month we're taking a deep dive into health in our town past, present and future.
The announcement, made to the House of Commons by Health Secretary Wes Streeting as part of a wider \"reset\" of the national New Hospital Programme (NHP), the government revealed that the previous target of building 40 new hospitals by 2030 was \"unfunded and undeliverable,\" leading to a significant rescheduling of projects across the country, placing the redevelopment of Berkshire's primary hospital in the slow lane.
\nThe Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust issued a formal response expressing \"extreme disappointment\" at the delay, noting that the current aging estate would require roughly \u00a3400 million in maintenance costs just to remain operational until the new site is ready.
\nHowever, despite this setback, it was also revealed in January that the Royal Berkshire Hospital NHS Trust is performing well, with latest government figures showing 81.7% of patients waiting less than 18 weeks to start treatment (an improvement from 80.4% a year ago with a further target of 85.4% by March 2026). This compares very favourably with averages in England of 61.8% (better than the 59.2% a year previously).
\n\u00a0
\nMedical History
Reading has a proud medical tradition and this month inReading is taking a look at how healthcare has evolved in our town. From early Roman settlements, to the monolithic medieval cloisters of Reading Abbey to the cutting-edge digital diagnostics of the 21st century, to some degree the story of healthcare in Reading is a mirror of Britain\u2019s own medical development.
A recent study from the University of Reading indicates that Roman urbanism significantly harmed the physical well-being of the population in ancient Britain. By examining the skeletal remains of women and children, scientist Rebecca Pitt discovered that the transition to city living introduced toxic lead exposure, overcrowding, and restricted resources. Interestingly, these negative health outcomes were exclusive to urban centers, while residents in rural communities maintained health standards similar to those of the earlier Iron Age. The study, published in the journal Antiquity, suggests that the social upheaval of Roman occupation created a distinct divide in quality of life between city dwellers and country inhabitants. What did the Romans do for us ? Well in nearby Roman town of Silchester, they brought bad health !
However, Roman legionnaires could expect better treatment. The Romans introduced the concept of the dedicated hospital building, known as a valetudinarium. Primarily built for soldiers, these facilities featured corridors, wards, and specialized drainage.
Roman surgical kits were remarkably modern in design. Archaeologists have recovered bronze scalpels, bone drills, forceps, and \"cataract needles.\" In Roman Silchester, evidence of such tools suggests that procedures like setting complex fractures or removing bladder stones were performed with a high degree of technical skill and you can see some of these tools in Reading Museum.
Monastic Healthcare
The seeds of Reading\u2019s recent medical history were sown in 1121, when Henry I founded Reading Abbey. While the monks primarily cared for their own, the Abbey\u2019s infirmary represented the first organized medical presence in the town and still stands overlooking the graveyard of St Lawrence (ironically, today it is a nursery).
Monastic healthcare was rooted in the Benedictine rule that \"the care of the sick must be placed before and above all things,\" a mandate that transformed the Abbey into a beacon of healing for Berkshire.
\nAt the heart of this operation was the infirmitorium or infirmary, a separate building within the abbey complex designed to provide peace, specialized diet, and medical attention. The Monk Infirmarer was the medieval equivalent of a Head Of Medicine, responsible for managing the Abbey\u2019s apothecary and overseeing the \"physic garden.\" Within these gardens, located near the Holy Brook, monks cultivated a living pharmacopeia. They grew sage for fevers, hyssop for chest complaints, and \"all-heal\" (valerian) for nervous disorders. Medicine was a blend of \"Galenic\" theory\u2014the balancing of the four bodily humors\u2014and practical herbalism.
\nTreatments at Reading Abbey were often surprisingly advanced yet fundamentally different from modern practice. The monks utilized \"uroscopy\" (the examination of urine for color and sediment) to diagnose ailments, and bloodletting was a routine preventative measure, believed to purge the body of excess \"heat.\" For the pilgrims who flocked to the Abbey to see the relic of the Hand of St. James, healing was often sought through a combination of prayer and the physical administration of tinctures. The Abbey also operated the Hospital of St. John, founded in 1189 specifically to serve the \"poor and pilgrims,\" marking the first time the town\u2019s laypeople had access to organized clinical care.
\nAs the centuries progressed, the medicine at the Abbey evolved from purely spiritual \"miracle seeking\" to a more observational science. The monks began to record the efficacy of certain herbs, and by the 14th century, the influence of Islamic medical texts, translated into Latin, began to filter into monastic libraries. This brought a greater understanding of surgery and anatomy, moving away from the idea that illness was merely a divine punishment and toward the concept of environmental and physical causes.
\nThe catastrophic end to this medical tradition came with the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. When Henry VIII\u2019s commissioners arrived, the Abbey\u2019s infrastructure was dismantled, and its vast knowledge base was scattered. The impact on Reading was devastating; the Hospital of St. John was closed, and the organized care for the poor vanished almost overnight. The town entered a \"medical dark age\" that lasted for nearly three centuries.
\nWithout the monks to tend the physic gardens or provide beds for the infirm, the burden of care fell to unskilled \"wise women\" or expensive private physicians. It was not until the 19th-century foundation of the Royal Berkshire Hospital that Reading regained a healthcare institution of the same scale and civic importance as the one lost during the Reformation.
\nModern Era Of Healthcare
\nThe modern era of healthcare truly began in the 1830s. At that time, Reading was a town in the throes of the Industrial Revolution, its population swelling and its medical needs outstripping the charity of local dispensaries.
\nIn 1836, Richard Benyon of the Englefield Estate offered \u00a31,000 toward a dedicated hospital\u2014a sum so significant he famously insisted on having the hospital\u2019s architectural plans painted into the background of his official portrait. This philanthropic spark was fanned by Henry Addington, the 1st Viscount Sidmouth and a former Prime Minister, who donated four acres of land on London Road. The Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH) opened its doors on May 27, 1839, a stunning piece of Bath stone architecture designed by Henry Briant which maintains much of its grandeur to this day.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/c2e251b82adf.jpg\")
The first year of operation offers a stark glimpse into 19th-century medicine. With a total annual budget of just \u00a3433, the hospital spent more on beer (\u00a391) than it did on many medical supplies, reflecting the contemporary belief in the restorative powers of ale! The ledger also records an expenditure of \u00a327 on leeches, a reminder of the era\u2019s reliance on bloodletting.
\nThe hospital\u2019s very first patient, admitted on May 28, 1839, was a fifteen-year-old boy named George Earley. A laborer on the burgeoning Great Western Railway, Earley had suffered a catastrophic compound fracture to his upper arm while working on the Sonning Cutting. His arrival forced the hospital to open several days earlier than planned. In a harrowing pre-anaesthetic procedure, his arm was amputated at the shoulder. He survived, remaining in the hospital for two months\u2014a testament to the skill of early surgeons working without the luxuries of modern sedation, which would not arrive in Reading for another seven years.
\nAs the 19th century gave way to the 20th, the RBH became a center for some of the most famous medical interventions in British history. Perhaps the most legendary figure was Leonard Joyce, a surgeon of such repute that his hands were said to be insured for a fortune. In 1931, Joyce faced his most high-profile challenge when a young, reckless RAF pilot named Douglas Bader crashed his Hawker Fury at Woodley Aerodrome.
\nBader was rushed to the RBH with life-threatening injuries. Joyce performed a double amputation, saving the pilot\u2019s life. Bader\u2019s subsequent recovery and his role as a flying ace in the Battle of Britain became national legend, but it began in a ward in Reading. The bond between the two was so strong that Bader remained a frequent visitor to Joyce\u2019s home in Reading long after the war.
\nWartime Strain and the Battle Hospital
\nThe World Wars transformed Reading into a \"hospital town.\" During the First World War, the town became one of the largest war hospital complexes in the country. Battle Hospital, originally a workhouse infirmary, was designated \"Reading No. 1 War Hospital.\" Local schools were requisitioned to house the wounded, and at one point, over 3,500 children had to be relocated to make room for wards.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/827787d55697.jpg\")
By the mid-20th century, healthcare was no longer a matter of private charity but a public right. When the NHS was formed in 1948, the Royal Berkshire had 413 beds and was seeing nearly 30,000 outpatients annually. This era saw the leadership of Matron Winifred Aldwinckle, a formidable figure who had been one of the first nurses to land in Normandy after D-Day. Under her stewardship from 1948 to 1966, the hospital transitioned into the modern era, grappling with the polio epidemics of the 1950s\u2014an era still represented in the Berkshire Medical Heritage Centre by a haunting 1939 \"Iron Lung.\"
\nModern Expansion and the Digital Frontier
\nToday, the scale of healthcare in Reading has reached proportions the founders could never have imagined. The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust now employs nearly 7,000 staff and serves a community of over one million people. The \"wooden doors\" that George Earley walked through are now part of a sprawling complex that integrates high-tech cardiology, a world-class maternity unit, and a dedicated urology center named after Frederick Potts, Reading\u2019s only Victoria Cross recipient.
\nRecent statistics underscore the efficiency of the modern trust; the Accident and Emergency department consistently ranks among the most efficient in the country, with over 99% of patients frequently meeting the four-hour treatment target. Furthermore, the partnership with the University of Reading has turned the town into a hub for medical research, focusing on cardiovascular health and the training of Physician Associates to meet the rising demand of an ever expanding and aging population.
\nWhilst now driven by 21st-century technology like fibre-optic endoscopes and AI-assisted diagnostics, the physical and material condition of the hospital, along with severe restrictions for parking.
\nIt seems that the current site will need to be maintained and evolved for the foreseeable future, although the three main options will remain in open consultation for the time being:
\nOption 1: Development of a new emergency care block, elective centre, and a women\u2019s and children\u2019s facility on the current site.
\nOption 2: A substantial, phased rebuild of the existing site, retaining the iconic 1839 Bath stone facade but replacing almost all other structures.
\nOption 3: A complete relocation to a new site, potentially at the Thames Valley Science Park in Shinfield or near Green Park.
\nRelocation is favored by Wokingham and West Berkshire councils, who argue it would resolve chronic parking issues and improve accessibility for the wider region. However, Reading Borough Council has remained a staunch advocate for keeping the hospital \"at the heart of the community,\" citing concerns that a move to the edge of town would disadvantage residents reliant on public transport.
\nBridging the Gap
\nDespite the major delay, the Trust is not standing still. Construction is currently underway on a new elective surgical unit in the South Block, scheduled for completion in summer 2025. This \"surgical hub\" is designed to cut waiting lists and provide modern facilities in the interim.
\nFurthermore, the Trust has recently opened a new on-site Urgent Care Centre and expanded its diagnostic facilities in Bracknell and West Berkshire. These satellite \"enabling works\" are part of a strategy to move care closer to patients while the central hospital site remains in a state of limbo.
\nPrivate Healthcare
\nReading serves as a significant regional hub for private healthcare, offering several major hospitals and specialized clinics that cater to self-funding patients, those with private medical insurance, and NHS \"Choose and Book\" referrals.
\nThe following facilities represent the primary private medical landscape in the town:
\nMajor Private Hospitals
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Circle Reading Hospital (Circle Health Group): Located at Kennet Island (Drake Way), this is one of the most modern facilities in the region. It features 30 inpatient beds, 20-day case \"pods,\" and five operating theatres. It is particularly noted for its award-winning design and specialized units for orthopaedics, spinal surgery, and rehabilitation.
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spire Dunedin Hospital: Situated on Bath Road, Dunedin has been a fixture of Reading\u2019s medical community for over a century. It offers a comprehensive range of specialties, including a \"one-stop\" breast clinic, cardiology, oncology, and a private GP service. It operates across several Victorian buildings converted into high-tech clinical spaces.
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Berkshire Independent Hospital (Ramsay Health Care): Located in Coley Park (Wensley Road), this hospital opened in 1993 and houses 43 patient rooms. It is a major provider of orthopaedic procedures, such as hip and knee replacements, and features a dedicated level-two high dependency unit.
\nSpecialized Clinics and GP Services
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mayfield Clinic: A dedicated private general practice in central Reading that offers same-day GP appointments, prescriptions, and specialist referrals. They cater to patients who require longer consultation times or faster access than is currently available via local NHS primary care.
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Forbury Clinic: Operating out of two locations (Kendrick Road and Craven Road), this clinic focuses on consultant-led specialist care, including urology, radiology, and advanced diagnostics.
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Berkshire Imaging: Often working in partnership with the local NHS Trust, this private radiology group provides high-level MRI, CT, and ultrasound scanning services, often based within the Royal Berkshire Hospital site or dedicated private suites.
\n\u00a0
\nAlong with the challenges of maintaining current services in the face of an ageing and increasingly ill population, the creeping privatisation of the NHS is another challenge for the future, with the extreme right Reform UK party advocating part privatisation of the NHS towards a more American style model.
\n\u00a0
\nFind Out More
\nThe Royal Berkshire Medical Museum, founded in 1997 and situated in the left wing of the main hospital building on London Road shows the remarkable progress made over the centuries in medicine, surgery, nursing, midwifery, dentistry and other aspects of healthcare where you can see and find out more about the history of healthcare in Reading.
\n\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/d79beb956124.jpg\")
The museum is open on the first and third Sundays of each month, from 2.00 to 4.30pm. Volunteers will show you round and answer any questions you may have.
https://www.royalberkshire.nhs.uk/about-us/community-engagement/medical-museum
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
", "content_text": "\u00a0\n\nIn late January 2026 the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) revealed that The Royal Berkshire Hospital has been placed in the final 'wave' of the New Hospitals Programme. This means construction is now slated to begin between 2037 and 2039, with completion potentially pushed to 2040. So this month we're taking a deep dive into health in our town past, present and future.\nThe announcement, made to the House of Commons by Health Secretary Wes Streeting as part of a wider \"reset\" of the national New Hospital Programme (NHP), the government revealed that the previous target of building 40 new hospitals by 2030 was \"unfunded and undeliverable,\" leading to a significant rescheduling of projects across the country, placing the redevelopment of Berkshire's primary hospital in the slow lane.\nThe Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust issued a formal response expressing \"extreme disappointment\" at the delay, noting that the current aging estate would require roughly \u00a3400 million in maintenance costs just to remain operational until the new site is ready.\nHowever, despite this setback, it was also revealed in January that the Royal Berkshire Hospital NHS Trust is performing well, with latest government figures showing 81.7% of patients waiting less than 18 weeks to start treatment (an improvement from 80.4% a year ago with a further target of 85.4% by March 2026). This compares very favourably with averages in England of 61.8% (better than the 59.2% a year previously).\n\u00a0\nMedical HistoryReading has a proud medical tradition and this month inReading is taking a look at how healthcare has evolved in our town. From early Roman settlements, to the monolithic medieval cloisters of Reading Abbey to the cutting-edge digital diagnostics of the 21st century, to some degree the story of healthcare in Reading is a mirror of Britain\u2019s own medical development.\nA recent study from the University of Reading indicates that Roman urbanism significantly harmed the physical well-being of the population in ancient Britain. By examining the skeletal remains of women and children, scientist Rebecca Pitt discovered that the transition to city living introduced toxic lead exposure, overcrowding, and restricted resources. Interestingly, these negative health outcomes were exclusive to urban centers, while residents in rural communities maintained health standards similar to those of the earlier Iron Age. The study, published in the journal Antiquity, suggests that the social upheaval of Roman occupation created a distinct divide in quality of life between city dwellers and country inhabitants. What did the Romans do for us ? Well in nearby Roman town of Silchester, they brought bad health !However, Roman legionnaires could expect better treatment. The Romans introduced the concept of the dedicated hospital building, known as a valetudinarium. Primarily built for soldiers, these facilities featured corridors, wards, and specialized drainage. Roman surgical kits were remarkably modern in design. Archaeologists have recovered bronze scalpels, bone drills, forceps, and \"cataract needles.\" In Roman Silchester, evidence of such tools suggests that procedures like setting complex fractures or removing bladder stones were performed with a high degree of technical skill and you can see some of these tools in Reading Museum.\nMonastic HealthcareThe seeds of Reading\u2019s recent medical history were sown in 1121, when Henry I founded Reading Abbey. While the monks primarily cared for their own, the Abbey\u2019s infirmary represented the first organized medical presence in the town and still stands overlooking the graveyard of St Lawrence (ironically, today it is a nursery).\nMonastic healthcare was rooted in the Benedictine rule that \"the care of the sick must be placed before and above all things,\" a mandate that transformed the Abbey into a beacon of healing for Berkshire.\nAt the heart of this operation was the infirmitorium or infirmary, a separate building within the abbey complex designed to provide peace, specialized diet, and medical attention. The Monk Infirmarer was the medieval equivalent of a Head Of Medicine, responsible for managing the Abbey\u2019s apothecary and overseeing the \"physic garden.\" Within these gardens, located near the Holy Brook, monks cultivated a living pharmacopeia. They grew sage for fevers, hyssop for chest complaints, and \"all-heal\" (valerian) for nervous disorders. Medicine was a blend of \"Galenic\" theory\u2014the balancing of the four bodily humors\u2014and practical herbalism.\nTreatments at Reading Abbey were often surprisingly advanced yet fundamentally different from modern practice. The monks utilized \"uroscopy\" (the examination of urine for color and sediment) to diagnose ailments, and bloodletting was a routine preventative measure, believed to purge the body of excess \"heat.\" For the pilgrims who flocked to the Abbey to see the relic of the Hand of St. James, healing was often sought through a combination of prayer and the physical administration of tinctures. The Abbey also operated the Hospital of St. John, founded in 1189 specifically to serve the \"poor and pilgrims,\" marking the first time the town\u2019s laypeople had access to organized clinical care.\nAs the centuries progressed, the medicine at the Abbey evolved from purely spiritual \"miracle seeking\" to a more observational science. The monks began to record the efficacy of certain herbs, and by the 14th century, the influence of Islamic medical texts, translated into Latin, began to filter into monastic libraries. This brought a greater understanding of surgery and anatomy, moving away from the idea that illness was merely a divine punishment and toward the concept of environmental and physical causes.\nThe catastrophic end to this medical tradition came with the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. When Henry VIII\u2019s commissioners arrived, the Abbey\u2019s infrastructure was dismantled, and its vast knowledge base was scattered. The impact on Reading was devastating; the Hospital of St. John was closed, and the organized care for the poor vanished almost overnight. The town entered a \"medical dark age\" that lasted for nearly three centuries.\nWithout the monks to tend the physic gardens or provide beds for the infirm, the burden of care fell to unskilled \"wise women\" or expensive private physicians. It was not until the 19th-century foundation of the Royal Berkshire Hospital that Reading regained a healthcare institution of the same scale and civic importance as the one lost during the Reformation.\nModern Era Of Healthcare\nThe modern era of healthcare truly began in the 1830s. At that time, Reading was a town in the throes of the Industrial Revolution, its population swelling and its medical needs outstripping the charity of local dispensaries.\nIn 1836, Richard Benyon of the Englefield Estate offered \u00a31,000 toward a dedicated hospital\u2014a sum so significant he famously insisted on having the hospital\u2019s architectural plans painted into the background of his official portrait. This philanthropic spark was fanned by Henry Addington, the 1st Viscount Sidmouth and a former Prime Minister, who donated four acres of land on London Road. The Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH) opened its doors on May 27, 1839, a stunning piece of Bath stone architecture designed by Henry Briant which maintains much of its grandeur to this day.\n\nThe first year of operation offers a stark glimpse into 19th-century medicine. With a total annual budget of just \u00a3433, the hospital spent more on beer (\u00a391) than it did on many medical supplies, reflecting the contemporary belief in the restorative powers of ale! The ledger also records an expenditure of \u00a327 on leeches, a reminder of the era\u2019s reliance on bloodletting.\nThe hospital\u2019s very first patient, admitted on May 28, 1839, was a fifteen-year-old boy named George Earley. A laborer on the burgeoning Great Western Railway, Earley had suffered a catastrophic compound fracture to his upper arm while working on the Sonning Cutting. His arrival forced the hospital to open several days earlier than planned. In a harrowing pre-anaesthetic procedure, his arm was amputated at the shoulder. He survived, remaining in the hospital for two months\u2014a testament to the skill of early surgeons working without the luxuries of modern sedation, which would not arrive in Reading for another seven years.\nAs the 19th century gave way to the 20th, the RBH became a center for some of the most famous medical interventions in British history. Perhaps the most legendary figure was Leonard Joyce, a surgeon of such repute that his hands were said to be insured for a fortune. In 1931, Joyce faced his most high-profile challenge when a young, reckless RAF pilot named Douglas Bader crashed his Hawker Fury at Woodley Aerodrome.\nBader was rushed to the RBH with life-threatening injuries. Joyce performed a double amputation, saving the pilot\u2019s life. Bader\u2019s subsequent recovery and his role as a flying ace in the Battle of Britain became national legend, but it began in a ward in Reading. The bond between the two was so strong that Bader remained a frequent visitor to Joyce\u2019s home in Reading long after the war.\nWartime Strain and the Battle Hospital\nThe World Wars transformed Reading into a \"hospital town.\" During the First World War, the town became one of the largest war hospital complexes in the country. Battle Hospital, originally a workhouse infirmary, was designated \"Reading No. 1 War Hospital.\" Local schools were requisitioned to house the wounded, and at one point, over 3,500 children had to be relocated to make room for wards.\n\nBy the mid-20th century, healthcare was no longer a matter of private charity but a public right. When the NHS was formed in 1948, the Royal Berkshire had 413 beds and was seeing nearly 30,000 outpatients annually. This era saw the leadership of Matron Winifred Aldwinckle, a formidable figure who had been one of the first nurses to land in Normandy after D-Day. Under her stewardship from 1948 to 1966, the hospital transitioned into the modern era, grappling with the polio epidemics of the 1950s\u2014an era still represented in the Berkshire Medical Heritage Centre by a haunting 1939 \"Iron Lung.\"\nModern Expansion and the Digital Frontier\nToday, the scale of healthcare in Reading has reached proportions the founders could never have imagined. The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust now employs nearly 7,000 staff and serves a community of over one million people. The \"wooden doors\" that George Earley walked through are now part of a sprawling complex that integrates high-tech cardiology, a world-class maternity unit, and a dedicated urology center named after Frederick Potts, Reading\u2019s only Victoria Cross recipient.\nRecent statistics underscore the efficiency of the modern trust; the Accident and Emergency department consistently ranks among the most efficient in the country, with over 99% of patients frequently meeting the four-hour treatment target. Furthermore, the partnership with the University of Reading has turned the town into a hub for medical research, focusing on cardiovascular health and the training of Physician Associates to meet the rising demand of an ever expanding and aging population.\nWhilst now driven by 21st-century technology like fibre-optic endoscopes and AI-assisted diagnostics, the physical and material condition of the hospital, along with severe restrictions for parking.\nIt seems that the current site will need to be maintained and evolved for the foreseeable future, although the three main options will remain in open consultation for the time being:\nOption 1: Development of a new emergency care block, elective centre, and a women\u2019s and children\u2019s facility on the current site.\nOption 2: A substantial, phased rebuild of the existing site, retaining the iconic 1839 Bath stone facade but replacing almost all other structures.\nOption 3: A complete relocation to a new site, potentially at the Thames Valley Science Park in Shinfield or near Green Park.\nRelocation is favored by Wokingham and West Berkshire councils, who argue it would resolve chronic parking issues and improve accessibility for the wider region. However, Reading Borough Council has remained a staunch advocate for keeping the hospital \"at the heart of the community,\" citing concerns that a move to the edge of town would disadvantage residents reliant on public transport.\nBridging the Gap\nDespite the major delay, the Trust is not standing still. Construction is currently underway on a new elective surgical unit in the South Block, scheduled for completion in summer 2025. This \"surgical hub\" is designed to cut waiting lists and provide modern facilities in the interim.\nFurthermore, the Trust has recently opened a new on-site Urgent Care Centre and expanded its diagnostic facilities in Bracknell and West Berkshire. These satellite \"enabling works\" are part of a strategy to move care closer to patients while the central hospital site remains in a state of limbo.\nPrivate Healthcare\nReading serves as a significant regional hub for private healthcare, offering several major hospitals and specialized clinics that cater to self-funding patients, those with private medical insurance, and NHS \"Choose and Book\" referrals.\nThe following facilities represent the primary private medical landscape in the town:\nMajor Private Hospitals\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Circle Reading Hospital (Circle Health Group): Located at Kennet Island (Drake Way), this is one of the most modern facilities in the region. It features 30 inpatient beds, 20-day case \"pods,\" and five operating theatres. It is particularly noted for its award-winning design and specialized units for orthopaedics, spinal surgery, and rehabilitation.\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spire Dunedin Hospital: Situated on Bath Road, Dunedin has been a fixture of Reading\u2019s medical community for over a century. It offers a comprehensive range of specialties, including a \"one-stop\" breast clinic, cardiology, oncology, and a private GP service. It operates across several Victorian buildings converted into high-tech clinical spaces.\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Berkshire Independent Hospital (Ramsay Health Care): Located in Coley Park (Wensley Road), this hospital opened in 1993 and houses 43 patient rooms. It is a major provider of orthopaedic procedures, such as hip and knee replacements, and features a dedicated level-two high dependency unit.\nSpecialized Clinics and GP Services\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mayfield Clinic: A dedicated private general practice in central Reading that offers same-day GP appointments, prescriptions, and specialist referrals. They cater to patients who require longer consultation times or faster access than is currently available via local NHS primary care.\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Forbury Clinic: Operating out of two locations (Kendrick Road and Craven Road), this clinic focuses on consultant-led specialist care, including urology, radiology, and advanced diagnostics.\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Berkshire Imaging: Often working in partnership with the local NHS Trust, this private radiology group provides high-level MRI, CT, and ultrasound scanning services, often based within the Royal Berkshire Hospital site or dedicated private suites.\n\u00a0\nAlong with the challenges of maintaining current services in the face of an ageing and increasingly ill population, the creeping privatisation of the NHS is another challenge for the future, with the extreme right Reform UK party advocating part privatisation of the NHS towards a more American style model.\n\u00a0\nFind Out More\nThe Royal Berkshire Medical Museum, founded in 1997 and situated in the left wing of the main hospital building on London Road shows the remarkable progress made over the centuries in medicine, surgery, nursing, midwifery, dentistry and other aspects of healthcare where you can see and find out more about the history of healthcare in Reading.\n\u00a0\nThe museum is open on the first and third Sundays of each month, from 2.00 to 4.30pm. Volunteers will show you round and answer any questions you may have.\nhttps://www.royalberkshire.nhs.uk/about-us/community-engagement/medical-museum\n\u00a0\n\u00a0\n\u00a0\n\u00a0\n\u00a0\n\u00a0", "summary": "The Royal Berkshire Hospital faces significant construction delays, pushing new development to 2040. This article delves into Reading's rich medical history, from Roman practices to monastic healing, alongside the hospital's current performance.", "date_published": "2026-02-01T17:12:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:30.953626+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/9067d938.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/9067d938.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "A Reading Health Check", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 3246, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "\u00a0
\n
In late January 2026 the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) revealed that The Royal Berkshire Hospital has been placed in the final 'wave' of the New Hospitals Programme. This means construction is now slated to begin between 2037 and 2039, with completion potentially pushed to 2040. So this month we're taking a deep dive into health in our town past, present and future.
The announcement, made to the House of Commons by Health Secretary Wes Streeting as part of a wider \"reset\" of the national New Hospital Programme (NHP), the government revealed that the previous target of building 40 new hospitals by 2030 was \"unfunded and undeliverable,\" leading to a significant rescheduling of projects across the country, placing the redevelopment of Berkshire's primary hospital in the slow lane.
\nThe Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust issued a formal response expressing \"extreme disappointment\" at the delay, noting that the current aging estate would require roughly \u00a3400 million in maintenance costs just to remain operational until the new site is ready.
\nHowever, despite this setback, it was also revealed in January that the Royal Berkshire Hospital NHS Trust is performing well, with latest government figures showing 81.7% of patients waiting less than 18 weeks to start treatment (an improvement from 80.4% a year ago with a further target of 85.4% by March 2026). This compares very favourably with averages in England of 61.8% (better than the 59.2% a year previously).
\n\u00a0
\nMedical History
Reading has a proud medical tradition and this month inReading is taking a look at how healthcare has evolved in our town. From early Roman settlements, to the monolithic medieval cloisters of Reading Abbey to the cutting-edge digital diagnostics of the 21st century, to some degree the story of healthcare in Reading is a mirror of Britain\u2019s own medical development.
A recent study from the University of Reading indicates that Roman urbanism significantly harmed the physical well-being of the population in ancient Britain. By examining the skeletal remains of women and children, scientist Rebecca Pitt discovered that the transition to city living introduced toxic lead exposure, overcrowding, and restricted resources. Interestingly, these negative health outcomes were exclusive to urban centers, while residents in rural communities maintained health standards similar to those of the earlier Iron Age. The study, published in the journal Antiquity, suggests that the social upheaval of Roman occupation created a distinct divide in quality of life between city dwellers and country inhabitants. What did the Romans do for us ? Well in nearby Roman town of Silchester, they brought bad health !
However, Roman legionnaires could expect better treatment. The Romans introduced the concept of the dedicated hospital building, known as a valetudinarium. Primarily built for soldiers, these facilities featured corridors, wards, and specialized drainage.
Roman surgical kits were remarkably modern in design. Archaeologists have recovered bronze scalpels, bone drills, forceps, and \"cataract needles.\" In Roman Silchester, evidence of such tools suggests that procedures like setting complex fractures or removing bladder stones were performed with a high degree of technical skill and you can see some of these tools in Reading Museum.
Monastic Healthcare
The seeds of Reading\u2019s recent medical history were sown in 1121, when Henry I founded Reading Abbey. While the monks primarily cared for their own, the Abbey\u2019s infirmary represented the first organized medical presence in the town and still stands overlooking the graveyard of St Lawrence (ironically, today it is a nursery).
Monastic healthcare was rooted in the Benedictine rule that \"the care of the sick must be placed before and above all things,\" a mandate that transformed the Abbey into a beacon of healing for Berkshire.
\nAt the heart of this operation was the infirmitorium or infirmary, a separate building within the abbey complex designed to provide peace, specialized diet, and medical attention. The Monk Infirmarer was the medieval equivalent of a Head Of Medicine, responsible for managing the Abbey\u2019s apothecary and overseeing the \"physic garden.\" Within these gardens, located near the Holy Brook, monks cultivated a living pharmacopeia. They grew sage for fevers, hyssop for chest complaints, and \"all-heal\" (valerian) for nervous disorders. Medicine was a blend of \"Galenic\" theory\u2014the balancing of the four bodily humors\u2014and practical herbalism.
\nTreatments at Reading Abbey were often surprisingly advanced yet fundamentally different from modern practice. The monks utilized \"uroscopy\" (the examination of urine for color and sediment) to diagnose ailments, and bloodletting was a routine preventative measure, believed to purge the body of excess \"heat.\" For the pilgrims who flocked to the Abbey to see the relic of the Hand of St. James, healing was often sought through a combination of prayer and the physical administration of tinctures. The Abbey also operated the Hospital of St. John, founded in 1189 specifically to serve the \"poor and pilgrims,\" marking the first time the town\u2019s laypeople had access to organized clinical care.
\nAs the centuries progressed, the medicine at the Abbey evolved from purely spiritual \"miracle seeking\" to a more observational science. The monks began to record the efficacy of certain herbs, and by the 14th century, the influence of Islamic medical texts, translated into Latin, began to filter into monastic libraries. This brought a greater understanding of surgery and anatomy, moving away from the idea that illness was merely a divine punishment and toward the concept of environmental and physical causes.
\nThe catastrophic end to this medical tradition came with the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. When Henry VIII\u2019s commissioners arrived, the Abbey\u2019s infrastructure was dismantled, and its vast knowledge base was scattered. The impact on Reading was devastating; the Hospital of St. John was closed, and the organized care for the poor vanished almost overnight. The town entered a \"medical dark age\" that lasted for nearly three centuries.
\nWithout the monks to tend the physic gardens or provide beds for the infirm, the burden of care fell to unskilled \"wise women\" or expensive private physicians. It was not until the 19th-century foundation of the Royal Berkshire Hospital that Reading regained a healthcare institution of the same scale and civic importance as the one lost during the Reformation.
\nModern Era Of Healthcare
\nThe modern era of healthcare truly began in the 1830s. At that time, Reading was a town in the throes of the Industrial Revolution, its population swelling and its medical needs outstripping the charity of local dispensaries.
\nIn 1836, Richard Benyon of the Englefield Estate offered \u00a31,000 toward a dedicated hospital\u2014a sum so significant he famously insisted on having the hospital\u2019s architectural plans painted into the background of his official portrait. This philanthropic spark was fanned by Henry Addington, the 1st Viscount Sidmouth and a former Prime Minister, who donated four acres of land on London Road. The Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH) opened its doors on May 27, 1839, a stunning piece of Bath stone architecture designed by Henry Briant which maintains much of its grandeur to this day.
\n
The first year of operation offers a stark glimpse into 19th-century medicine. With a total annual budget of just \u00a3433, the hospital spent more on beer (\u00a391) than it did on many medical supplies, reflecting the contemporary belief in the restorative powers of ale! The ledger also records an expenditure of \u00a327 on leeches, a reminder of the era\u2019s reliance on bloodletting.
\nThe hospital\u2019s very first patient, admitted on May 28, 1839, was a fifteen-year-old boy named George Earley. A laborer on the burgeoning Great Western Railway, Earley had suffered a catastrophic compound fracture to his upper arm while working on the Sonning Cutting. His arrival forced the hospital to open several days earlier than planned. In a harrowing pre-anaesthetic procedure, his arm was amputated at the shoulder. He survived, remaining in the hospital for two months\u2014a testament to the skill of early surgeons working without the luxuries of modern sedation, which would not arrive in Reading for another seven years.
\nAs the 19th century gave way to the 20th, the RBH became a center for some of the most famous medical interventions in British history. Perhaps the most legendary figure was Leonard Joyce, a surgeon of such repute that his hands were said to be insured for a fortune. In 1931, Joyce faced his most high-profile challenge when a young, reckless RAF pilot named Douglas Bader crashed his Hawker Fury at Woodley Aerodrome.
\nBader was rushed to the RBH with life-threatening injuries. Joyce performed a double amputation, saving the pilot\u2019s life. Bader\u2019s subsequent recovery and his role as a flying ace in the Battle of Britain became national legend, but it began in a ward in Reading. The bond between the two was so strong that Bader remained a frequent visitor to Joyce\u2019s home in Reading long after the war.
\nWartime Strain and the Battle Hospital
\nThe World Wars transformed Reading into a \"hospital town.\" During the First World War, the town became one of the largest war hospital complexes in the country. Battle Hospital, originally a workhouse infirmary, was designated \"Reading No. 1 War Hospital.\" Local schools were requisitioned to house the wounded, and at one point, over 3,500 children had to be relocated to make room for wards.
\n
By the mid-20th century, healthcare was no longer a matter of private charity but a public right. When the NHS was formed in 1948, the Royal Berkshire had 413 beds and was seeing nearly 30,000 outpatients annually. This era saw the leadership of Matron Winifred Aldwinckle, a formidable figure who had been one of the first nurses to land in Normandy after D-Day. Under her stewardship from 1948 to 1966, the hospital transitioned into the modern era, grappling with the polio epidemics of the 1950s\u2014an era still represented in the Berkshire Medical Heritage Centre by a haunting 1939 \"Iron Lung.\"
\nModern Expansion and the Digital Frontier
\nToday, the scale of healthcare in Reading has reached proportions the founders could never have imagined. The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust now employs nearly 7,000 staff and serves a community of over one million people. The \"wooden doors\" that George Earley walked through are now part of a sprawling complex that integrates high-tech cardiology, a world-class maternity unit, and a dedicated urology center named after Frederick Potts, Reading\u2019s only Victoria Cross recipient.
\nRecent statistics underscore the efficiency of the modern trust; the Accident and Emergency department consistently ranks among the most efficient in the country, with over 99% of patients frequently meeting the four-hour treatment target. Furthermore, the partnership with the University of Reading has turned the town into a hub for medical research, focusing on cardiovascular health and the training of Physician Associates to meet the rising demand of an ever expanding and aging population.
\nWhilst now driven by 21st-century technology like fibre-optic endoscopes and AI-assisted diagnostics, the physical and material condition of the hospital, along with severe restrictions for parking.
\nIt seems that the current site will need to be maintained and evolved for the foreseeable future, although the three main options will remain in open consultation for the time being:
\nOption 1: Development of a new emergency care block, elective centre, and a women\u2019s and children\u2019s facility on the current site.
\nOption 2: A substantial, phased rebuild of the existing site, retaining the iconic 1839 Bath stone facade but replacing almost all other structures.
\nOption 3: A complete relocation to a new site, potentially at the Thames Valley Science Park in Shinfield or near Green Park.
\nRelocation is favored by Wokingham and West Berkshire councils, who argue it would resolve chronic parking issues and improve accessibility for the wider region. However, Reading Borough Council has remained a staunch advocate for keeping the hospital \"at the heart of the community,\" citing concerns that a move to the edge of town would disadvantage residents reliant on public transport.
\nBridging the Gap
\nDespite the major delay, the Trust is not standing still. Construction is currently underway on a new elective surgical unit in the South Block, scheduled for completion in summer 2025. This \"surgical hub\" is designed to cut waiting lists and provide modern facilities in the interim.
\nFurthermore, the Trust has recently opened a new on-site Urgent Care Centre and expanded its diagnostic facilities in Bracknell and West Berkshire. These satellite \"enabling works\" are part of a strategy to move care closer to patients while the central hospital site remains in a state of limbo.
\nPrivate Healthcare
\nReading serves as a significant regional hub for private healthcare, offering several major hospitals and specialized clinics that cater to self-funding patients, those with private medical insurance, and NHS \"Choose and Book\" referrals.
\nThe following facilities represent the primary private medical landscape in the town:
\nMajor Private Hospitals
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Circle Reading Hospital (Circle Health Group): Located at Kennet Island (Drake Way), this is one of the most modern facilities in the region. It features 30 inpatient beds, 20-day case \"pods,\" and five operating theatres. It is particularly noted for its award-winning design and specialized units for orthopaedics, spinal surgery, and rehabilitation.
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spire Dunedin Hospital: Situated on Bath Road, Dunedin has been a fixture of Reading\u2019s medical community for over a century. It offers a comprehensive range of specialties, including a \"one-stop\" breast clinic, cardiology, oncology, and a private GP service. It operates across several Victorian buildings converted into high-tech clinical spaces.
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Berkshire Independent Hospital (Ramsay Health Care): Located in Coley Park (Wensley Road), this hospital opened in 1993 and houses 43 patient rooms. It is a major provider of orthopaedic procedures, such as hip and knee replacements, and features a dedicated level-two high dependency unit.
\nSpecialized Clinics and GP Services
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mayfield Clinic: A dedicated private general practice in central Reading that offers same-day GP appointments, prescriptions, and specialist referrals. They cater to patients who require longer consultation times or faster access than is currently available via local NHS primary care.
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Forbury Clinic: Operating out of two locations (Kendrick Road and Craven Road), this clinic focuses on consultant-led specialist care, including urology, radiology, and advanced diagnostics.
\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Berkshire Imaging: Often working in partnership with the local NHS Trust, this private radiology group provides high-level MRI, CT, and ultrasound scanning services, often based within the Royal Berkshire Hospital site or dedicated private suites.
\n\u00a0
\nAlong with the challenges of maintaining current services in the face of an ageing and increasingly ill population, the creeping privatisation of the NHS is another challenge for the future, with the extreme right Reform UK party advocating part privatisation of the NHS towards a more American style model.
\n\u00a0
\nFind Out More
\nThe Royal Berkshire Medical Museum, founded in 1997 and situated in the left wing of the main hospital building on London Road shows the remarkable progress made over the centuries in medicine, surgery, nursing, midwifery, dentistry and other aspects of healthcare where you can see and find out more about the history of healthcare in Reading.
\n\u00a0
\n
The museum is open on the first and third Sundays of each month, from 2.00 to 4.30pm. Volunteers will show you round and answer any questions you may have.
https://www.royalberkshire.nhs.uk/about-us/community-engagement/medical-museum
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
", "description": "The Royal Berkshire Hospital faces significant construction delays, pushing new development to 2040. This article delves into Reading's rich medical history, from Roman practices to monastic healing, alongside the hospital's current performance.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:30.953626+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-02-01T17:12:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/a-reading-health-check/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "324", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/eating-out-anjappar-chettinad-restaurant/", "title": "Anjappar Chettinad Restaurant", "content_html": "\u00a0
\nWell, it was a bad start to the year, but soon things got better. Much better.\u00a0
\nG and I had consulted extensively - well, we swapped a couple of messages on WhatsApp - and agreed on Chez Mal at the Malmaison for a general catch up, discussing the 2025 inReading foodie awards and the first review of 2026.
\nBut, as usual we had a couple of pints - at the Oakford for a change (The Railway Pub where we had arranged to meet was shut - as you will see, 2026 was not going well for the inReading food blog). As ever we bantered and tarried a bit longer than we had intended and arrived at 13:58.\u00a0
\nAnd we were turned away.\u00a0
\nThe kitchen closes at 14:00. In a bloody hotel! Well, sod you Malmaison. The dining room looked quite miserable and I'm not sure that we will bother to return at 12:30 on the spot for lunch anytime soon. Mal by name, Mal by service.\u00a0
\nSo we panicked. Our other shortlist was Persian Palace all the way out in Caversham or Namesugame on Oracle Riverside, but it was pouring with rain and I had eaten udon for dinner the previous night.
\nSo I scoured my list of places to review and we opted for the new Chettinad restaurant that has taken over from Pappadams on Kings Road.
\nAnjappar Chettinad Restaurant is part of an Indian casual-dining restaurant chain, founded in Chennai all the way back in my birth year, 1964. So it must be doing something right.
\nApparently it now operates in over 30 locations around the world, including Chennai, Erode, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, and Bangalore in India as well as Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Middle East, Australia, the Netherlands and North America.
\nThis seems to be the group's first venture in the UK and I'm not clear if the Reading branch is a fully owned and operated enterprise or a franchise (not that this matters much in the catering industry these days).
\nAnjappar offers South Indian cuisine, particularly focusing on producing Chettinad-style meals.\u00a0
\nNow, this needs some defining. Some places are renowned for their cooking worldwide but few regions as small as Chettinad have such a reputation.
\nEssentially Chettinad is a small region of villages inland from Chennai in Tamil Nadu in the far south of the Indian subcontinent where the Nattukottai Chettiar community are renowned for their cooking.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/8c8bfe1be921.jpg\")
The cuisine tends to be quite hot and bold flavors with rich sauces made from masala based on freshly ground spices like star anise, black stone flower, and peppercorns, often used in thick gravies for chicken, mutton, seafood, and vegetables. As with most Tamils, the cuisine used to be vegetarian but is now more heavily meat orientated. It features slow-cooked dishes, sun-dried ingredients, coconut, is served with rice and traditional accompaniments, and reflects outside influences such as the trade carried out by the Portuguese, French and British in trading posts along the south eastern Indian coast for centuries as well as a pronounced influence from Burmese and other South East Asian cuisines.
\nIn this theme, the menu is long and far reaching. It won't be unfamiliar to anyone who has grown up with the greatest hits of British Indian cuisine, but this is a restaurant that will be more familiar to our community's extensive Southern Indian population - not that they are not already well served along King's Road, Reading's own 'curry mile' these days.
\nIt strikes me that many restaurants in Reading are actually community canteens , using a captive audience to build a wider base. The many African restaurants in Oxford Road, the new influx of Hong Kong eating parlours and eastern European restaurants such as Piwnica. These are restaurants built for particular communities where we outsiders are made very welcome, albeit as somewhat exotic visitors.
\nAnd this was our first impression of Anjappar.
\nWe were greeted like friends, but unfamiliar ones. This is common in Reading these days. On my recent first visits to other newcomers such as YL Restaurant and Take Your Time we were actually quized on why we were visiting, not because we were unwelcome but because these are restaurants set up for certain parts of our community but which have a passion and a longing to bring in those of us outside their direct communities.
\nPeople are proud of not just their business but of their cooking and their cuisine and how it represents their culture.\u00a0
\nOne of the great things about living in Reading is that you can, in a day, make friends from all over the world and come to understand other cultures and points of view whilst enjoying a great meal. And long may this win over hatred (I wonder does Nigel Farage eat Indian, or even French? Or just good old British fish and chips, brought to these fair shores by Jews from Portugal?)
\nFood is a great way of integrating people (with the odd exception https://share.google/gpwmM9svL3bvR87Da)
\nAs if to prove the point that we were from another planet, ordering a bottle of Shiraz from the short wine list resulted in one of the staff scurrying to the offie nearby for a bottle of Castello Diablo (at \u00a318 a very reasonable markup for the walk). I'm not sure that they had envisaged anyone ordering wine, especially at lunchtime. A different culture but a boozy Welshman and Scotsman were accommodated with a smile.
\nAs mentioned, the menu here is extensive and covers a lot of the south east, if not the whole of the southern tip of India (this venue was previously a Keralan restaurant and still has a lot of fish on the menu).
\nThe dhosas look fantastic and I will return for one. Regular readers will know that this is a major favourite for me and from going down to having nowhere in town to order these lovely pancakes there are now a surfeit of options.
\nBut on this day we both went for the easy option that would enable us to cover the menu well - a chicken thali and a lamb thali.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/61696074d275.jpg\")
These were extensive and delicious. Both came with a poppadom, roti, yoghurt, sharp lime dip, rice, sambal, two veg dishes and two meat dishes (one on and one off the bone in each case) plus a rice pud.\u00a0 In Indian terms I had Mutton Curry, Mutton Kola, Rice, Rasam, Poriyal, Kootu, Curd, Pickle, Papadam and a Sweet.
\nThe highlighs for me were my lamb curry and the chicken 65 that I nicked from G. (Chicken 65 is named after the year of its invention, 1965, when it was introduced by A.M. Buhari at his eponymous hotel in Chennai.
\nWe had been asked if we wanted a starter and the mind boggles... Actually, G in his post holiday enthusiasm pretty much cleared his plates and I managed the majority of mine. Now, get this, the chicken meal was \u00a312 and the lamb meal broke the bank at \u00a313. This is extraordinary value these days and less than a takeaway main dish from most local Indians on Deliveroo in Reading
\nThis is just delicious food that is difficult to fault.
\nThe space remains tiny - some twenty covers, so they need to make this a fast food joint and get tables occupied and turned over regulalry at these prices, and keep the place full.
\nConsidering that I was never able to get a table when it was Pappadams and they failed, I do hope the new owners know what they are doing.
\nBut as for the food, it was all just thoroughly delicious. Perhaps the only complaint is that one chicken and one lamb dish were both very 'on the bone', which I guess is why the broth was so lovely.
\nWith the brought in wine and a healthy tip this was under \u00a350 for a lovely meal. Beat that.
\nOn a street with Madras Flavours, a personal favourite, Reading's perennial best Indian at the House of Flavours, a Mumbai fast food joint that's quite popular, a great SrinLankan cocktail chain and then Chillis and Royal Tandoori up the road, we are utterly spoiled on Kings Curry Rd.
", "content_text": "\u00a0\nWell, it was a bad start to the year, but soon things got better. Much better.\u00a0\nG and I had consulted extensively - well, we swapped a couple of messages on WhatsApp - and agreed on Chez Mal at the Malmaison for a general catch up, discussing the 2025 inReading foodie awards and the first review of 2026.\nBut, as usual we had a couple of pints - at the Oakford for a change (The Railway Pub where we had arranged to meet was shut - as you will see, 2026 was not going well for the inReading food blog). As ever we bantered and tarried a bit longer than we had intended and arrived at 13:58.\u00a0\nAnd we were turned away.\u00a0\nThe kitchen closes at 14:00. In a bloody hotel! Well, sod you Malmaison. The dining room looked quite miserable and I'm not sure that we will bother to return at 12:30 on the spot for lunch anytime soon. Mal by name, Mal by service.\u00a0\nSo we panicked. Our other shortlist was Persian Palace all the way out in Caversham or Namesugame on Oracle Riverside, but it was pouring with rain and I had eaten udon for dinner the previous night.\nSo I scoured my list of places to review and we opted for the new Chettinad restaurant that has taken over from Pappadams on Kings Road.\nAnjappar Chettinad Restaurant is part of an Indian casual-dining restaurant chain, founded in Chennai all the way back in my birth year, 1964. So it must be doing something right.\nApparently it now operates in over 30 locations around the world, including Chennai, Erode, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, and Bangalore in India as well as Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Middle East, Australia, the Netherlands and North America.\nThis seems to be the group's first venture in the UK and I'm not clear if the Reading branch is a fully owned and operated enterprise or a franchise (not that this matters much in the catering industry these days).\nAnjappar offers South Indian cuisine, particularly focusing on producing Chettinad-style meals.\u00a0\nNow, this needs some defining. Some places are renowned for their cooking worldwide but few regions as small as Chettinad have such a reputation.\nEssentially Chettinad is a small region of villages inland from Chennai in Tamil Nadu in the far south of the Indian subcontinent where the Nattukottai Chettiar community are renowned for their cooking.\n\nThe cuisine tends to be quite hot and bold flavors with rich sauces made from masala based on freshly ground spices like star anise, black stone flower, and peppercorns, often used in thick gravies for chicken, mutton, seafood, and vegetables. As with most Tamils, the cuisine used to be vegetarian but is now more heavily meat orientated. It features slow-cooked dishes, sun-dried ingredients, coconut, is served with rice and traditional accompaniments, and reflects outside influences such as the trade carried out by the Portuguese, French and British in trading posts along the south eastern Indian coast for centuries as well as a pronounced influence from Burmese and other South East Asian cuisines.\nIn this theme, the menu is long and far reaching. It won't be unfamiliar to anyone who has grown up with the greatest hits of British Indian cuisine, but this is a restaurant that will be more familiar to our community's extensive Southern Indian population - not that they are not already well served along King's Road, Reading's own 'curry mile' these days.\nIt strikes me that many restaurants in Reading are actually community canteens , using a captive audience to build a wider base. The many African restaurants in Oxford Road, the new influx of Hong Kong eating parlours and eastern European restaurants such as Piwnica. These are restaurants built for particular communities where we outsiders are made very welcome, albeit as somewhat exotic visitors.\nAnd this was our first impression of Anjappar.\nWe were greeted like friends, but unfamiliar ones. This is common in Reading these days. On my recent first visits to other newcomers such as YL Restaurant and Take Your Time we were actually quized on why we were visiting, not because we were unwelcome but because these are restaurants set up for certain parts of our community but which have a passion and a longing to bring in those of us outside their direct communities.\nPeople are proud of not just their business but of their cooking and their cuisine and how it represents their culture.\u00a0\nOne of the great things about living in Reading is that you can, in a day, make friends from all over the world and come to understand other cultures and points of view whilst enjoying a great meal. And long may this win over hatred (I wonder does Nigel Farage eat Indian, or even French? Or just good old British fish and chips, brought to these fair shores by Jews from Portugal?)\nFood is a great way of integrating people (with the odd exception https://share.google/gpwmM9svL3bvR87Da)\nAs if to prove the point that we were from another planet, ordering a bottle of Shiraz from the short wine list resulted in one of the staff scurrying to the offie nearby for a bottle of Castello Diablo (at \u00a318 a very reasonable markup for the walk). I'm not sure that they had envisaged anyone ordering wine, especially at lunchtime. A different culture but a boozy Welshman and Scotsman were accommodated with a smile.\nAs mentioned, the menu here is extensive and covers a lot of the south east, if not the whole of the southern tip of India (this venue was previously a Keralan restaurant and still has a lot of fish on the menu).\nThe dhosas look fantastic and I will return for one. Regular readers will know that this is a major favourite for me and from going down to having nowhere in town to order these lovely pancakes there are now a surfeit of options.\nBut on this day we both went for the easy option that would enable us to cover the menu well - a chicken thali and a lamb thali.\n\nThese were extensive and delicious. Both came with a poppadom, roti, yoghurt, sharp lime dip, rice, sambal, two veg dishes and two meat dishes (one on and one off the bone in each case) plus a rice pud.\u00a0 In Indian terms I had Mutton Curry, Mutton Kola, Rice, Rasam, Poriyal, Kootu, Curd, Pickle, Papadam and a Sweet.\nThe highlighs for me were my lamb curry and the chicken 65 that I nicked from G. (Chicken 65 is named after the year of its invention, 1965, when it was introduced by A.M. Buhari at his eponymous hotel in Chennai.\nWe had been asked if we wanted a starter and the mind boggles... Actually, G in his post holiday enthusiasm pretty much cleared his plates and I managed the majority of mine. Now, get this, the chicken meal was \u00a312 and the lamb meal broke the bank at \u00a313. This is extraordinary value these days and less than a takeaway main dish from most local Indians on Deliveroo in Reading\nThis is just delicious food that is difficult to fault.\nThe space remains tiny - some twenty covers, so they need to make this a fast food joint and get tables occupied and turned over regulalry at these prices, and keep the place full.\nConsidering that I was never able to get a table when it was Pappadams and they failed, I do hope the new owners know what they are doing.\nBut as for the food, it was all just thoroughly delicious. Perhaps the only complaint is that one chicken and one lamb dish were both very 'on the bone', which I guess is why the broth was so lovely.\nWith the brought in wine and a healthy tip this was under \u00a350 for a lovely meal. Beat that.\nOn a street with Madras Flavours, a personal favourite, Reading's perennial best Indian at the House of Flavours, a Mumbai fast food joint that's quite popular, a great SrinLankan cocktail chain and then Chillis and Royal Tandoori up the road, we are utterly spoiled on Kings Curry Rd.", "summary": "After a disastrous lunch booking, our reviewer stumbled upon Anjappar Chettinad Restaurant, a new South Indian gem on King's Road. Discover the authentic Chettinad cuisine that's taking Reading by storm.", "date_published": "2026-02-01T11:30:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:32.458668+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/566d764f.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/566d764f.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Anjappar Chettinad Restaurant", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1620, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "\u00a0
\nWell, it was a bad start to the year, but soon things got better. Much better.\u00a0
\nG and I had consulted extensively - well, we swapped a couple of messages on WhatsApp - and agreed on Chez Mal at the Malmaison for a general catch up, discussing the 2025 inReading foodie awards and the first review of 2026.
\nBut, as usual we had a couple of pints - at the Oakford for a change (The Railway Pub where we had arranged to meet was shut - as you will see, 2026 was not going well for the inReading food blog). As ever we bantered and tarried a bit longer than we had intended and arrived at 13:58.\u00a0
\nAnd we were turned away.\u00a0
\nThe kitchen closes at 14:00. In a bloody hotel! Well, sod you Malmaison. The dining room looked quite miserable and I'm not sure that we will bother to return at 12:30 on the spot for lunch anytime soon. Mal by name, Mal by service.\u00a0
\nSo we panicked. Our other shortlist was Persian Palace all the way out in Caversham or Namesugame on Oracle Riverside, but it was pouring with rain and I had eaten udon for dinner the previous night.
\nSo I scoured my list of places to review and we opted for the new Chettinad restaurant that has taken over from Pappadams on Kings Road.
\nAnjappar Chettinad Restaurant is part of an Indian casual-dining restaurant chain, founded in Chennai all the way back in my birth year, 1964. So it must be doing something right.
\nApparently it now operates in over 30 locations around the world, including Chennai, Erode, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, and Bangalore in India as well as Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Middle East, Australia, the Netherlands and North America.
\nThis seems to be the group's first venture in the UK and I'm not clear if the Reading branch is a fully owned and operated enterprise or a franchise (not that this matters much in the catering industry these days).
\nAnjappar offers South Indian cuisine, particularly focusing on producing Chettinad-style meals.\u00a0
\nNow, this needs some defining. Some places are renowned for their cooking worldwide but few regions as small as Chettinad have such a reputation.
\nEssentially Chettinad is a small region of villages inland from Chennai in Tamil Nadu in the far south of the Indian subcontinent where the Nattukottai Chettiar community are renowned for their cooking.
\n
The cuisine tends to be quite hot and bold flavors with rich sauces made from masala based on freshly ground spices like star anise, black stone flower, and peppercorns, often used in thick gravies for chicken, mutton, seafood, and vegetables. As with most Tamils, the cuisine used to be vegetarian but is now more heavily meat orientated. It features slow-cooked dishes, sun-dried ingredients, coconut, is served with rice and traditional accompaniments, and reflects outside influences such as the trade carried out by the Portuguese, French and British in trading posts along the south eastern Indian coast for centuries as well as a pronounced influence from Burmese and other South East Asian cuisines.
\nIn this theme, the menu is long and far reaching. It won't be unfamiliar to anyone who has grown up with the greatest hits of British Indian cuisine, but this is a restaurant that will be more familiar to our community's extensive Southern Indian population - not that they are not already well served along King's Road, Reading's own 'curry mile' these days.
\nIt strikes me that many restaurants in Reading are actually community canteens , using a captive audience to build a wider base. The many African restaurants in Oxford Road, the new influx of Hong Kong eating parlours and eastern European restaurants such as Piwnica. These are restaurants built for particular communities where we outsiders are made very welcome, albeit as somewhat exotic visitors.
\nAnd this was our first impression of Anjappar.
\nWe were greeted like friends, but unfamiliar ones. This is common in Reading these days. On my recent first visits to other newcomers such as YL Restaurant and Take Your Time we were actually quized on why we were visiting, not because we were unwelcome but because these are restaurants set up for certain parts of our community but which have a passion and a longing to bring in those of us outside their direct communities.
\nPeople are proud of not just their business but of their cooking and their cuisine and how it represents their culture.\u00a0
\nOne of the great things about living in Reading is that you can, in a day, make friends from all over the world and come to understand other cultures and points of view whilst enjoying a great meal. And long may this win over hatred (I wonder does Nigel Farage eat Indian, or even French? Or just good old British fish and chips, brought to these fair shores by Jews from Portugal?)
\nFood is a great way of integrating people (with the odd exception https://share.google/gpwmM9svL3bvR87Da)
\nAs if to prove the point that we were from another planet, ordering a bottle of Shiraz from the short wine list resulted in one of the staff scurrying to the offie nearby for a bottle of Castello Diablo (at \u00a318 a very reasonable markup for the walk). I'm not sure that they had envisaged anyone ordering wine, especially at lunchtime. A different culture but a boozy Welshman and Scotsman were accommodated with a smile.
\nAs mentioned, the menu here is extensive and covers a lot of the south east, if not the whole of the southern tip of India (this venue was previously a Keralan restaurant and still has a lot of fish on the menu).
\nThe dhosas look fantastic and I will return for one. Regular readers will know that this is a major favourite for me and from going down to having nowhere in town to order these lovely pancakes there are now a surfeit of options.
\nBut on this day we both went for the easy option that would enable us to cover the menu well - a chicken thali and a lamb thali.
\n
These were extensive and delicious. Both came with a poppadom, roti, yoghurt, sharp lime dip, rice, sambal, two veg dishes and two meat dishes (one on and one off the bone in each case) plus a rice pud.\u00a0 In Indian terms I had Mutton Curry, Mutton Kola, Rice, Rasam, Poriyal, Kootu, Curd, Pickle, Papadam and a Sweet.
\nThe highlighs for me were my lamb curry and the chicken 65 that I nicked from G. (Chicken 65 is named after the year of its invention, 1965, when it was introduced by A.M. Buhari at his eponymous hotel in Chennai.
\nWe had been asked if we wanted a starter and the mind boggles... Actually, G in his post holiday enthusiasm pretty much cleared his plates and I managed the majority of mine. Now, get this, the chicken meal was \u00a312 and the lamb meal broke the bank at \u00a313. This is extraordinary value these days and less than a takeaway main dish from most local Indians on Deliveroo in Reading
\nThis is just delicious food that is difficult to fault.
\nThe space remains tiny - some twenty covers, so they need to make this a fast food joint and get tables occupied and turned over regulalry at these prices, and keep the place full.
\nConsidering that I was never able to get a table when it was Pappadams and they failed, I do hope the new owners know what they are doing.
\nBut as for the food, it was all just thoroughly delicious. Perhaps the only complaint is that one chicken and one lamb dish were both very 'on the bone', which I guess is why the broth was so lovely.
\nWith the brought in wine and a healthy tip this was under \u00a350 for a lovely meal. Beat that.
\nOn a street with Madras Flavours, a personal favourite, Reading's perennial best Indian at the House of Flavours, a Mumbai fast food joint that's quite popular, a great SrinLankan cocktail chain and then Chillis and Royal Tandoori up the road, we are utterly spoiled on Kings Curry Rd.
", "description": "After a disastrous lunch booking, our reviewer stumbled upon Anjappar Chettinad Restaurant, a new South Indian gem on King's Road. Discover the authentic Chettinad cuisine that's taking Reading by storm.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:32.458668+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-02-01T11:30:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/eating-out-anjappar-chettinad-restaurant/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "328", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/eating-out-the-lyndhurst/", "title": "The Lyndhurst", "content_html": "And so back to The Lyndhurst, possibly the most inconsistent of all Reading pubs thanks to its avaricious big pubco owner.
\nAt its heart it is a local and my mate G had just the previous week met up with his cadre of ex Microsoft colleagues for a massive reunion there which seemed to go quite well.
\nBut at a time when after work drinks is but a past memory beyond such reunions, it is local drinkers who keep pubs like The Lyndhurst going, and the East Reading enclave known as 'The Village' is spoilt with three 'locals'.
\nThis is, unfortunately, a Stonegate pub. Part of the same debt ridden group as the Slug & Lettuce and Yates et al. Which explains the turnover in landlords which thankfully seems to have stabilised with the current incumbents.
\nSomewhat ironically, we were in The Lyndhurst for Sunday lunch before going on around the corner to The Retreat for its 150th birthday celebration (which is quite an achievement for a boozer these days, albeit a few centuries behind reading\u2019s oldest pub, The Rising Sun).
\nAs many of you will know, beyond the odd pickled egg, The Retreat never has and never will do food. It is, and always will be, a local boozer, so we opted to dine at The Lyndhurst before an afternoon of more drink, music and conviviality.
\nIt is extraordinary that The Retreat, The Lyndhurst and The Elgin (on and off) are able to exist within a few hundred yards of each other. Especially when there is a Spoons a few hundred yards away on Kings Road. Good for them, and long may it continue.
\nSo, here we are. Back at The Lyndhurst once more for more than a drink.\u00a0
\nSometimes when you meet an old friend you can reminisce but you realise that things just aren't the same. Your shared love of Deep Purple and Ginny in class 5B isn't there any longer - and so it is with pubs and restaurants. Many of us have fond memories of the scotch egg and Korean burger and the great Sunday lunches when Sheldon and Dishon ran the pub (where are they now ?). They were always going to be a tough act to follow.
\nThe pub went through unpopular owners and the current g'vnors seem to want to be broader not deeper, which is fair enough.
\nWe walked into the decisive round of Formula 1 on the screens (they have Sky and TNT). A Brit went round and round in circles faster than anyone else and won a championship, apparently. I have long lost any fleeting interest I had in that 'sport', so we found a table away from the two large screens and caught up with G\u2019s latest exploits and travel (Milan, where I once had a business, gave us somewhere to compare notes following his recent visit).
\nThere were families and a couple enjoying a Sunday lunch and the place was full, if not heaving.
\nThe newish owners seem to be making a good go of things, although I cannot see how they can be generating more revenue for their rapacious owners than the previous displaced incumbents did.
\nThe food was adequate to good - G and I went for the turkey meal, it being December. My family, being Frenchish have a Capon on Christmas Day, which leaves me bereft. I love the massive dry meat from a turkey - more for its tradition than anything else, I suspect - so I jumped at this opportunity to make up for lost Christmas meals\u2026
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/ffc116c0251f.jpg\")
Here, the meat was carved from a block, the gravy was pleasant, the carrots and parsnips honeyed, sprouts shaved, Yorkshire pud a bit dry and disappointing, toasties barely roasted, stuffing OK and a nice pig in its blanket...
\nWe bumped into my neighbour Liz and she joined us, having the chicken roast which seemed equally decent. Liz comes here for lunch every Sunday after church and I must admit that I will probably become more of a regular when a Sunday roast calls, rather than traipse across town to The Rising Sun.\u00a0
\nService was stretched but competent and friendly. It just all seemed like a step down from what used to be here and all three of us were somewhat sentimental for those bygone days of our past. But times move on, and The Lyndhurst is open and thriving and we can only be grateful for that these days. Shamefully, I have stopped really going out to any local pubs recently, but enjoying my Sunday lunch in good company with a decent Double Barrel Plum, I realised that I am the problem and, contrary I suspect to many of you, undertook to make January a month to support our local boozers.
\nIndeed, it is time for all of us to support our local pubs and accept them for what they are and what they are trying to do - give us a convivial place to meet and mingle with friends and our local community. If you don\u2019t drink, go for a coffee, or a soft drink and a burger. If we don\u2019t use them, we will lose them\u2026
\nOn that note we continued our mini pub crawl around the corner where The Retreat was heaving with a Beatles cover band playing in the corner. So here\u2019s a personal thanks to Brian and Di and everyone who keeps our locals going in the face of endless challenges.
\n\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/90229aa720ad.jpg\")
Brian, former landlord of The Retreat
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/e0a45feca486.jpg\")
Di, the current landlady of The Retreat\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nCHECK OUT OUR inREADING FOOD BLOG
", "content_text": "And so back to The Lyndhurst, possibly the most inconsistent of all Reading pubs thanks to its avaricious big pubco owner.\nAt its heart it is a local and my mate G had just the previous week met up with his cadre of ex Microsoft colleagues for a massive reunion there which seemed to go quite well.\nBut at a time when after work drinks is but a past memory beyond such reunions, it is local drinkers who keep pubs like The Lyndhurst going, and the East Reading enclave known as 'The Village' is spoilt with three 'locals'.\nThis is, unfortunately, a Stonegate pub. Part of the same debt ridden group as the Slug & Lettuce and Yates et al. Which explains the turnover in landlords which thankfully seems to have stabilised with the current incumbents.\nSomewhat ironically, we were in The Lyndhurst for Sunday lunch before going on around the corner to The Retreat for its 150th birthday celebration (which is quite an achievement for a boozer these days, albeit a few centuries behind reading\u2019s oldest pub, The Rising Sun).\nAs many of you will know, beyond the odd pickled egg, The Retreat never has and never will do food. It is, and always will be, a local boozer, so we opted to dine at The Lyndhurst before an afternoon of more drink, music and conviviality.\nIt is extraordinary that The Retreat, The Lyndhurst and The Elgin (on and off) are able to exist within a few hundred yards of each other. Especially when there is a Spoons a few hundred yards away on Kings Road. Good for them, and long may it continue.\nSo, here we are. Back at The Lyndhurst once more for more than a drink.\u00a0\nSometimes when you meet an old friend you can reminisce but you realise that things just aren't the same. Your shared love of Deep Purple and Ginny in class 5B isn't there any longer - and so it is with pubs and restaurants. Many of us have fond memories of the scotch egg and Korean burger and the great Sunday lunches when Sheldon and Dishon ran the pub (where are they now ?). They were always going to be a tough act to follow.\nThe pub went through unpopular owners and the current g'vnors seem to want to be broader not deeper, which is fair enough.\nWe walked into the decisive round of Formula 1 on the screens (they have Sky and TNT). A Brit went round and round in circles faster than anyone else and won a championship, apparently. I have long lost any fleeting interest I had in that 'sport', so we found a table away from the two large screens and caught up with G\u2019s latest exploits and travel (Milan, where I once had a business, gave us somewhere to compare notes following his recent visit).\nThere were families and a couple enjoying a Sunday lunch and the place was full, if not heaving.\nThe newish owners seem to be making a good go of things, although I cannot see how they can be generating more revenue for their rapacious owners than the previous displaced incumbents did.\nThe food was adequate to good - G and I went for the turkey meal, it being December. My family, being Frenchish have a Capon on Christmas Day, which leaves me bereft. I love the massive dry meat from a turkey - more for its tradition than anything else, I suspect - so I jumped at this opportunity to make up for lost Christmas meals\u2026\n\nHere, the meat was carved from a block, the gravy was pleasant, the carrots and parsnips honeyed, sprouts shaved, Yorkshire pud a bit dry and disappointing, toasties barely roasted, stuffing OK and a nice pig in its blanket...\nWe bumped into my neighbour Liz and she joined us, having the chicken roast which seemed equally decent. Liz comes here for lunch every Sunday after church and I must admit that I will probably become more of a regular when a Sunday roast calls, rather than traipse across town to The Rising Sun.\u00a0\nService was stretched but competent and friendly. It just all seemed like a step down from what used to be here and all three of us were somewhat sentimental for those bygone days of our past. But times move on, and The Lyndhurst is open and thriving and we can only be grateful for that these days. Shamefully, I have stopped really going out to any local pubs recently, but enjoying my Sunday lunch in good company with a decent Double Barrel Plum, I realised that I am the problem and, contrary I suspect to many of you, undertook to make January a month to support our local boozers.\nIndeed, it is time for all of us to support our local pubs and accept them for what they are and what they are trying to do - give us a convivial place to meet and mingle with friends and our local community. If you don\u2019t drink, go for a coffee, or a soft drink and a burger. If we don\u2019t use them, we will lose them\u2026\nOn that note we continued our mini pub crawl around the corner where The Retreat was heaving with a Beatles cover band playing in the corner. So here\u2019s a personal thanks to Brian and Di and everyone who keeps our locals going in the face of endless challenges.\n\u00a0\n\nBrian, former landlord of The Retreat\n\nDi, the current landlady of The Retreat\u00a0\n\u00a0\nCHECK OUT OUR inREADING FOOD BLOG", "summary": "Exploring The Lyndhurst in Reading's 'The Village', this review delves into its inconsistent Sunday roast experience, comparing it to past glories and local competitors like The Retreat. Find out if it's worth a visit.", "date_published": "2026-01-01T18:45:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:35.068899+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/2633ca4b.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "location": "Reading, UK", "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/2633ca4b.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "The Lyndhurst", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1100, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "And so back to The Lyndhurst, possibly the most inconsistent of all Reading pubs thanks to its avaricious big pubco owner.
\nAt its heart it is a local and my mate G had just the previous week met up with his cadre of ex Microsoft colleagues for a massive reunion there which seemed to go quite well.
\nBut at a time when after work drinks is but a past memory beyond such reunions, it is local drinkers who keep pubs like The Lyndhurst going, and the East Reading enclave known as 'The Village' is spoilt with three 'locals'.
\nThis is, unfortunately, a Stonegate pub. Part of the same debt ridden group as the Slug & Lettuce and Yates et al. Which explains the turnover in landlords which thankfully seems to have stabilised with the current incumbents.
\nSomewhat ironically, we were in The Lyndhurst for Sunday lunch before going on around the corner to The Retreat for its 150th birthday celebration (which is quite an achievement for a boozer these days, albeit a few centuries behind reading\u2019s oldest pub, The Rising Sun).
\nAs many of you will know, beyond the odd pickled egg, The Retreat never has and never will do food. It is, and always will be, a local boozer, so we opted to dine at The Lyndhurst before an afternoon of more drink, music and conviviality.
\nIt is extraordinary that The Retreat, The Lyndhurst and The Elgin (on and off) are able to exist within a few hundred yards of each other. Especially when there is a Spoons a few hundred yards away on Kings Road. Good for them, and long may it continue.
\nSo, here we are. Back at The Lyndhurst once more for more than a drink.\u00a0
\nSometimes when you meet an old friend you can reminisce but you realise that things just aren't the same. Your shared love of Deep Purple and Ginny in class 5B isn't there any longer - and so it is with pubs and restaurants. Many of us have fond memories of the scotch egg and Korean burger and the great Sunday lunches when Sheldon and Dishon ran the pub (where are they now ?). They were always going to be a tough act to follow.
\nThe pub went through unpopular owners and the current g'vnors seem to want to be broader not deeper, which is fair enough.
\nWe walked into the decisive round of Formula 1 on the screens (they have Sky and TNT). A Brit went round and round in circles faster than anyone else and won a championship, apparently. I have long lost any fleeting interest I had in that 'sport', so we found a table away from the two large screens and caught up with G\u2019s latest exploits and travel (Milan, where I once had a business, gave us somewhere to compare notes following his recent visit).
\nThere were families and a couple enjoying a Sunday lunch and the place was full, if not heaving.
\nThe newish owners seem to be making a good go of things, although I cannot see how they can be generating more revenue for their rapacious owners than the previous displaced incumbents did.
\nThe food was adequate to good - G and I went for the turkey meal, it being December. My family, being Frenchish have a Capon on Christmas Day, which leaves me bereft. I love the massive dry meat from a turkey - more for its tradition than anything else, I suspect - so I jumped at this opportunity to make up for lost Christmas meals\u2026
\n
Here, the meat was carved from a block, the gravy was pleasant, the carrots and parsnips honeyed, sprouts shaved, Yorkshire pud a bit dry and disappointing, toasties barely roasted, stuffing OK and a nice pig in its blanket...
\nWe bumped into my neighbour Liz and she joined us, having the chicken roast which seemed equally decent. Liz comes here for lunch every Sunday after church and I must admit that I will probably become more of a regular when a Sunday roast calls, rather than traipse across town to The Rising Sun.\u00a0
\nService was stretched but competent and friendly. It just all seemed like a step down from what used to be here and all three of us were somewhat sentimental for those bygone days of our past. But times move on, and The Lyndhurst is open and thriving and we can only be grateful for that these days. Shamefully, I have stopped really going out to any local pubs recently, but enjoying my Sunday lunch in good company with a decent Double Barrel Plum, I realised that I am the problem and, contrary I suspect to many of you, undertook to make January a month to support our local boozers.
\nIndeed, it is time for all of us to support our local pubs and accept them for what they are and what they are trying to do - give us a convivial place to meet and mingle with friends and our local community. If you don\u2019t drink, go for a coffee, or a soft drink and a burger. If we don\u2019t use them, we will lose them\u2026
\nOn that note we continued our mini pub crawl around the corner where The Retreat was heaving with a Beatles cover band playing in the corner. So here\u2019s a personal thanks to Brian and Di and everyone who keeps our locals going in the face of endless challenges.
\n\u00a0
\n
Brian, former landlord of The Retreat
\n
Di, the current landlady of The Retreat\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nCHECK OUT OUR inREADING FOOD BLOG
", "description": "Exploring The Lyndhurst in Reading's 'The Village', this review delves into its inconsistent Sunday roast experience, comparing it to past glories and local competitors like The Retreat. Find out if it's worth a visit.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:35.068899+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-01-01T18:45:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "contentLocation": { "name": "Reading, UK", "@type": "Place" }, "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/eating-out-the-lyndhurst/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "327", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/inreading-journo-honoured/", "title": "inReading Journo Honoured", "content_html": "\u00a0
\nOur colleague Phil Creighton, former editor of reading Today and Wokingham Today and a journalist and editor in Reading for most of his career was last month awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by Reading University in December for his contribution to journalism in our town. Here he reminisces about the changes local media has gone through over the past decades.
\nWhat\u2019s black and white and read all over? A newspaper from 30 years ago.
\nWhen I came to Reading for university back in 1996, the town was served by the Evening Post, the Chronicle, the Standard, and Midweek. Newspaper vendors would be telling us to read all about it at various points in the town centre, while the former printworks of one title had long been converted into a restaurant.
\nStudents at the University of Reading were able to create their own newspaper, Spark, and it was here my career started.
\nAdd in to that mix Blast, a community radio station run by Reading College, and cable TV company Telecential had its own station for the Thames Valley.
\nQuite the mixed media.
\nLast month, the University of Reading conferred an honorary doctorate on me for my journalistic career, which started with its student newspaper, Spark. Printed at the Evening Post, this became a calling card and, in the summer of 1997, I joined its ad setting department before moving to editorial on graduation. Since then, I\u2019ve worked for The Baptist Times, made regular appearances on BBC Radio Berkshire and Premier Radio and, when The Wokingham Times closed in 2014, launched The Wokingham Paper.
\nFor communities to stick together, they need three glues: a strong local newspaper, good pubs, and great community hubs such as places of worship, clubs and village halls. The three go hand in hand, with newspapers acting as the mouthpiece for communities, able to ask the awkward questions, celebrate the good times, and walk alongside people during the bad.
\nAnd there have been some bad times. During my stint in the world of local news, I\u2019ve seen \u2013 among others \u2013 the Paddington railway disaster, 9/11, the Forbury terrorist attacks, several major fires, and Ruth Perry\u2019s death following an Ofsted inspection. On each occasion, restrained and measured coverage has helped communities grieve while sharing accurate and impartial information.
\nThat has been my guiding philosophy, and while I may have worked on different publications, my journey has spanned the immense changes the media industry has seen over the past three decades.
\nBack in 1996, there were still some hot metal newspapers in existence: I visited one for dissertation research. These were typeset using individual lines of type cast from molten lead. The method dates back hundreds of years, is labour-intensive, and is less flexible than more modern methods that involve computers.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/1df1641c490b.jpg\")
The Thames Valley has always been part of the UK\u2019s Silicon Valley, so it should be no surprise that when it launched, the Reading Evening Post was one of the most technically advanced newspapers in the country. It was able to print full colour at a time when most printing presses were black-and-white, and its print room technicians were among the best in the land. They were proud to show me the full-colour broadsheet page they produced for the 1969 moon landings. No computers or AI to do the heavy lifting \u2013 they had to prepare the colour plates by hand. Their work was spot-on, and many Reading households will have kept it as a souvenir of this historic occasion.
\nWe forget just how much more a newspaper is than a physical product. The Evening Post was very much part of the fabric of Reading, employing several hundred people, printed on site and ensuring reporters attended events, while editors were on the board of many initiatives including Reading UK CIC (what is now REDA), the SeniorSafe campaign, launching the annual Pride of Reading awards, and sponsoring many events, including the annual sports awards.
\nShops all over the town would have Evening Post branding and billboards, while the company\u2019s vans would be an ever-present sight on the roads. On Tuesdays, there were queues outside estate agents as househunters sought the latest listings from its property guide.
\nWhile people say it was the Internet, still very much in its infancy back in 1996, that transformed the way we relate to local newspapers, it was actually access to home broadband that was the difference.
\nBack in 1996, to surf the World Wide Web, you either used a modem that hogged the telephone line or fitted an ISDN line. It was NTL (now Virgin Media) that changed this, installing the first broadband line in a residential home at the turn of the 21st century. The speeds were slow \u2013 128Kbps was barely faster than dial-up, but it was enough to see the tide turn. In 1998, just 9% of UK households had access to the internet. Now, fewer than 1 in 20 homes are without a digital connection.
\nOnline portals became the norm: why wait until Tuesday for the latest homes on sale when you can see them instantly on sites such as RightMove and Zoopla? And so began the upheavals that have ruptured local news as we know it.
\nThe changes to the Reading Evening Post have been marked. Back in 2009, as part of a cost-cutting measure, it went twice weekly: Wednesdays for the Reading Post, while Friday\u2019s edition was named after the website, Get Reading. Another round of redundancies followed; The Wokingham Times office closed, and those left had to work harder just to stand still.
\nUltimately, in 2014, a decision was made to go online-only, but without a printed presence, GetReading's influence diminished; it was now one voice among many, and several name and format changes diluted that voice further. It currently exists as a Facebook page that reprints syndicated copy relevant to Berkshire.
\nWith a desire to focus on the largest possible online audience for each story, what had been traditional bread and butter for local news has been eschewed: jumble sales, Women\u2019s Institutes and Rotary Clubs, ribbon cuttings, and children\u2019s activities have all fallen by the wayside. The days of a local newspaper being the first draft of an area\u2019s social history are diminishing.
\nAt the same time, the new ways of doing local news are exciting. The hyperlocal movement \u2013 independent publications \u2013 allows smaller organisations to excel in a niche. The cost of putting a website together is negligible compared to running a daily newspaper, and there are different ways to reach audiences; news doesn\u2019t have to be a website, it can be social media channels such as TikTok videos or WhatsApp communities. Whereas once reporters would telephone the office to dictate their stories, now they can create videos using their mobile phones and publish directly from the scene.
\nAnd it is more instant. Mobile computing means no more waiting for the presses to roll, as stories can be published instantly to a broader audience. For any journalist, immediacy is exciting.
\nWhat does the future hold? Printed newspapers are becoming a rarity. In 1996, there were approximately 1,600 newspapers in the UK, but this has dropped to around 880 this year. That\u2019s a massive reduction, and it is expected to go down even further in the years ahead. When WHSmith/TG Jones relegates news titles to the back of the store and other hidden corners, it seems the direction of travel is only going one way.
\nCould they stage a revival in the same way that vinyl and even cassette tapes have? Possibly. But it would require a concerted effort from all involved to point out that, as the old News of the World slogan went, all human life is here.
\nThe awarding of the honorary doctorate has been an opportunity to look back and reflect on a long career, one that has weathered changes that seemed unthinkable in the pre-Internet days. The industry has evolved over the past three decades and will continue to do so, but the need for quality local journalism has not changed \u2013 nor will it.
", "content_text": "\u00a0\nOur colleague Phil Creighton, former editor of reading Today and Wokingham Today and a journalist and editor in Reading for most of his career was last month awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by Reading University in December for his contribution to journalism in our town. Here he reminisces about the changes local media has gone through over the past decades.\nWhat\u2019s black and white and read all over? A newspaper from 30 years ago.\nWhen I came to Reading for university back in 1996, the town was served by the Evening Post, the Chronicle, the Standard, and Midweek. Newspaper vendors would be telling us to read all about it at various points in the town centre, while the former printworks of one title had long been converted into a restaurant.\nStudents at the University of Reading were able to create their own newspaper, Spark, and it was here my career started.\nAdd in to that mix Blast, a community radio station run by Reading College, and cable TV company Telecential had its own station for the Thames Valley.\nQuite the mixed media.\nLast month, the University of Reading conferred an honorary doctorate on me for my journalistic career, which started with its student newspaper, Spark. Printed at the Evening Post, this became a calling card and, in the summer of 1997, I joined its ad setting department before moving to editorial on graduation. Since then, I\u2019ve worked for The Baptist Times, made regular appearances on BBC Radio Berkshire and Premier Radio and, when The Wokingham Times closed in 2014, launched The Wokingham Paper.\nFor communities to stick together, they need three glues: a strong local newspaper, good pubs, and great community hubs such as places of worship, clubs and village halls. The three go hand in hand, with newspapers acting as the mouthpiece for communities, able to ask the awkward questions, celebrate the good times, and walk alongside people during the bad.\nAnd there have been some bad times. During my stint in the world of local news, I\u2019ve seen \u2013 among others \u2013 the Paddington railway disaster, 9/11, the Forbury terrorist attacks, several major fires, and Ruth Perry\u2019s death following an Ofsted inspection. On each occasion, restrained and measured coverage has helped communities grieve while sharing accurate and impartial information.\nThat has been my guiding philosophy, and while I may have worked on different publications, my journey has spanned the immense changes the media industry has seen over the past three decades.\nBack in 1996, there were still some hot metal newspapers in existence: I visited one for dissertation research. These were typeset using individual lines of type cast from molten lead. The method dates back hundreds of years, is labour-intensive, and is less flexible than more modern methods that involve computers.\n\nThe Thames Valley has always been part of the UK\u2019s Silicon Valley, so it should be no surprise that when it launched, the Reading Evening Post was one of the most technically advanced newspapers in the country. It was able to print full colour at a time when most printing presses were black-and-white, and its print room technicians were among the best in the land. They were proud to show me the full-colour broadsheet page they produced for the 1969 moon landings. No computers or AI to do the heavy lifting \u2013 they had to prepare the colour plates by hand. Their work was spot-on, and many Reading households will have kept it as a souvenir of this historic occasion.\nWe forget just how much more a newspaper is than a physical product. The Evening Post was very much part of the fabric of Reading, employing several hundred people, printed on site and ensuring reporters attended events, while editors were on the board of many initiatives including Reading UK CIC (what is now REDA), the SeniorSafe campaign, launching the annual Pride of Reading awards, and sponsoring many events, including the annual sports awards.\nShops all over the town would have Evening Post branding and billboards, while the company\u2019s vans would be an ever-present sight on the roads. On Tuesdays, there were queues outside estate agents as househunters sought the latest listings from its property guide.\nWhile people say it was the Internet, still very much in its infancy back in 1996, that transformed the way we relate to local newspapers, it was actually access to home broadband that was the difference.\nBack in 1996, to surf the World Wide Web, you either used a modem that hogged the telephone line or fitted an ISDN line. It was NTL (now Virgin Media) that changed this, installing the first broadband line in a residential home at the turn of the 21st century. The speeds were slow \u2013 128Kbps was barely faster than dial-up, but it was enough to see the tide turn. In 1998, just 9% of UK households had access to the internet. Now, fewer than 1 in 20 homes are without a digital connection.\nOnline portals became the norm: why wait until Tuesday for the latest homes on sale when you can see them instantly on sites such as RightMove and Zoopla? And so began the upheavals that have ruptured local news as we know it.\nThe changes to the Reading Evening Post have been marked. Back in 2009, as part of a cost-cutting measure, it went twice weekly: Wednesdays for the Reading Post, while Friday\u2019s edition was named after the website, Get Reading. Another round of redundancies followed; The Wokingham Times office closed, and those left had to work harder just to stand still.\nUltimately, in 2014, a decision was made to go online-only, but without a printed presence, GetReading's influence diminished; it was now one voice among many, and several name and format changes diluted that voice further. It currently exists as a Facebook page that reprints syndicated copy relevant to Berkshire.\nWith a desire to focus on the largest possible online audience for each story, what had been traditional bread and butter for local news has been eschewed: jumble sales, Women\u2019s Institutes and Rotary Clubs, ribbon cuttings, and children\u2019s activities have all fallen by the wayside. The days of a local newspaper being the first draft of an area\u2019s social history are diminishing.\nAt the same time, the new ways of doing local news are exciting. The hyperlocal movement \u2013 independent publications \u2013 allows smaller organisations to excel in a niche. The cost of putting a website together is negligible compared to running a daily newspaper, and there are different ways to reach audiences; news doesn\u2019t have to be a website, it can be social media channels such as TikTok videos or WhatsApp communities. Whereas once reporters would telephone the office to dictate their stories, now they can create videos using their mobile phones and publish directly from the scene.\nAnd it is more instant. Mobile computing means no more waiting for the presses to roll, as stories can be published instantly to a broader audience. For any journalist, immediacy is exciting.\nWhat does the future hold? Printed newspapers are becoming a rarity. In 1996, there were approximately 1,600 newspapers in the UK, but this has dropped to around 880 this year. That\u2019s a massive reduction, and it is expected to go down even further in the years ahead. When WHSmith/TG Jones relegates news titles to the back of the store and other hidden corners, it seems the direction of travel is only going one way.\nCould they stage a revival in the same way that vinyl and even cassette tapes have? Possibly. But it would require a concerted effort from all involved to point out that, as the old News of the World slogan went, all human life is here.\nThe awarding of the honorary doctorate has been an opportunity to look back and reflect on a long career, one that has weathered changes that seemed unthinkable in the pre-Internet days. The industry has evolved over the past three decades and will continue to do so, but the need for quality local journalism has not changed \u2013 nor will it.", "summary": "Local journalism veteran Phil Creighton, recently awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Reading, looks back on the dramatic changes in media over three decades and the vital role local news plays in community.", "date_published": "2026-01-01T18:42:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:36.219522+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/user13/2026/03/f05fe26e.jpg", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "location": "Reading, UK", "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/user13/2026/03/f05fe26e.jpg", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "inReading Journo Honoured", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1524, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "\u00a0
\nOur colleague Phil Creighton, former editor of reading Today and Wokingham Today and a journalist and editor in Reading for most of his career was last month awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by Reading University in December for his contribution to journalism in our town. Here he reminisces about the changes local media has gone through over the past decades.
\nWhat\u2019s black and white and read all over? A newspaper from 30 years ago.
\nWhen I came to Reading for university back in 1996, the town was served by the Evening Post, the Chronicle, the Standard, and Midweek. Newspaper vendors would be telling us to read all about it at various points in the town centre, while the former printworks of one title had long been converted into a restaurant.
\nStudents at the University of Reading were able to create their own newspaper, Spark, and it was here my career started.
\nAdd in to that mix Blast, a community radio station run by Reading College, and cable TV company Telecential had its own station for the Thames Valley.
\nQuite the mixed media.
\nLast month, the University of Reading conferred an honorary doctorate on me for my journalistic career, which started with its student newspaper, Spark. Printed at the Evening Post, this became a calling card and, in the summer of 1997, I joined its ad setting department before moving to editorial on graduation. Since then, I\u2019ve worked for The Baptist Times, made regular appearances on BBC Radio Berkshire and Premier Radio and, when The Wokingham Times closed in 2014, launched The Wokingham Paper.
\nFor communities to stick together, they need three glues: a strong local newspaper, good pubs, and great community hubs such as places of worship, clubs and village halls. The three go hand in hand, with newspapers acting as the mouthpiece for communities, able to ask the awkward questions, celebrate the good times, and walk alongside people during the bad.
\nAnd there have been some bad times. During my stint in the world of local news, I\u2019ve seen \u2013 among others \u2013 the Paddington railway disaster, 9/11, the Forbury terrorist attacks, several major fires, and Ruth Perry\u2019s death following an Ofsted inspection. On each occasion, restrained and measured coverage has helped communities grieve while sharing accurate and impartial information.
\nThat has been my guiding philosophy, and while I may have worked on different publications, my journey has spanned the immense changes the media industry has seen over the past three decades.
\nBack in 1996, there were still some hot metal newspapers in existence: I visited one for dissertation research. These were typeset using individual lines of type cast from molten lead. The method dates back hundreds of years, is labour-intensive, and is less flexible than more modern methods that involve computers.
\n
The Thames Valley has always been part of the UK\u2019s Silicon Valley, so it should be no surprise that when it launched, the Reading Evening Post was one of the most technically advanced newspapers in the country. It was able to print full colour at a time when most printing presses were black-and-white, and its print room technicians were among the best in the land. They were proud to show me the full-colour broadsheet page they produced for the 1969 moon landings. No computers or AI to do the heavy lifting \u2013 they had to prepare the colour plates by hand. Their work was spot-on, and many Reading households will have kept it as a souvenir of this historic occasion.
\nWe forget just how much more a newspaper is than a physical product. The Evening Post was very much part of the fabric of Reading, employing several hundred people, printed on site and ensuring reporters attended events, while editors were on the board of many initiatives including Reading UK CIC (what is now REDA), the SeniorSafe campaign, launching the annual Pride of Reading awards, and sponsoring many events, including the annual sports awards.
\nShops all over the town would have Evening Post branding and billboards, while the company\u2019s vans would be an ever-present sight on the roads. On Tuesdays, there were queues outside estate agents as househunters sought the latest listings from its property guide.
\nWhile people say it was the Internet, still very much in its infancy back in 1996, that transformed the way we relate to local newspapers, it was actually access to home broadband that was the difference.
\nBack in 1996, to surf the World Wide Web, you either used a modem that hogged the telephone line or fitted an ISDN line. It was NTL (now Virgin Media) that changed this, installing the first broadband line in a residential home at the turn of the 21st century. The speeds were slow \u2013 128Kbps was barely faster than dial-up, but it was enough to see the tide turn. In 1998, just 9% of UK households had access to the internet. Now, fewer than 1 in 20 homes are without a digital connection.
\nOnline portals became the norm: why wait until Tuesday for the latest homes on sale when you can see them instantly on sites such as RightMove and Zoopla? And so began the upheavals that have ruptured local news as we know it.
\nThe changes to the Reading Evening Post have been marked. Back in 2009, as part of a cost-cutting measure, it went twice weekly: Wednesdays for the Reading Post, while Friday\u2019s edition was named after the website, Get Reading. Another round of redundancies followed; The Wokingham Times office closed, and those left had to work harder just to stand still.
\nUltimately, in 2014, a decision was made to go online-only, but without a printed presence, GetReading's influence diminished; it was now one voice among many, and several name and format changes diluted that voice further. It currently exists as a Facebook page that reprints syndicated copy relevant to Berkshire.
\nWith a desire to focus on the largest possible online audience for each story, what had been traditional bread and butter for local news has been eschewed: jumble sales, Women\u2019s Institutes and Rotary Clubs, ribbon cuttings, and children\u2019s activities have all fallen by the wayside. The days of a local newspaper being the first draft of an area\u2019s social history are diminishing.
\nAt the same time, the new ways of doing local news are exciting. The hyperlocal movement \u2013 independent publications \u2013 allows smaller organisations to excel in a niche. The cost of putting a website together is negligible compared to running a daily newspaper, and there are different ways to reach audiences; news doesn\u2019t have to be a website, it can be social media channels such as TikTok videos or WhatsApp communities. Whereas once reporters would telephone the office to dictate their stories, now they can create videos using their mobile phones and publish directly from the scene.
\nAnd it is more instant. Mobile computing means no more waiting for the presses to roll, as stories can be published instantly to a broader audience. For any journalist, immediacy is exciting.
\nWhat does the future hold? Printed newspapers are becoming a rarity. In 1996, there were approximately 1,600 newspapers in the UK, but this has dropped to around 880 this year. That\u2019s a massive reduction, and it is expected to go down even further in the years ahead. When WHSmith/TG Jones relegates news titles to the back of the store and other hidden corners, it seems the direction of travel is only going one way.
\nCould they stage a revival in the same way that vinyl and even cassette tapes have? Possibly. But it would require a concerted effort from all involved to point out that, as the old News of the World slogan went, all human life is here.
\nThe awarding of the honorary doctorate has been an opportunity to look back and reflect on a long career, one that has weathered changes that seemed unthinkable in the pre-Internet days. The industry has evolved over the past three decades and will continue to do so, but the need for quality local journalism has not changed \u2013 nor will it.
", "description": "Local journalism veteran Phil Creighton, recently awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Reading, looks back on the dramatic changes in media over three decades and the vital role local news plays in community.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:36.219522+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2026-01-01T18:42:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "contentLocation": { "name": "Reading, UK", "@type": "Place" }, "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/inreading-journo-honoured/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "330", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/christmas-is-coming/", "title": "Christmas Is Coming..", "content_html": "In the midst of it all is the opportunity to pause, take stock and enjoy mulled wine or hot chocolate, toast marshmallows and enjoy the sights around.
\nThe event runs from Saturday, 15 November through to Sunday, 4 January, and is wheelchair friendly. There are various sessions taking place across the season and should be booked in advance. Prices are \u00a311.95 off-peak and \u00a312.95 peak, or \u00a37.95 for under 16s off-peak and \u00a38.95 peak. Toddlers and babies aged two and under get in free.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.illuminatereading.co.uk/
\nThe Christmas light switch-on
\nMore than 800,000 lights make up Reading\u2019s impressive festive displays, across Broad Street, Friar Street and Station Road. The uniquely Ding-themed lights were introduced last year and features images related to the history and culture of the town, including Huntley and Palmers and Henry I.
\nTo celebrate, a day of fun is planned from 2pm on Saturday, 15 November, centred around the area outside Marks & Spencer in Broad Street. The lights will be switched on from 5pm. While you\u2019re waiting it\u2019s an opportunity to explore the Broad Street Christmas market. Once again, wooden shacks will be set up offering gifts, customised items, and seasonal snacks including toasted marshmallows, bratwurst, waffles, cookies and some gluhwein.
\nFor more details, log on to visit-reading.com
\nFestive Markets
\nThe University of Reading is holding its annual Winter Festival event on Thursday, 27 November. Running from 5.30pm-8pm in the area around the Palmer Building on its Whiteknights Campus, there will be music, singing, food and drink, family fun and seasonal surprises. Entry is free.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.reading.ac.uk/events/Feed/2025/November/Winter-Festival-2025
\nHead north of the river when Caversham shopkeepers are set to hold a special late-night shopping evening on Friday, 5 December.
\nThe annual event runs until 9pm and promises a lot more than just the stores staying open until later. There will be a visit from reindeer, live entertainment, performances from choirs, mulled wine and other seasonal refreshments, and a Christmas market with stallholders offering unique and specially created gifts.
\nAdd in Christmas lights and a special Reverse Santa event at Fourbears Books, and there is something all ages to enjoy.
\nFor more details, visit Visit Caversham\u2019s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Choosecaversham/
\nSimilar events take place in Twyford and Crowthorne on the same evening.
\nWoodley Town Centre will feature its annual Christmas Extravanganza on Sunday, 7 December. The busy event features stalls and games from local groups, performances from choirs and youth theatre troops, walking entertainments, street food, and a very busy Santa\u2019s grotto. It runs from 10am to 3pm. For more details, log on to: https://www.woodleytowncentre.co.uk/
\nChristmas Craft Markets
\nReading has a large community of crafters who create some of the most exquisite items that you won\u2019t find anywhere else. There will be several opportunities to purchase a unique gift.
\nSt Luke\u2019s Church Hall in Erleigh Road is hosting a two-day artists\u2019 fair called Hopes and Dreams.
\nIt\u2019s an opportunity to meet artists, support them by buying their work including Christmas cards, decorations and fairy houses. Refreshments including homemade cake will be available and digital artist Leslee Barron will be selling copies of her unique Reading calendar for 2026, and there will be a photography exhibition to enjoy.
\nIt is open from 10am-4pm on Saturday, 15 November and noon-4pm on Sunday, 16 November. Entry is free.
\nMADEByTamalia Art Sanctuary is holding its event on Sunday, 16 November. Running between 10am and 3.30pm, there will be more than 40 creatives showcasing their gift ideas, a visit from Santa, children\u2019s activities and seasonal refreshments.
\nThis will be held at Creativ.Spaces Art Studio & Event Spaces, in Southview Business Park, off Marsack Street in Caversham. Entry is free.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.facebook.com/MADEbyTamalia/
\nIn addition to the Broad Street Christmas market which runs until the big day, there will be a festive event at Reading Town Hall and Museum on Saturday, 22 November, between 10.30am and 4.30pm.
\nThe free entry event is promised to be its biggest Christmas market yet. While exploring the stalls, it\u2019s an opportunity to visit The Pantry Caf\u00e9, which offers a range of snacks and meals.\u00a0\u00a0
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/reading-town-hall-christmas-market-2025
\nThe Rising Sun Arts Centre in Silver Street holds regular markets that connect artists with the public. Its festive version will be held on Sunday, 6 December between 11am and 4pm. It\u2019s quite the attraction: handmade gifts and unique artworks are available to buy, while there are festive-themed activities for all ages to enjoy. Add in homemade snacks from its caf\u00e9 and mulled wine and it is a fun day for the family.
\nReading\u2019s art collective jelly, based in Broad St. Mall, is hosting its festive ArtShop on Sunday, 14 December between noon and 4pm.
\nThe free entry event gives people a chance to explore art, and buy prints, sculptures, paintings, needlework, and gifts created by Reading-based artists and designers, as well as finding more about how the pieces were created.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.jelly.org.uk/artshop2025
\n\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/5920a385bb04.jpg\")
Christmas Concerts and Carols
\nFor the ultimate feelgood Christmas carol events, people just need to head to Broad Street on most Saturdays in the run-up to Christmas \u2013 and several other days beside \u2013 as the Salvation Army Band will perform much-loved carols. They will also accept donations for their work.
\nChoirs will be performing festive concerts in the run-up to the big day.
\nReading housing charity Launchpad will be holding its annual carol event hosted by patron Matt Allwright on Tuesday, 2 December from 6pm. It takes place in Reading Town Hall, and features performances from Universal Voices and Tonyx Choir. For details, log on to: launchpadreading.org.uk
\nReading Minster Church in St Mary\u2019s Butts will be a popular spot for Christmas events as many groups like to use it for its acoustics and being central to the town centre.
\nThe NHS Christmas Concert will be held there on Friday, 5 December from 7pm, and is hosted by ITV Meridian\u2019s Sangeeta Bhabra. Choirs include Sing For Fun, Glee Choir and Avenue. Tickets cost \u00a310. For details, visit WhatsOnReading.com https://whatsonreading.com/venues/royal-berks-charity/whats-on/nhs-christmas-concert-reading-minster-0
\nThe following day, Saturday, 6 December, adoption charity PACT will hold a family-friendly event in the St Mary\u2019s Butts church. Starting with refreshments at 3pm, it will feature a mixture of seasonal songs, Christmas reflections and performances. Tickets cost \u00a33 for children, \u00a312 for adults. For more details, log on to: https://www.pactcharity.org/support-us/carols2025/
\nAlso on Saturday, 6 December, Concerts in Caversham presents its annual Christmas Concert by Candelight featuring its ensemble. Starting at 7.30pm, the popular event will feature seasonal music, carols and more. Tickets cost \u00a326, \u00a324 for over 60s, \u00a318 for ages 16-24, and free for under 16s. For more details, log on to: http://www.concertsincaversham.co.uk/
\nThe following day, Sunday, 7 December, Tamesis Chamber Choir perform Advent Into Christmas at Our Lady and St Anne\u2019s church in Caversham. The programme includes classical Christmas favourites, and some more modern favourites. It takes place from 4pm, and tickets cost \u00a314 or \u00a35 for concessions. For details, log on to: https://tamesischamberchoir.com/
\nParenthesis, which rehearses on Saturday mornings, will be holding a festive concert in conjunction with The Abbey School Choir featuring a mixture of seasonal tunes. It will take place on Sunday, 7 December, and full details have yet to be announced, for the latest, log on to: https://parenthesis.org.uk/
\nReading Festival Chorus is holding a Come and Sing Carols event at Wesley Methodist Church Hall on Monday, 8 December. For more details, log on to: http://www.readingfestivalchorus.org.uk
\nThe Reading Lunchtime Choir will perform a concert from 1.15pm on Wednesday, 10 December. This will be held at Park United Reformed Church on Wokingham Road. For more details
\nReading Minster is the venue for The Christmas Orchestra, featuring music from Christmas films such as Home Alone, the Muppets Christmas Carol, The Polar Express, Bridget Jones\u2019 Diary and Elf. The show is performed at 6pm and 8.30pm on Friday, 12 December and Saturday, 13 December. For more details, log on to: www.thechristmasorchestra.co.uk
\nReading Phoenix Choir presents its carol concert from 3pm on Saturday, 13 December at St Mary\u2019s Church in Castle Street, Reading. Tickets cost \u00a310, and under 16s get in free. Details: https://www.readingphoenixchoir.com/Carols25
\nStepping Into Christmas is the title for The Reading A440 Choir\u2019s seasonal concert, from 3.30pm on Saturday, 13 December. It will be held at Caversham Heights Methodist Church in Highmore Road and feature a special guest appearance from Kryla, a Ukranian women\u2019s choir. Tickets cost \u00a315, \u00a312 concessions, \u00a35 for children aged five or over. For more details, log on to: https://a440choir.org.uk/concerts/
\nTwyford Singers Christmas Concert is from 4pm on Saturday, 13 December. Taking place at St Mary\u2019s Church in Twyford, tickets cost \u00a315, or \u00a35 for under 18s. For details, visit: http://twyford-singers.org.uk
\nQueen Anne\u2019s School in Caversham will be the venue for the South Chiltern Choral Society\u2019s Christmas concert on Saturday, 13 December from 7pm. They will perform with The Hill Primary School. For details, log on to: https://www.southchilternchoralsociety.org.uk/
\nTrinity Concert Band will perform a Christmas concert from 4pm on Sunday, 14 December. Held at Reading Minster Church,
\nReading Bach Choir\u2019s annual Come and Sing carols event will be held at St Andrew\u2019s Church in Caversham on Tuesday, 16 December from 7.30pm. The event includes homemade treats to enjoy while joining in with the seasonal music. Tickets can be bought on the door and are \u00a35, under 18s get in free. For more details, log on to www.readingbachchoir.org.uk
\nVivace Voices will be giving its Christmas concert at St Mary\u2019s Church in Burghfield from 2.30pm on Wednesday, 17 December. It will raise funds for Motor Neurone Disease Association and is followed by a buffet tea. For details, log on to: https://www.vivacevoices.uk/
\nOn the weekend before Christmas, the Refugee Support Group will welcome the Reading Community Gospel Choir to perform songs from Handel\u2019s Messiah, at Reading Minster Church on Friday, 19 December from 7pm. Tickets cost \u00a312.50-\u00a315, or \u00a310 for concessions. For details, log on to: https://refugeesupportgroup.org.uk/
\nThe University of Reading\u2019s Great Hall is the venue for a screening of the Raymond Briggs classic film The Snowman. The animation will feature music performed by the English Pro Musica Orchestra. They will also present some seasonal festive music and invite audiences to join in. It takes place from 2.30pm on Saturday, 20 December. For more details, log on to: https://www.jenmatproductions.co.uk
\nLater that day, the Reading Male Voice Choir will team up with Occasions Singers for a Christmas concert in Reading Minster Church. Starting at 5pm, tickets are \u00a37.50. For details, log on to: https://rmvc.net/Concert-Minster-Christmas/
\nThames Voyces Christmas Concert will be held at St John\u2019s Church in Waterloo Road, Crowthorne from 4pm on Saturday, 20 December. Seasonal music, readings and refreshments are all on offer. For more details, log on to: https://www.thamesvoyces.org.uk/
\nPantomime and Festive Plays
\nThe Shinfield Players will present an adaptation of It\u2019s A Wonderful Life between November 19-22. Set in New York, 1945, the play focuses on George Bailey, a banker who feels that life has passed him by. Can a guardian angel give him a fresh perspective on the world around him? For more details, log on to https://www.shinfieldplayers.org.uk/
\nReading Rep Theatre on Kings Road has given Charles Dickens\u2019 famous festive tale a Reading twist: this is A Christmas Carol set among the familiar backdrop of Huntley & Palmers. The show runs from November 28, through to January 3.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.readingrep.com/
\nThe Hexagon\u2019s festive pantomime this year is Beauty and the Beast. Once again starring CBeebies megastar Justin Fletcher and Paul Morse as the dame, the show also features the new digital sets introduced last year.
\nPerformances run from Saturday, 6 December through to Sunday, 4 January, and audiences can expect slapstick comedy, audience interaction, stunning songs, and plenty of magical surprises.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://whatsonreading.com/beautyandthebeast
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/bc3b5b35171d.jpg\")
And don\u2019t forget Reading\u2019s Toy Run
\nOn Sunday, 7 December, for the 39th time bikes from across the country will don fancy dress, decorate their bikes and head to Shinfield to take part in the annual Reading Toy Run.
\nIt\u2019s free to take part, but everyone who takes part is asked to bring a new toy to donate to Barnardo\u2019s, which will then be distributed to children ahead of Christmas Day.
\nThe bikers can meet at Thames Valley Science Park near Shinfield Studios from 11am, ready to leave from 1pm. They then head along the Lower Earley Way towards the Showcase Roundabout, up Reading Road in Winnersh and then on to High Close School in Wokingham.
\nThe procession is always fun to watch, and crowds line the streets to cheer the bikers on.
\nFor more details, log on to www.readingtoyrun.org.
", "content_text": "In the midst of it all is the opportunity to pause, take stock and enjoy mulled wine or hot chocolate, toast marshmallows and enjoy the sights around.\nThe event runs from Saturday, 15 November through to Sunday, 4 January, and is wheelchair friendly. There are various sessions taking place across the season and should be booked in advance. Prices are \u00a311.95 off-peak and \u00a312.95 peak, or \u00a37.95 for under 16s off-peak and \u00a38.95 peak. Toddlers and babies aged two and under get in free.\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.illuminatereading.co.uk/\nThe Christmas light switch-on\nMore than 800,000 lights make up Reading\u2019s impressive festive displays, across Broad Street, Friar Street and Station Road. The uniquely Ding-themed lights were introduced last year and features images related to the history and culture of the town, including Huntley and Palmers and Henry I.\nTo celebrate, a day of fun is planned from 2pm on Saturday, 15 November, centred around the area outside Marks & Spencer in Broad Street. The lights will be switched on from 5pm. While you\u2019re waiting it\u2019s an opportunity to explore the Broad Street Christmas market. Once again, wooden shacks will be set up offering gifts, customised items, and seasonal snacks including toasted marshmallows, bratwurst, waffles, cookies and some gluhwein.\nFor more details, log on to visit-reading.com\nFestive Markets\nThe University of Reading is holding its annual Winter Festival event on Thursday, 27 November. Running from 5.30pm-8pm in the area around the Palmer Building on its Whiteknights Campus, there will be music, singing, food and drink, family fun and seasonal surprises. Entry is free.\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.reading.ac.uk/events/Feed/2025/November/Winter-Festival-2025\nHead north of the river when Caversham shopkeepers are set to hold a special late-night shopping evening on Friday, 5 December.\nThe annual event runs until 9pm and promises a lot more than just the stores staying open until later. There will be a visit from reindeer, live entertainment, performances from choirs, mulled wine and other seasonal refreshments, and a Christmas market with stallholders offering unique and specially created gifts.\nAdd in Christmas lights and a special Reverse Santa event at Fourbears Books, and there is something all ages to enjoy.\nFor more details, visit Visit Caversham\u2019s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Choosecaversham/\nSimilar events take place in Twyford and Crowthorne on the same evening.\nWoodley Town Centre will feature its annual Christmas Extravanganza on Sunday, 7 December. The busy event features stalls and games from local groups, performances from choirs and youth theatre troops, walking entertainments, street food, and a very busy Santa\u2019s grotto. It runs from 10am to 3pm. For more details, log on to: https://www.woodleytowncentre.co.uk/\nChristmas Craft Markets\nReading has a large community of crafters who create some of the most exquisite items that you won\u2019t find anywhere else. There will be several opportunities to purchase a unique gift.\nSt Luke\u2019s Church Hall in Erleigh Road is hosting a two-day artists\u2019 fair called Hopes and Dreams.\nIt\u2019s an opportunity to meet artists, support them by buying their work including Christmas cards, decorations and fairy houses. Refreshments including homemade cake will be available and digital artist Leslee Barron will be selling copies of her unique Reading calendar for 2026, and there will be a photography exhibition to enjoy.\nIt is open from 10am-4pm on Saturday, 15 November and noon-4pm on Sunday, 16 November. Entry is free.\nMADEByTamalia Art Sanctuary is holding its event on Sunday, 16 November. Running between 10am and 3.30pm, there will be more than 40 creatives showcasing their gift ideas, a visit from Santa, children\u2019s activities and seasonal refreshments.\nThis will be held at Creativ.Spaces Art Studio & Event Spaces, in Southview Business Park, off Marsack Street in Caversham. Entry is free.\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.facebook.com/MADEbyTamalia/\nIn addition to the Broad Street Christmas market which runs until the big day, there will be a festive event at Reading Town Hall and Museum on Saturday, 22 November, between 10.30am and 4.30pm.\nThe free entry event is promised to be its biggest Christmas market yet. While exploring the stalls, it\u2019s an opportunity to visit The Pantry Caf\u00e9, which offers a range of snacks and meals.\u00a0\u00a0 \nFor more details, log on to: https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/reading-town-hall-christmas-market-2025\nThe Rising Sun Arts Centre in Silver Street holds regular markets that connect artists with the public. Its festive version will be held on Sunday, 6 December between 11am and 4pm. It\u2019s quite the attraction: handmade gifts and unique artworks are available to buy, while there are festive-themed activities for all ages to enjoy. Add in homemade snacks from its caf\u00e9 and mulled wine and it is a fun day for the family.\nReading\u2019s art collective jelly, based in Broad St. Mall, is hosting its festive ArtShop on Sunday, 14 December between noon and 4pm.\nThe free entry event gives people a chance to explore art, and buy prints, sculptures, paintings, needlework, and gifts created by Reading-based artists and designers, as well as finding more about how the pieces were created.\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.jelly.org.uk/artshop2025\n\u00a0\n\nChristmas Concerts and Carols \nFor the ultimate feelgood Christmas carol events, people just need to head to Broad Street on most Saturdays in the run-up to Christmas \u2013 and several other days beside \u2013 as the Salvation Army Band will perform much-loved carols. They will also accept donations for their work.\nChoirs will be performing festive concerts in the run-up to the big day.\nReading housing charity Launchpad will be holding its annual carol event hosted by patron Matt Allwright on Tuesday, 2 December from 6pm. It takes place in Reading Town Hall, and features performances from Universal Voices and Tonyx Choir. For details, log on to: launchpadreading.org.uk\nReading Minster Church in St Mary\u2019s Butts will be a popular spot for Christmas events as many groups like to use it for its acoustics and being central to the town centre.\nThe NHS Christmas Concert will be held there on Friday, 5 December from 7pm, and is hosted by ITV Meridian\u2019s Sangeeta Bhabra. Choirs include Sing For Fun, Glee Choir and Avenue. Tickets cost \u00a310. For details, visit WhatsOnReading.com https://whatsonreading.com/venues/royal-berks-charity/whats-on/nhs-christmas-concert-reading-minster-0\nThe following day, Saturday, 6 December, adoption charity PACT will hold a family-friendly event in the St Mary\u2019s Butts church. Starting with refreshments at 3pm, it will feature a mixture of seasonal songs, Christmas reflections and performances. Tickets cost \u00a33 for children, \u00a312 for adults. For more details, log on to: https://www.pactcharity.org/support-us/carols2025/\nAlso on Saturday, 6 December, Concerts in Caversham presents its annual Christmas Concert by Candelight featuring its ensemble. Starting at 7.30pm, the popular event will feature seasonal music, carols and more. Tickets cost \u00a326, \u00a324 for over 60s, \u00a318 for ages 16-24, and free for under 16s. For more details, log on to: http://www.concertsincaversham.co.uk/\nThe following day, Sunday, 7 December, Tamesis Chamber Choir perform Advent Into Christmas at Our Lady and St Anne\u2019s church in Caversham. The programme includes classical Christmas favourites, and some more modern favourites. It takes place from 4pm, and tickets cost \u00a314 or \u00a35 for concessions. For details, log on to: https://tamesischamberchoir.com/\nParenthesis, which rehearses on Saturday mornings, will be holding a festive concert in conjunction with The Abbey School Choir featuring a mixture of seasonal tunes. It will take place on Sunday, 7 December, and full details have yet to be announced, for the latest, log on to: https://parenthesis.org.uk/\nReading Festival Chorus is holding a Come and Sing Carols event at Wesley Methodist Church Hall on Monday, 8 December. For more details, log on to: http://www.readingfestivalchorus.org.uk\nThe Reading Lunchtime Choir will perform a concert from 1.15pm on Wednesday, 10 December. This will be held at Park United Reformed Church on Wokingham Road. For more details\nReading Minster is the venue for The Christmas Orchestra, featuring music from Christmas films such as Home Alone, the Muppets Christmas Carol, The Polar Express, Bridget Jones\u2019 Diary and Elf. The show is performed at 6pm and 8.30pm on Friday, 12 December and Saturday, 13 December. For more details, log on to: www.thechristmasorchestra.co.uk\nReading Phoenix Choir presents its carol concert from 3pm on Saturday, 13 December at St Mary\u2019s Church in Castle Street, Reading. Tickets cost \u00a310, and under 16s get in free. Details: https://www.readingphoenixchoir.com/Carols25\nStepping Into Christmas is the title for The Reading A440 Choir\u2019s seasonal concert, from 3.30pm on Saturday, 13 December. It will be held at Caversham Heights Methodist Church in Highmore Road and feature a special guest appearance from Kryla, a Ukranian women\u2019s choir. Tickets cost \u00a315, \u00a312 concessions, \u00a35 for children aged five or over. For more details, log on to: https://a440choir.org.uk/concerts/\nTwyford Singers Christmas Concert is from 4pm on Saturday, 13 December. Taking place at St Mary\u2019s Church in Twyford, tickets cost \u00a315, or \u00a35 for under 18s. For details, visit: http://twyford-singers.org.uk\nQueen Anne\u2019s School in Caversham will be the venue for the South Chiltern Choral Society\u2019s Christmas concert on Saturday, 13 December from 7pm. They will perform with The Hill Primary School. For details, log on to: https://www.southchilternchoralsociety.org.uk/\nTrinity Concert Band will perform a Christmas concert from 4pm on Sunday, 14 December. Held at Reading Minster Church,\nReading Bach Choir\u2019s annual Come and Sing carols event will be held at St Andrew\u2019s Church in Caversham on Tuesday, 16 December from 7.30pm. The event includes homemade treats to enjoy while joining in with the seasonal music. Tickets can be bought on the door and are \u00a35, under 18s get in free. For more details, log on to www.readingbachchoir.org.uk\nVivace Voices will be giving its Christmas concert at St Mary\u2019s Church in Burghfield from 2.30pm on Wednesday, 17 December. It will raise funds for Motor Neurone Disease Association and is followed by a buffet tea. For details, log on to: https://www.vivacevoices.uk/\nOn the weekend before Christmas, the Refugee Support Group will welcome the Reading Community Gospel Choir to perform songs from Handel\u2019s Messiah, at Reading Minster Church on Friday, 19 December from 7pm. Tickets cost \u00a312.50-\u00a315, or \u00a310 for concessions. For details, log on to: https://refugeesupportgroup.org.uk/\nThe University of Reading\u2019s Great Hall is the venue for a screening of the Raymond Briggs classic film The Snowman. The animation will feature music performed by the English Pro Musica Orchestra. They will also present some seasonal festive music and invite audiences to join in. It takes place from 2.30pm on Saturday, 20 December. For more details, log on to: https://www.jenmatproductions.co.uk\nLater that day, the Reading Male Voice Choir will team up with Occasions Singers for a Christmas concert in Reading Minster Church. Starting at 5pm, tickets are \u00a37.50. For details, log on to: https://rmvc.net/Concert-Minster-Christmas/\nThames Voyces Christmas Concert will be held at St John\u2019s Church in Waterloo Road, Crowthorne from 4pm on Saturday, 20 December. Seasonal music, readings and refreshments are all on offer. For more details, log on to: https://www.thamesvoyces.org.uk/\nPantomime and Festive Plays\nThe Shinfield Players will present an adaptation of It\u2019s A Wonderful Life between November 19-22. Set in New York, 1945, the play focuses on George Bailey, a banker who feels that life has passed him by. Can a guardian angel give him a fresh perspective on the world around him? For more details, log on to https://www.shinfieldplayers.org.uk/\nReading Rep Theatre on Kings Road has given Charles Dickens\u2019 famous festive tale a Reading twist: this is A Christmas Carol set among the familiar backdrop of Huntley & Palmers. The show runs from November 28, through to January 3.\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.readingrep.com/\nThe Hexagon\u2019s festive pantomime this year is Beauty and the Beast. Once again starring CBeebies megastar Justin Fletcher and Paul Morse as the dame, the show also features the new digital sets introduced last year.\nPerformances run from Saturday, 6 December through to Sunday, 4 January, and audiences can expect slapstick comedy, audience interaction, stunning songs, and plenty of magical surprises.\nFor more details, log on to: https://whatsonreading.com/beautyandthebeast\n\nAnd don\u2019t forget Reading\u2019s Toy Run\nOn Sunday, 7 December, for the 39th time bikes from across the country will don fancy dress, decorate their bikes and head to Shinfield to take part in the annual Reading Toy Run.\nIt\u2019s free to take part, but everyone who takes part is asked to bring a new toy to donate to Barnardo\u2019s, which will then be distributed to children ahead of Christmas Day.\nThe bikers can meet at Thames Valley Science Park near Shinfield Studios from 11am, ready to leave from 1pm. They then head along the Lower Earley Way towards the Showcase Roundabout, up Reading Road in Winnersh and then on to High Close School in Wokingham.\nThe procession is always fun to watch, and crowds line the streets to cheer the bikers on.\nFor more details, log on to www.readingtoyrun.org.", "summary": "Discover Reading's magical Christmas events, from the spectacular light switch-on with unique local-themed displays to charming festive markets and craft fairs. Find mulled wine, gifts, and family fun across the town.", "date_published": "2025-12-01T19:22:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:42:37.788161+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/c3721929.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/c3721929.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Christmas Is Coming..", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 2578, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "In the midst of it all is the opportunity to pause, take stock and enjoy mulled wine or hot chocolate, toast marshmallows and enjoy the sights around.
\nThe event runs from Saturday, 15 November through to Sunday, 4 January, and is wheelchair friendly. There are various sessions taking place across the season and should be booked in advance. Prices are \u00a311.95 off-peak and \u00a312.95 peak, or \u00a37.95 for under 16s off-peak and \u00a38.95 peak. Toddlers and babies aged two and under get in free.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.illuminatereading.co.uk/
\nThe Christmas light switch-on
\nMore than 800,000 lights make up Reading\u2019s impressive festive displays, across Broad Street, Friar Street and Station Road. The uniquely Ding-themed lights were introduced last year and features images related to the history and culture of the town, including Huntley and Palmers and Henry I.
\nTo celebrate, a day of fun is planned from 2pm on Saturday, 15 November, centred around the area outside Marks & Spencer in Broad Street. The lights will be switched on from 5pm. While you\u2019re waiting it\u2019s an opportunity to explore the Broad Street Christmas market. Once again, wooden shacks will be set up offering gifts, customised items, and seasonal snacks including toasted marshmallows, bratwurst, waffles, cookies and some gluhwein.
\nFor more details, log on to visit-reading.com
\nFestive Markets
\nThe University of Reading is holding its annual Winter Festival event on Thursday, 27 November. Running from 5.30pm-8pm in the area around the Palmer Building on its Whiteknights Campus, there will be music, singing, food and drink, family fun and seasonal surprises. Entry is free.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.reading.ac.uk/events/Feed/2025/November/Winter-Festival-2025
\nHead north of the river when Caversham shopkeepers are set to hold a special late-night shopping evening on Friday, 5 December.
\nThe annual event runs until 9pm and promises a lot more than just the stores staying open until later. There will be a visit from reindeer, live entertainment, performances from choirs, mulled wine and other seasonal refreshments, and a Christmas market with stallholders offering unique and specially created gifts.
\nAdd in Christmas lights and a special Reverse Santa event at Fourbears Books, and there is something all ages to enjoy.
\nFor more details, visit Visit Caversham\u2019s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Choosecaversham/
\nSimilar events take place in Twyford and Crowthorne on the same evening.
\nWoodley Town Centre will feature its annual Christmas Extravanganza on Sunday, 7 December. The busy event features stalls and games from local groups, performances from choirs and youth theatre troops, walking entertainments, street food, and a very busy Santa\u2019s grotto. It runs from 10am to 3pm. For more details, log on to: https://www.woodleytowncentre.co.uk/
\nChristmas Craft Markets
\nReading has a large community of crafters who create some of the most exquisite items that you won\u2019t find anywhere else. There will be several opportunities to purchase a unique gift.
\nSt Luke\u2019s Church Hall in Erleigh Road is hosting a two-day artists\u2019 fair called Hopes and Dreams.
\nIt\u2019s an opportunity to meet artists, support them by buying their work including Christmas cards, decorations and fairy houses. Refreshments including homemade cake will be available and digital artist Leslee Barron will be selling copies of her unique Reading calendar for 2026, and there will be a photography exhibition to enjoy.
\nIt is open from 10am-4pm on Saturday, 15 November and noon-4pm on Sunday, 16 November. Entry is free.
\nMADEByTamalia Art Sanctuary is holding its event on Sunday, 16 November. Running between 10am and 3.30pm, there will be more than 40 creatives showcasing their gift ideas, a visit from Santa, children\u2019s activities and seasonal refreshments.
\nThis will be held at Creativ.Spaces Art Studio & Event Spaces, in Southview Business Park, off Marsack Street in Caversham. Entry is free.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.facebook.com/MADEbyTamalia/
\nIn addition to the Broad Street Christmas market which runs until the big day, there will be a festive event at Reading Town Hall and Museum on Saturday, 22 November, between 10.30am and 4.30pm.
\nThe free entry event is promised to be its biggest Christmas market yet. While exploring the stalls, it\u2019s an opportunity to visit The Pantry Caf\u00e9, which offers a range of snacks and meals.\u00a0\u00a0
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/reading-town-hall-christmas-market-2025
\nThe Rising Sun Arts Centre in Silver Street holds regular markets that connect artists with the public. Its festive version will be held on Sunday, 6 December between 11am and 4pm. It\u2019s quite the attraction: handmade gifts and unique artworks are available to buy, while there are festive-themed activities for all ages to enjoy. Add in homemade snacks from its caf\u00e9 and mulled wine and it is a fun day for the family.
\nReading\u2019s art collective jelly, based in Broad St. Mall, is hosting its festive ArtShop on Sunday, 14 December between noon and 4pm.
\nThe free entry event gives people a chance to explore art, and buy prints, sculptures, paintings, needlework, and gifts created by Reading-based artists and designers, as well as finding more about how the pieces were created.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.jelly.org.uk/artshop2025
\n\u00a0
\n
Christmas Concerts and Carols
\nFor the ultimate feelgood Christmas carol events, people just need to head to Broad Street on most Saturdays in the run-up to Christmas \u2013 and several other days beside \u2013 as the Salvation Army Band will perform much-loved carols. They will also accept donations for their work.
\nChoirs will be performing festive concerts in the run-up to the big day.
\nReading housing charity Launchpad will be holding its annual carol event hosted by patron Matt Allwright on Tuesday, 2 December from 6pm. It takes place in Reading Town Hall, and features performances from Universal Voices and Tonyx Choir. For details, log on to: launchpadreading.org.uk
\nReading Minster Church in St Mary\u2019s Butts will be a popular spot for Christmas events as many groups like to use it for its acoustics and being central to the town centre.
\nThe NHS Christmas Concert will be held there on Friday, 5 December from 7pm, and is hosted by ITV Meridian\u2019s Sangeeta Bhabra. Choirs include Sing For Fun, Glee Choir and Avenue. Tickets cost \u00a310. For details, visit WhatsOnReading.com https://whatsonreading.com/venues/royal-berks-charity/whats-on/nhs-christmas-concert-reading-minster-0
\nThe following day, Saturday, 6 December, adoption charity PACT will hold a family-friendly event in the St Mary\u2019s Butts church. Starting with refreshments at 3pm, it will feature a mixture of seasonal songs, Christmas reflections and performances. Tickets cost \u00a33 for children, \u00a312 for adults. For more details, log on to: https://www.pactcharity.org/support-us/carols2025/
\nAlso on Saturday, 6 December, Concerts in Caversham presents its annual Christmas Concert by Candelight featuring its ensemble. Starting at 7.30pm, the popular event will feature seasonal music, carols and more. Tickets cost \u00a326, \u00a324 for over 60s, \u00a318 for ages 16-24, and free for under 16s. For more details, log on to: http://www.concertsincaversham.co.uk/
\nThe following day, Sunday, 7 December, Tamesis Chamber Choir perform Advent Into Christmas at Our Lady and St Anne\u2019s church in Caversham. The programme includes classical Christmas favourites, and some more modern favourites. It takes place from 4pm, and tickets cost \u00a314 or \u00a35 for concessions. For details, log on to: https://tamesischamberchoir.com/
\nParenthesis, which rehearses on Saturday mornings, will be holding a festive concert in conjunction with The Abbey School Choir featuring a mixture of seasonal tunes. It will take place on Sunday, 7 December, and full details have yet to be announced, for the latest, log on to: https://parenthesis.org.uk/
\nReading Festival Chorus is holding a Come and Sing Carols event at Wesley Methodist Church Hall on Monday, 8 December. For more details, log on to: http://www.readingfestivalchorus.org.uk
\nThe Reading Lunchtime Choir will perform a concert from 1.15pm on Wednesday, 10 December. This will be held at Park United Reformed Church on Wokingham Road. For more details
\nReading Minster is the venue for The Christmas Orchestra, featuring music from Christmas films such as Home Alone, the Muppets Christmas Carol, The Polar Express, Bridget Jones\u2019 Diary and Elf. The show is performed at 6pm and 8.30pm on Friday, 12 December and Saturday, 13 December. For more details, log on to: www.thechristmasorchestra.co.uk
\nReading Phoenix Choir presents its carol concert from 3pm on Saturday, 13 December at St Mary\u2019s Church in Castle Street, Reading. Tickets cost \u00a310, and under 16s get in free. Details: https://www.readingphoenixchoir.com/Carols25
\nStepping Into Christmas is the title for The Reading A440 Choir\u2019s seasonal concert, from 3.30pm on Saturday, 13 December. It will be held at Caversham Heights Methodist Church in Highmore Road and feature a special guest appearance from Kryla, a Ukranian women\u2019s choir. Tickets cost \u00a315, \u00a312 concessions, \u00a35 for children aged five or over. For more details, log on to: https://a440choir.org.uk/concerts/
\nTwyford Singers Christmas Concert is from 4pm on Saturday, 13 December. Taking place at St Mary\u2019s Church in Twyford, tickets cost \u00a315, or \u00a35 for under 18s. For details, visit: http://twyford-singers.org.uk
\nQueen Anne\u2019s School in Caversham will be the venue for the South Chiltern Choral Society\u2019s Christmas concert on Saturday, 13 December from 7pm. They will perform with The Hill Primary School. For details, log on to: https://www.southchilternchoralsociety.org.uk/
\nTrinity Concert Band will perform a Christmas concert from 4pm on Sunday, 14 December. Held at Reading Minster Church,
\nReading Bach Choir\u2019s annual Come and Sing carols event will be held at St Andrew\u2019s Church in Caversham on Tuesday, 16 December from 7.30pm. The event includes homemade treats to enjoy while joining in with the seasonal music. Tickets can be bought on the door and are \u00a35, under 18s get in free. For more details, log on to www.readingbachchoir.org.uk
\nVivace Voices will be giving its Christmas concert at St Mary\u2019s Church in Burghfield from 2.30pm on Wednesday, 17 December. It will raise funds for Motor Neurone Disease Association and is followed by a buffet tea. For details, log on to: https://www.vivacevoices.uk/
\nOn the weekend before Christmas, the Refugee Support Group will welcome the Reading Community Gospel Choir to perform songs from Handel\u2019s Messiah, at Reading Minster Church on Friday, 19 December from 7pm. Tickets cost \u00a312.50-\u00a315, or \u00a310 for concessions. For details, log on to: https://refugeesupportgroup.org.uk/
\nThe University of Reading\u2019s Great Hall is the venue for a screening of the Raymond Briggs classic film The Snowman. The animation will feature music performed by the English Pro Musica Orchestra. They will also present some seasonal festive music and invite audiences to join in. It takes place from 2.30pm on Saturday, 20 December. For more details, log on to: https://www.jenmatproductions.co.uk
\nLater that day, the Reading Male Voice Choir will team up with Occasions Singers for a Christmas concert in Reading Minster Church. Starting at 5pm, tickets are \u00a37.50. For details, log on to: https://rmvc.net/Concert-Minster-Christmas/
\nThames Voyces Christmas Concert will be held at St John\u2019s Church in Waterloo Road, Crowthorne from 4pm on Saturday, 20 December. Seasonal music, readings and refreshments are all on offer. For more details, log on to: https://www.thamesvoyces.org.uk/
\nPantomime and Festive Plays
\nThe Shinfield Players will present an adaptation of It\u2019s A Wonderful Life between November 19-22. Set in New York, 1945, the play focuses on George Bailey, a banker who feels that life has passed him by. Can a guardian angel give him a fresh perspective on the world around him? For more details, log on to https://www.shinfieldplayers.org.uk/
\nReading Rep Theatre on Kings Road has given Charles Dickens\u2019 famous festive tale a Reading twist: this is A Christmas Carol set among the familiar backdrop of Huntley & Palmers. The show runs from November 28, through to January 3.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://www.readingrep.com/
\nThe Hexagon\u2019s festive pantomime this year is Beauty and the Beast. Once again starring CBeebies megastar Justin Fletcher and Paul Morse as the dame, the show also features the new digital sets introduced last year.
\nPerformances run from Saturday, 6 December through to Sunday, 4 January, and audiences can expect slapstick comedy, audience interaction, stunning songs, and plenty of magical surprises.
\nFor more details, log on to: https://whatsonreading.com/beautyandthebeast
\n
And don\u2019t forget Reading\u2019s Toy Run
\nOn Sunday, 7 December, for the 39th time bikes from across the country will don fancy dress, decorate their bikes and head to Shinfield to take part in the annual Reading Toy Run.
\nIt\u2019s free to take part, but everyone who takes part is asked to bring a new toy to donate to Barnardo\u2019s, which will then be distributed to children ahead of Christmas Day.
\nThe bikers can meet at Thames Valley Science Park near Shinfield Studios from 11am, ready to leave from 1pm. They then head along the Lower Earley Way towards the Showcase Roundabout, up Reading Road in Winnersh and then on to High Close School in Wokingham.
\nThe procession is always fun to watch, and crowds line the streets to cheer the bikers on.
\nFor more details, log on to www.readingtoyrun.org.
", "description": "Discover Reading's magical Christmas events, from the spectacular light switch-on with unique local-themed displays to charming festive markets and craft fairs. Find mulled wine, gifts, and family fun across the town.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:42:37.788161+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2025-12-01T19:22:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/christmas-is-coming/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "331", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/eating-out-take-your-time/", "title": "Take Your Time", "content_html": "Rarely do you read about new openings on these pages. I think it's unfair to established businesses and also unfair to the just opened businesses who are still finding their feet. On the other hand, they do need the publicity, especially if they occupy a site with practically no passing footfall on the upper floor of what is variously called 'The Village' or King's Walk.
\nBut the long eclectic menu from Asian fusion newcomer \u00a0 Take Your Time was something I could not resist.\u00a0
\nThe name, the menu and even the location amongst a lot of pretty good largely Oriental restaurants in this most tucked away of locations made me curious.
\nWhen Jollibees opened offering spaghetti and burgers I realised that the old borders count no more. You can get burgers in Carluccio's and Thai curry in most pubs.
\nAnd remember the 'English dishes' part of Chinese restaurant menus from the 1980s? After all Cosmos has been offering something for everyone for decades.
\nThe very attractive menus are long, and I cannot resist but print them here for you in full.\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/f6885769fd30.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/9cfaa1be97b8.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/313315ef1f75.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/88afc6071106.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/2fc319a53780.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/5a7dee70dba0.jpg\")
So here's the question - can a kitchen that can throw out a wide range of ecclectic\u00a0 Oriental dish also do decent gastro pub mains, fusion burgers, risotto and pasta ?\u00a0\u00a0
\nI have only ever been on one cruise and the menu was a bit reminiscent if that, but the best food on that holiday was the southern Indian vegetarian dishes - guess where most of the chefs were from ?
\nMost dishes have a fusion element. Many of the burgers use 'pinapple bread' - a Hong Kong speciality that is like a brioche bap. The name comes not from the ingredients\u00a0 (it contains no pineapple or any other fruit) but from its look, which is similar to tiger bread.
\nThe menu did make me think of what an accident in the international ready dishes sector of\u00a0 M&S might end up as. .\u00a0
\nSo, Take Your Time had to be tried in my bi-monthly meeting with fellow inReading hack Phil Creighton, who has long covered the visicitudes of eating out in our town.
\nThe room has been nicely done up with a mix of high tables, dining tables and comfy chairs with coffee tables giving it more the feel of a bar than a restaurant.
\nThe location has a great terrace and I suspect this will be a good place to eat in summer. A couple of months after opening on a Thursday lunchtime it was around a quarter full with everyone seemingly from our ever growing Hong Kong population\u00a0
\nI was early and welcomed enthusiastically by the young man and woman serving (I suspect that they may have been a couple and the owners).
\nWhen Phil arrived we set about tackling that menu. Eating any representative segment of the dishes in offer over a two person lunch was impossible.
\nI was tempted to go to my standard measure of any oriental restaurant, that ubiquitous dish that is Singapore Noodle where YY Restaurant recently took the crown off Good Old Days for the best version in town.
\nBut I decided to be a tad more adventurous and ordered the Hunanese chicken lakhsa (in other words. Southern Chinese chicken with Malaysia's national soup.)
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/bf4702f4b7c1.jpg\")
I was warned when ordering that it was 'very hot' but it really wasn't - the chilli oil nicely balanced the coconut brothbwhich is traditionally made of Laksa paste that contains dried chillies, shallots, garlic, galangal or ginger, lemongrass, candle nuts or peanuts, shrimp paste (belacan), turmeric, coriander and cumin seeds (or you can buy it all in a pot ready made!), along with chicken or prawn stock and a touch of sugar and fish sauce. It came with thick udon style noodles, lovely Hunan chicken, some overcooked besnsprouts, spring onion and puffed rice cake that soaks up the lovely sauce.\u00a0
\nThe balance of broth against chilli oil wasn't perfect - the coconut stick could have had a bit more taste and maybe a bit less oil. It also could have done with some crunch and freshness - often raw besnsprouts, coriander, fresh limes, crushed peanuts and even cucumber are served for this purpose. It also lacked the ever present boiled or fried egg that seems to be de facto in many Malaysian meals. But at \u00a315 it was a massive bowl of food and I managed to eat just over half of it
\nPhil decided on the Pork Loin Cutlet Baked Fried Rice. Apparently this is a Hong Kong standard - a comforting fusion dish made of rice, tomatoes and pineapple baked with mozzarella on top. Yes, it really does sound like that dish you made when you got back from the pub after an all sayer, using up everything you had in the fridge and cupboard.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/7f5267ebd9bf.jpg\")
Here is came with a chunky breaded pork loin steak. Phil loved it and cleared the dish, reluctantly giving me a spoonful of rice and a chunk of pork. I could see why he was reluctant to give it away - tasty, fillingband comforting on a late autumn day.
\nI could not resist ordering some of the pineapple bun (\u83e0\u863f\u5305, bolo bao) as a side.
\nAs I mentioned, despite the name, this doesn\u2019t actually contain pineapple as the waitress reminded me.
\nIt\u2019s a soft, fluffy Hong Kong\u2013style milk bread roll with a crunchy, sugary top and came with a large wedge of milky non salted butter - sometimes it's also filled with custard, or red bean paste. At TST it is used as a burger roll and I must come back to taste the chat siu 'burger'.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/68b7fded7334.jpg\")
Our dishes were large and we really didn't need it, but it has whetted my appetite for a fusion burger on a future visit.
\nPhil was already telling our lovely waitress that he was coming back with his wife as soon as he could.
\nThere is a very short but reasonably priced wine list and a good range of alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks including some Hong Kong specialities.
\nWe never got as far as the dessert menu!
\nThis is a great, eclectic addition to eating out in Reading that totally assuaged my preconceptions. The next time you're with someone who doesn't share your taste in food, TYT may be your perfect solution.
\n\u00a0
", "content_text": "Rarely do you read about new openings on these pages. I think it's unfair to established businesses and also unfair to the just opened businesses who are still finding their feet. On the other hand, they do need the publicity, especially if they occupy a site with practically no passing footfall on the upper floor of what is variously called 'The Village' or King's Walk.\nBut the long eclectic menu from Asian fusion newcomer \u00a0 Take Your Time was something I could not resist.\u00a0\nThe name, the menu and even the location amongst a lot of pretty good largely Oriental restaurants in this most tucked away of locations made me curious.\nWhen Jollibees opened offering spaghetti and burgers I realised that the old borders count no more. You can get burgers in Carluccio's and Thai curry in most pubs.\nAnd remember the 'English dishes' part of Chinese restaurant menus from the 1980s? After all Cosmos has been offering something for everyone for decades.\nThe very attractive menus are long, and I cannot resist but print them here for you in full.\u00a0\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSo here's the question - can a kitchen that can throw out a wide range of ecclectic\u00a0 Oriental dish also do decent gastro pub mains, fusion burgers, risotto and pasta ?\u00a0\u00a0\nI have only ever been on one cruise and the menu was a bit reminiscent if that, but the best food on that holiday was the southern Indian vegetarian dishes - guess where most of the chefs were from ?\nMost dishes have a fusion element. Many of the burgers use 'pinapple bread' - a Hong Kong speciality that is like a brioche bap. The name comes not from the ingredients\u00a0 (it contains no pineapple or any other fruit) but from its look, which is similar to tiger bread.\nThe menu did make me think of what an accident in the international ready dishes sector of\u00a0 M&S might end up as. .\u00a0\nSo, Take Your Time had to be tried in my bi-monthly meeting with fellow inReading hack Phil Creighton, who has long covered the visicitudes of eating out in our town.\nThe room has been nicely done up with a mix of high tables, dining tables and comfy chairs with coffee tables giving it more the feel of a bar than a restaurant.\nThe location has a great terrace and I suspect this will be a good place to eat in summer. A couple of months after opening on a Thursday lunchtime it was around a quarter full with everyone seemingly from our ever growing Hong Kong population\u00a0\nI was early and welcomed enthusiastically by the young man and woman serving (I suspect that they may have been a couple and the owners).\nWhen Phil arrived we set about tackling that menu. Eating any representative segment of the dishes in offer over a two person lunch was impossible.\nI was tempted to go to my standard measure of any oriental restaurant, that ubiquitous dish that is Singapore Noodle where YY Restaurant recently took the crown off Good Old Days for the best version in town.\nBut I decided to be a tad more adventurous and ordered the Hunanese chicken lakhsa (in other words. Southern Chinese chicken with Malaysia's national soup.)\n\nI was warned when ordering that it was 'very hot' but it really wasn't - the chilli oil nicely balanced the coconut brothbwhich is traditionally made of Laksa paste that contains dried chillies, shallots, garlic, galangal or ginger, lemongrass, candle nuts or peanuts, shrimp paste (belacan), turmeric, coriander and cumin seeds (or you can buy it all in a pot ready made!), along with chicken or prawn stock and a touch of sugar and fish sauce. It came with thick udon style noodles, lovely Hunan chicken, some overcooked besnsprouts, spring onion and puffed rice cake that soaks up the lovely sauce.\u00a0\nThe balance of broth against chilli oil wasn't perfect - the coconut stick could have had a bit more taste and maybe a bit less oil. It also could have done with some crunch and freshness - often raw besnsprouts, coriander, fresh limes, crushed peanuts and even cucumber are served for this purpose. It also lacked the ever present boiled or fried egg that seems to be de facto in many Malaysian meals. But at \u00a315 it was a massive bowl of food and I managed to eat just over half of it\nPhil decided on the Pork Loin Cutlet Baked Fried Rice. Apparently this is a Hong Kong standard - a comforting fusion dish made of rice, tomatoes and pineapple baked with mozzarella on top. Yes, it really does sound like that dish you made when you got back from the pub after an all sayer, using up everything you had in the fridge and cupboard.\n\nHere is came with a chunky breaded pork loin steak. Phil loved it and cleared the dish, reluctantly giving me a spoonful of rice and a chunk of pork. I could see why he was reluctant to give it away - tasty, fillingband comforting on a late autumn day.\nI could not resist ordering some of the pineapple bun (\u83e0\u863f\u5305, bolo bao) as a side.\nAs I mentioned, despite the name, this doesn\u2019t actually contain pineapple as the waitress reminded me.\nIt\u2019s a soft, fluffy Hong Kong\u2013style milk bread roll with a crunchy, sugary top and came with a large wedge of milky non salted butter - sometimes it's also filled with custard, or red bean paste. At TST it is used as a burger roll and I must come back to taste the chat siu 'burger'.\n\nOur dishes were large and we really didn't need it, but it has whetted my appetite for a fusion burger on a future visit.\nPhil was already telling our lovely waitress that he was coming back with his wife as soon as he could.\nThere is a very short but reasonably priced wine list and a good range of alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks including some Hong Kong specialities.\nWe never got as far as the dessert menu!\nThis is a great, eclectic addition to eating out in Reading that totally assuaged my preconceptions. The next time you're with someone who doesn't share your taste in food, TYT may be your perfect solution.\n\u00a0", "summary": "Discover the eclectic Asian fusion menu at Take Your Time, a new restaurant in The Village, Reading. Despite its tucked-away location, the diverse offerings and unique atmosphere make it worth exploring.", "date_published": "2025-12-01T18:25:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:43:02.508290+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/2469a696.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/2469a696.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Take Your Time", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1424, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "Rarely do you read about new openings on these pages. I think it's unfair to established businesses and also unfair to the just opened businesses who are still finding their feet. On the other hand, they do need the publicity, especially if they occupy a site with practically no passing footfall on the upper floor of what is variously called 'The Village' or King's Walk.
\nBut the long eclectic menu from Asian fusion newcomer \u00a0 Take Your Time was something I could not resist.\u00a0
\nThe name, the menu and even the location amongst a lot of pretty good largely Oriental restaurants in this most tucked away of locations made me curious.
\nWhen Jollibees opened offering spaghetti and burgers I realised that the old borders count no more. You can get burgers in Carluccio's and Thai curry in most pubs.
\nAnd remember the 'English dishes' part of Chinese restaurant menus from the 1980s? After all Cosmos has been offering something for everyone for decades.
\nThe very attractive menus are long, and I cannot resist but print them here for you in full.\u00a0
\n
So here's the question - can a kitchen that can throw out a wide range of ecclectic\u00a0 Oriental dish also do decent gastro pub mains, fusion burgers, risotto and pasta ?\u00a0\u00a0
\nI have only ever been on one cruise and the menu was a bit reminiscent if that, but the best food on that holiday was the southern Indian vegetarian dishes - guess where most of the chefs were from ?
\nMost dishes have a fusion element. Many of the burgers use 'pinapple bread' - a Hong Kong speciality that is like a brioche bap. The name comes not from the ingredients\u00a0 (it contains no pineapple or any other fruit) but from its look, which is similar to tiger bread.
\nThe menu did make me think of what an accident in the international ready dishes sector of\u00a0 M&S might end up as. .\u00a0
\nSo, Take Your Time had to be tried in my bi-monthly meeting with fellow inReading hack Phil Creighton, who has long covered the visicitudes of eating out in our town.
\nThe room has been nicely done up with a mix of high tables, dining tables and comfy chairs with coffee tables giving it more the feel of a bar than a restaurant.
\nThe location has a great terrace and I suspect this will be a good place to eat in summer. A couple of months after opening on a Thursday lunchtime it was around a quarter full with everyone seemingly from our ever growing Hong Kong population\u00a0
\nI was early and welcomed enthusiastically by the young man and woman serving (I suspect that they may have been a couple and the owners).
\nWhen Phil arrived we set about tackling that menu. Eating any representative segment of the dishes in offer over a two person lunch was impossible.
\nI was tempted to go to my standard measure of any oriental restaurant, that ubiquitous dish that is Singapore Noodle where YY Restaurant recently took the crown off Good Old Days for the best version in town.
\nBut I decided to be a tad more adventurous and ordered the Hunanese chicken lakhsa (in other words. Southern Chinese chicken with Malaysia's national soup.)
\n
I was warned when ordering that it was 'very hot' but it really wasn't - the chilli oil nicely balanced the coconut brothbwhich is traditionally made of Laksa paste that contains dried chillies, shallots, garlic, galangal or ginger, lemongrass, candle nuts or peanuts, shrimp paste (belacan), turmeric, coriander and cumin seeds (or you can buy it all in a pot ready made!), along with chicken or prawn stock and a touch of sugar and fish sauce. It came with thick udon style noodles, lovely Hunan chicken, some overcooked besnsprouts, spring onion and puffed rice cake that soaks up the lovely sauce.\u00a0
\nThe balance of broth against chilli oil wasn't perfect - the coconut stick could have had a bit more taste and maybe a bit less oil. It also could have done with some crunch and freshness - often raw besnsprouts, coriander, fresh limes, crushed peanuts and even cucumber are served for this purpose. It also lacked the ever present boiled or fried egg that seems to be de facto in many Malaysian meals. But at \u00a315 it was a massive bowl of food and I managed to eat just over half of it
\nPhil decided on the Pork Loin Cutlet Baked Fried Rice. Apparently this is a Hong Kong standard - a comforting fusion dish made of rice, tomatoes and pineapple baked with mozzarella on top. Yes, it really does sound like that dish you made when you got back from the pub after an all sayer, using up everything you had in the fridge and cupboard.
\n
Here is came with a chunky breaded pork loin steak. Phil loved it and cleared the dish, reluctantly giving me a spoonful of rice and a chunk of pork. I could see why he was reluctant to give it away - tasty, fillingband comforting on a late autumn day.
\nI could not resist ordering some of the pineapple bun (\u83e0\u863f\u5305, bolo bao) as a side.
\nAs I mentioned, despite the name, this doesn\u2019t actually contain pineapple as the waitress reminded me.
\nIt\u2019s a soft, fluffy Hong Kong\u2013style milk bread roll with a crunchy, sugary top and came with a large wedge of milky non salted butter - sometimes it's also filled with custard, or red bean paste. At TST it is used as a burger roll and I must come back to taste the chat siu 'burger'.
\n
Our dishes were large and we really didn't need it, but it has whetted my appetite for a fusion burger on a future visit.
\nPhil was already telling our lovely waitress that he was coming back with his wife as soon as he could.
\nThere is a very short but reasonably priced wine list and a good range of alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks including some Hong Kong specialities.
\nWe never got as far as the dessert menu!
\nThis is a great, eclectic addition to eating out in Reading that totally assuaged my preconceptions. The next time you're with someone who doesn't share your taste in food, TYT may be your perfect solution.
\n\u00a0
", "description": "Discover the eclectic Asian fusion menu at Take Your Time, a new restaurant in The Village, Reading. Despite its tucked-away location, the diverse offerings and unique atmosphere make it worth exploring.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:43:02.508290+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2025-12-01T18:25:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/eating-out-take-your-time/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "329", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/oxford-move-homeless-to-reading/", "title": "Oxford Move Homeless To Reading", "content_html": "As we approach Christmas, inReading takes a look at the housing crisis affecting our town as, following a Freedom of Information request by Local Democracy Reporter Esmé Kenney, it has emerged that Oxford City Council has moved 34 homeless families to Reading. Oxford remains liable for paying the rent or B&B or hotel accommodation for the moved families, but the burden on social support such as healthcare is moved with the families.
\r\nIt’s not so much as a tale of two cities, but the tale of how a prosperous city is having to resolve its housing problems in neighbouring authorities in the shadow of regional reforms which may see them in the same extended ‘Thames Valley’ unitary authority.
\r\nAnd this is not just a story about 34 households; it is a symptom of a housing system so gridlocked that \"out-of-area placements\"—once the shameful last resort of London boroughs—have become the standard operating procedure for many of England’s provincial cities and its effects are now being seen in our town.
\r\nOxford is, by many metrics, a broken housing market. It is frequently cited as the \"least affordable place to live in the UK\" relative to wages, with median house prices stretching to over ten times the average salary. The city is hemmed in by a Green Belt that has choked expansion, while the relentless demand from the university sector and the booming biotech industry continues to drive rents skyward as more and more land is used for academic and industry uses. The fact that its colleges owns much of the land also exacerbates the situation.
\r\nCouncillor Linda Smith, Oxford’s Cabinet Member for Housing, has described the situation as an \"unprecedented rise in homelessness.\" The council is legally obliged to house those in desperate need, but their own stock is full and accommodation in Oxford is expensive thanks to demand from students and tourists as well as locals. The private rental market, usually the safety valve, has become a closed door due to the freeze in Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, which no longer cover the true cost of renting in the city.
\r\nFacing a £1.5 million overspend on housing services and a queue of 10 new homeless families presenting every week, Oxford was forced to look outwards. As a result, they have sent 45 families to High Wycombe, two to Slough, and 34 to Reading. Obviously, for the displaced families, this separates them from the communities, schools, GPs, and support networks they are used to.
\r\nReading Borough Council has reacted with palpable frustration. The town is fighting its own battle with homelessness. In the same period that Oxford began moving families in, Reading saw an 18% surge in its own homeless presentations, with 402 local households currently stuck in temporary accommodation.
\r\nThe friction arises from a quirk of local government finance: when Oxford places a family in a Travelodge or private rental in Reading, Oxford pays the rent, but Reading’s infrastructure bears the load. These families may need places in Reading schools, support from Reading social services, and care from Reading GPs—services already stretched to the breaking point—without a penny of additional funding transferring from Oxford to Reading to cover the difference.
\r\nIt would be somewhat unfair to paint Oxford as the villain of this piece. They are caught in a systemic trap that is replicating itself across the South East.
\r\nThe practice of \"out-of-area\" placements was normalized by London boroughs sending families to Kent and the Home Counties. Now, the ripple effect has moved further out. As London pushes people to Slough, Slough pushes to Reading, and Oxford pushes to High Wycombe.
And the situation is made worse by a number of factors: housing benefits have not kept pace with market rents, making the private rented sector inaccessible to the poor; private landlords are leaving the market thanks to onerous new legislation and, prehaprs the biggest fault of all can be traced back to the Thatcher government and decades of “Right to Buy” without replacement that have left councils with no assets to deploy. The UK does not need hundreds of thousands of houses – it needs hundreds of thousands of social houses.
The Immigrant Myth
Meanwhile, housing has also become an issue championed by the extreme right and their perceived claims that ‘immigrants are taking our houses and benefits’. In Reading, as across the UK, it should be noted that a person is ineligible to join the Housing Register (for social housing) if they are subject to immigration control.
Data from the 2021 National Census data shows that 15% of people living in social housing in England and Wales were born outside the UK. This is marginally lower than the proportion of the total UK population that is foreign-born. Non-UK-born residents are generally less likely than UK-born residents to be homeowners and are most likely to live in the private rented sector, which often involves higher rent and thus greater use of Housing Benefit, which is part of the Universal Credit system and paid for by central government (although distributed in part by local authorities).
\r\nAsylum Seekers are not eligible for social housing or benefits: the estimated 700 asylum seekers in Reading are not permitted to work or claim mainstream benefits (like Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, or social housing). Asylum seekers placed in Reading receive accommodation and basic daily living support from the Home Office (central government), not the local council's welfare system. This support is provided at a low, fixed rate (currently around £7.03 per person per day).
\r\nReading's Housing Crisis
\r\nThis notwithstanding, as an affluent commuter belt town Reading is already grappling with a severe housing and homelessness crisis, driven by a shortage of affordable housing and significant cost pressures. The number of households in temporary accommodation due to homelessness has seen a dramatic increase, rising to 402 households as of the end of March 2025 - an 18% increase from the previous year. Crucially, 74% of these households (299) include children, highlighting the impact on families.
\r\nThis rise has substantially increased the financial burden on Reading Borough Council, which spent approximately £2.8 million on temporary accommodation in 2023/24 and further competition from neighbouring boroughs for precious housing resources does not help this situation.
\r\nThe total expenditure on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), including the total budget for the day-to-day management, maintenance, and operation of the Council's 7,000 social housing properties was £54.1 million, with a further £28.2 million spent on long-term investment in improving and expanding the social housing stock. Around £12.4m in total was spent in 2024/25 on providing new housing amounting to only 57 new units over the period.
\r\n\r\n
Separately, the official rough sleeping count in November 2024 was 57 people, though the Council suggested a figure of 42 from monthly averages might be more representative. Exacerbating the crisis is a chronic shortfall in new affordable home delivery, with the council reportedly falling short of the estimated annual need for new affordable homes, while the total number of council homes has been falling due to 'Right to Buy' sales, despite new building programmes.
\r\nThe Real Cause
\r\nBut the real problem is clear when you look at the reluctant of rich property development companies to provide affordable housing. Over and over again, developers have been able to fide behind ‘Financial Viability Assessment’ (FVA) in order to scale back the number of affordable properties included within their developments. The situation is a national scandal and is particularly acute in Reading.
\r\nReading Borough Council sets a clear policy target - Policy H3 requires 30% of the total dwellings on developments of 10 or more homes to be provided as affordable housing and for smaller sites (5–9 dwellings), a financial contribution equivalent to 20% is sought, which is used to fund off-site affordable housing elsewhere in the borough.
\r\nHowever, according to the Council's latest monitoring report for the 2023/24 financial year, only 21% of the 1,021 new homes completed in the borough were designated as affordable. Whereas this is an improvement on the15-17% achieved in the four years prior, it is still below the 30% policy target and the 400-500 home sit represents would actually have covered the shortfall in the borough theoretically.
\r\nSo, as we watch all these swish new towers go up in our town, remember that the companies benefiting from these massive profits are the ones causing a crisis at ground level.
", "content_text": "As we approach Christmas, inReading takes a look at the housing crisis affecting our town as, following a Freedom of Information request by Local Democracy Reporter Esmé Kenney, it has emerged that Oxford City Council has moved 34 homeless families to Reading. Oxford remains liable for paying the rent or B&B or hotel accommodation for the moved families, but the burden on social support such as healthcare is moved with the families.\r\nIt’s not so much as a tale of two cities, but the tale of how a prosperous city is having to resolve its housing problems in neighbouring authorities in the shadow of regional reforms which may see them in the same extended ‘Thames Valley’ unitary authority.\r\nAnd this is not just a story about 34 households; it is a symptom of a housing system so gridlocked that \"out-of-area placements\"—once the shameful last resort of London boroughs—have become the standard operating procedure for many of England’s provincial cities and its effects are now being seen in our town.\r\nOxford is, by many metrics, a broken housing market. It is frequently cited as the \"least affordable place to live in the UK\" relative to wages, with median house prices stretching to over ten times the average salary. The city is hemmed in by a Green Belt that has choked expansion, while the relentless demand from the university sector and the booming biotech industry continues to drive rents skyward as more and more land is used for academic and industry uses. The fact that its colleges owns much of the land also exacerbates the situation.\r\nCouncillor Linda Smith, Oxford’s Cabinet Member for Housing, has described the situation as an \"unprecedented rise in homelessness.\" The council is legally obliged to house those in desperate need, but their own stock is full and accommodation in Oxford is expensive thanks to demand from students and tourists as well as locals. The private rental market, usually the safety valve, has become a closed door due to the freeze in Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, which no longer cover the true cost of renting in the city.\r\nFacing a £1.5 million overspend on housing services and a queue of 10 new homeless families presenting every week, Oxford was forced to look outwards. As a result, they have sent 45 families to High Wycombe, two to Slough, and 34 to Reading. Obviously, for the displaced families, this separates them from the communities, schools, GPs, and support networks they are used to.\r\nReading Borough Council has reacted with palpable frustration. The town is fighting its own battle with homelessness. In the same period that Oxford began moving families in, Reading saw an 18% surge in its own homeless presentations, with 402 local households currently stuck in temporary accommodation.\r\nThe friction arises from a quirk of local government finance: when Oxford places a family in a Travelodge or private rental in Reading, Oxford pays the rent, but Reading’s infrastructure bears the load. These families may need places in Reading schools, support from Reading social services, and care from Reading GPs—services already stretched to the breaking point—without a penny of additional funding transferring from Oxford to Reading to cover the difference.\r\nIt would be somewhat unfair to paint Oxford as the villain of this piece. They are caught in a systemic trap that is replicating itself across the South East.\r\nThe practice of \"out-of-area\" placements was normalized by London boroughs sending families to Kent and the Home Counties. Now, the ripple effect has moved further out. As London pushes people to Slough, Slough pushes to Reading, and Oxford pushes to High Wycombe.And the situation is made worse by a number of factors: housing benefits have not kept pace with market rents, making the private rented sector inaccessible to the poor; private landlords are leaving the market thanks to onerous new legislation and, prehaprs the biggest fault of all can be traced back to the Thatcher government and decades of “Right to Buy” without replacement that have left councils with no assets to deploy. The UK does not need hundreds of thousands of houses – it needs hundreds of thousands of social houses.\r\nThe Immigrant MythMeanwhile, housing has also become an issue championed by the extreme right and their perceived claims that ‘immigrants are taking our houses and benefits’. In Reading, as across the UK, it should be noted that a person is ineligible to join the Housing Register (for social housing) if they are subject to immigration control.\r\nData from the 2021 National Census data shows that 15% of people living in social housing in England and Wales were born outside the UK. This is marginally lower than the proportion of the total UK population that is foreign-born. Non-UK-born residents are generally less likely than UK-born residents to be homeowners and are most likely to live in the private rented sector, which often involves higher rent and thus greater use of Housing Benefit, which is part of the Universal Credit system and paid for by central government (although distributed in part by local authorities).\r\nAsylum Seekers are not eligible for social housing or benefits: the estimated 700 asylum seekers in Reading are not permitted to work or claim mainstream benefits (like Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, or social housing). Asylum seekers placed in Reading receive accommodation and basic daily living support from the Home Office (central government), not the local council's welfare system. This support is provided at a low, fixed rate (currently around £7.03 per person per day). \r\n Reading's Housing Crisis\r\nThis notwithstanding, as an affluent commuter belt town Reading is already grappling with a severe housing and homelessness crisis, driven by a shortage of affordable housing and significant cost pressures. The number of households in temporary accommodation due to homelessness has seen a dramatic increase, rising to 402 households as of the end of March 2025 - an 18% increase from the previous year. Crucially, 74% of these households (299) include children, highlighting the impact on families.\r\nThis rise has substantially increased the financial burden on Reading Borough Council, which spent approximately £2.8 million on temporary accommodation in 2023/24 and further competition from neighbouring boroughs for precious housing resources does not help this situation.\r\nThe total expenditure on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), including the total budget for the day-to-day management, maintenance, and operation of the Council's 7,000 social housing properties was £54.1 million, with a further £28.2 million spent on long-term investment in improving and expanding the social housing stock. Around £12.4m in total was spent in 2024/25 on providing new housing amounting to only 57 new units over the period.\r\n \r\nSeparately, the official rough sleeping count in November 2024 was 57 people, though the Council suggested a figure of 42 from monthly averages might be more representative. Exacerbating the crisis is a chronic shortfall in new affordable home delivery, with the council reportedly falling short of the estimated annual need for new affordable homes, while the total number of council homes has been falling due to 'Right to Buy' sales, despite new building programmes.\r\nThe Real Cause\r\nBut the real problem is clear when you look at the reluctant of rich property development companies to provide affordable housing. Over and over again, developers have been able to fide behind ‘Financial Viability Assessment’ (FVA) in order to scale back the number of affordable properties included within their developments. The situation is a national scandal and is particularly acute in Reading.\r\nReading Borough Council sets a clear policy target - Policy H3 requires 30% of the total dwellings on developments of 10 or more homes to be provided as affordable housing and for smaller sites (5–9 dwellings), a financial contribution equivalent to 20% is sought, which is used to fund off-site affordable housing elsewhere in the borough.\r\n However, according to the Council's latest monitoring report for the 2023/24 financial year, only 21% of the 1,021 new homes completed in the borough were designated as affordable. Whereas this is an improvement on the15-17% achieved in the four years prior, it is still below the 30% policy target and the 400-500 home sit represents would actually have covered the shortfall in the borough theoretically.\r\nSo, as we watch all these swish new towers go up in our town, remember that the companies benefiting from these massive profits are the ones causing a crisis at ground level.", "summary": "Oxford City Council has relocated 34 homeless families to Reading, straining local resources. This 'out-of-area' placement highlights a systemic housing crisis affecting the South East, with Reading bearing the brunt of Oxford's inability to house its own residents.", "date_published": "2025-12-01T16:19:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-08T11:44:34.310748+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/d83c67c4.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/d83c67c4.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Oxford Move Homeless To Reading", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1631, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "As we approach Christmas, inReading takes a look at the housing crisis affecting our town as, following a Freedom of Information request by Local Democracy Reporter Esmé Kenney, it has emerged that Oxford City Council has moved 34 homeless families to Reading. Oxford remains liable for paying the rent or B&B or hotel accommodation for the moved families, but the burden on social support such as healthcare is moved with the families.
\r\nIt’s not so much as a tale of two cities, but the tale of how a prosperous city is having to resolve its housing problems in neighbouring authorities in the shadow of regional reforms which may see them in the same extended ‘Thames Valley’ unitary authority.
\r\nAnd this is not just a story about 34 households; it is a symptom of a housing system so gridlocked that \"out-of-area placements\"—once the shameful last resort of London boroughs—have become the standard operating procedure for many of England’s provincial cities and its effects are now being seen in our town.
\r\nOxford is, by many metrics, a broken housing market. It is frequently cited as the \"least affordable place to live in the UK\" relative to wages, with median house prices stretching to over ten times the average salary. The city is hemmed in by a Green Belt that has choked expansion, while the relentless demand from the university sector and the booming biotech industry continues to drive rents skyward as more and more land is used for academic and industry uses. The fact that its colleges owns much of the land also exacerbates the situation.
\r\nCouncillor Linda Smith, Oxford’s Cabinet Member for Housing, has described the situation as an \"unprecedented rise in homelessness.\" The council is legally obliged to house those in desperate need, but their own stock is full and accommodation in Oxford is expensive thanks to demand from students and tourists as well as locals. The private rental market, usually the safety valve, has become a closed door due to the freeze in Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, which no longer cover the true cost of renting in the city.
\r\nFacing a £1.5 million overspend on housing services and a queue of 10 new homeless families presenting every week, Oxford was forced to look outwards. As a result, they have sent 45 families to High Wycombe, two to Slough, and 34 to Reading. Obviously, for the displaced families, this separates them from the communities, schools, GPs, and support networks they are used to.
\r\nReading Borough Council has reacted with palpable frustration. The town is fighting its own battle with homelessness. In the same period that Oxford began moving families in, Reading saw an 18% surge in its own homeless presentations, with 402 local households currently stuck in temporary accommodation.
\r\nThe friction arises from a quirk of local government finance: when Oxford places a family in a Travelodge or private rental in Reading, Oxford pays the rent, but Reading’s infrastructure bears the load. These families may need places in Reading schools, support from Reading social services, and care from Reading GPs—services already stretched to the breaking point—without a penny of additional funding transferring from Oxford to Reading to cover the difference.
\r\nIt would be somewhat unfair to paint Oxford as the villain of this piece. They are caught in a systemic trap that is replicating itself across the South East.
\r\nThe practice of \"out-of-area\" placements was normalized by London boroughs sending families to Kent and the Home Counties. Now, the ripple effect has moved further out. As London pushes people to Slough, Slough pushes to Reading, and Oxford pushes to High Wycombe.
And the situation is made worse by a number of factors: housing benefits have not kept pace with market rents, making the private rented sector inaccessible to the poor; private landlords are leaving the market thanks to onerous new legislation and, prehaprs the biggest fault of all can be traced back to the Thatcher government and decades of “Right to Buy” without replacement that have left councils with no assets to deploy. The UK does not need hundreds of thousands of houses – it needs hundreds of thousands of social houses.
The Immigrant Myth
Meanwhile, housing has also become an issue championed by the extreme right and their perceived claims that ‘immigrants are taking our houses and benefits’. In Reading, as across the UK, it should be noted that a person is ineligible to join the Housing Register (for social housing) if they are subject to immigration control.
Data from the 2021 National Census data shows that 15% of people living in social housing in England and Wales were born outside the UK. This is marginally lower than the proportion of the total UK population that is foreign-born. Non-UK-born residents are generally less likely than UK-born residents to be homeowners and are most likely to live in the private rented sector, which often involves higher rent and thus greater use of Housing Benefit, which is part of the Universal Credit system and paid for by central government (although distributed in part by local authorities).
\r\nAsylum Seekers are not eligible for social housing or benefits: the estimated 700 asylum seekers in Reading are not permitted to work or claim mainstream benefits (like Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, or social housing). Asylum seekers placed in Reading receive accommodation and basic daily living support from the Home Office (central government), not the local council's welfare system. This support is provided at a low, fixed rate (currently around £7.03 per person per day).
\r\nReading's Housing Crisis
\r\nThis notwithstanding, as an affluent commuter belt town Reading is already grappling with a severe housing and homelessness crisis, driven by a shortage of affordable housing and significant cost pressures. The number of households in temporary accommodation due to homelessness has seen a dramatic increase, rising to 402 households as of the end of March 2025 - an 18% increase from the previous year. Crucially, 74% of these households (299) include children, highlighting the impact on families.
\r\nThis rise has substantially increased the financial burden on Reading Borough Council, which spent approximately £2.8 million on temporary accommodation in 2023/24 and further competition from neighbouring boroughs for precious housing resources does not help this situation.
\r\nThe total expenditure on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), including the total budget for the day-to-day management, maintenance, and operation of the Council's 7,000 social housing properties was £54.1 million, with a further £28.2 million spent on long-term investment in improving and expanding the social housing stock. Around £12.4m in total was spent in 2024/25 on providing new housing amounting to only 57 new units over the period.
\r\n\r\n
Separately, the official rough sleeping count in November 2024 was 57 people, though the Council suggested a figure of 42 from monthly averages might be more representative. Exacerbating the crisis is a chronic shortfall in new affordable home delivery, with the council reportedly falling short of the estimated annual need for new affordable homes, while the total number of council homes has been falling due to 'Right to Buy' sales, despite new building programmes.
\r\nThe Real Cause
\r\nBut the real problem is clear when you look at the reluctant of rich property development companies to provide affordable housing. Over and over again, developers have been able to fide behind ‘Financial Viability Assessment’ (FVA) in order to scale back the number of affordable properties included within their developments. The situation is a national scandal and is particularly acute in Reading.
\r\nReading Borough Council sets a clear policy target - Policy H3 requires 30% of the total dwellings on developments of 10 or more homes to be provided as affordable housing and for smaller sites (5–9 dwellings), a financial contribution equivalent to 20% is sought, which is used to fund off-site affordable housing elsewhere in the borough.
\r\nHowever, according to the Council's latest monitoring report for the 2023/24 financial year, only 21% of the 1,021 new homes completed in the borough were designated as affordable. Whereas this is an improvement on the15-17% achieved in the four years prior, it is still below the 30% policy target and the 400-500 home sit represents would actually have covered the shortfall in the borough theoretically.
\r\nSo, as we watch all these swish new towers go up in our town, remember that the companies benefiting from these massive profits are the ones causing a crisis at ground level.
", "description": "Oxford City Council has relocated 34 homeless families to Reading, straining local resources. This 'out-of-area' placement highlights a systemic housing crisis affecting the South East, with Reading bearing the brunt of Oxford's inability to house its own residents.", "dateModified": "2026-05-08T11:44:34.310748+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2025-12-01T16:19:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/oxford-move-homeless-to-reading/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "428", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/oxford-moves-homeless-to-reading/", "title": "Oxford Moves Homeless To Reading", "content_html": "As we approach Christmas, inReading takes a look at the housing crisis affecting our town as, following a Freedom of Information request by Local Democracy Reporter Esmé Kenney, it has emerged that Oxford City Council has moved 34 homeless families to Reading. Oxford remains liable for paying the rent or B&B or hotel accommodation for the moved families, but the burden on social support such as healthcare is moved with the families.
\r\nIt’s not so much as a tale of two cities, but the tale of how a prosperous city is having to resolve its housing problems in neighbouring authorities in the shadow of regional reforms which may see them in the same extended ‘Thames Valley’ unitary authority.
\r\nAnd this is not just a story about 34 households; it is a symptom of a housing system so gridlocked that \"out-of-area placements\"—once the shameful last resort of London boroughs—have become the standard operating procedure for many of England’s provincial cities and its effects are now being seen in our town.
\r\nOxford is, by many metrics, a broken housing market. It is frequently cited as the \"least affordable place to live in the UK\" relative to wages, with median house prices stretching to over ten times the average salary. The city is hemmed in by a Green Belt that has choked expansion, while the relentless demand from the university sector and the booming biotech industry continues to drive rents skyward as more and more land is used for academic and industry uses. The fact that its colleges owns much of the land also exacerbates the situation.
\r\nCouncillor Linda Smith, Oxford’s Cabinet Member for Housing, has described the situation as an \"unprecedented rise in homelessness.\" The council is legally obliged to house those in desperate need, but their own stock is full and accommodation in Oxford is expensive thanks to demand from students and tourists as well as locals. The private rental market, usually the safety valve, has become a closed door due to the freeze in Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, which no longer cover the true cost of renting in the city.
\r\nFacing a £1.5 million overspend on housing services and a queue of 10 new homeless families presenting every week, Oxford was forced to look outwards. As a result, they have sent 45 families to High Wycombe, two to Slough, and 34 to Reading. Obviously, for the displaced families, this separates them from the communities, schools, GPs, and support networks they are used to.
\r\nReading Borough Council has reacted with palpable frustration. The town is fighting its own battle with homelessness. In the same period that Oxford began moving families in, Reading saw an 18% surge in its own homeless presentations, with 402 local households currently stuck in temporary accommodation.
\r\nThe friction arises from a quirk of local government finance: when Oxford places a family in a Travelodge or private rental in Reading, Oxford pays the rent, but Reading’s infrastructure bears the load. These families may need places in Reading schools, support from Reading social services, and care from Reading GPs—services already stretched to the breaking point—without a penny of additional funding transferring from Oxford to Reading to cover the difference.
\r\nIt would be somewhat unfair to paint Oxford as the villain of this piece. They are caught in a systemic trap that is replicating itself across the South East.
\r\nThe practice of \"out-of-area\" placements was normalized by London boroughs sending families to Kent and the Home Counties. Now, the ripple effect has moved further out. As London pushes people to Slough, Slough pushes to Reading, and Oxford pushes to High Wycombe.
And the situation is made worse by a number of factors: housing benefits have not kept pace with market rents, making the private rented sector inaccessible to the poor; private landlords are leaving the market thanks to onerous new legislation and, prehaprs the biggest fault of all can be traced back to the Thatcher government and decades of “Right to Buy” without replacement that have left councils with no assets to deploy. The UK does not need hundreds of thousands of houses – it needs hundreds of thousands of social houses.
The Immigrant Myth
Meanwhile, housing has also become an issue championed by the extreme right and their perceived claims that ‘immigrants are taking our houses and benefits’. In Reading, as across the UK, it should be noted that a person is ineligible to join the Housing Register (for social housing) if they are subject to immigration control.
Data from the 2021 National Census data shows that 15% of people living in social housing in England and Wales were born outside the UK. This is marginally lower than the proportion of the total UK population that is foreign-born. Non-UK-born residents are generally less likely than UK-born residents to be homeowners and are most likely to live in the private rented sector, which often involves higher rent and thus greater use of Housing Benefit, which is part of the Universal Credit system and paid for by central government (although distributed in part by local authorities).
\r\nAsylum Seekers are not eligible for social housing or benefits: the estimated 700 asylum seekers in Reading are not permitted to work or claim mainstream benefits (like Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, or social housing). Asylum seekers placed in Reading receive accommodation and basic daily living support from the Home Office (central government), not the local council's welfare system. This support is provided at a low, fixed rate (currently around £7.03 per person per day).
\r\nReading's Housing Crisis
\r\nThis notwithstanding, as an affluent commuter belt town Reading is already grappling with a severe housing and homelessness crisis, driven by a shortage of affordable housing and significant cost pressures. The number of households in temporary accommodation due to homelessness has seen a dramatic increase, rising to 402 households as of the end of March 2025 - an 18% increase from the previous year. Crucially, 74% of these households (299) include children, highlighting the impact on families.
\r\nThis rise has substantially increased the financial burden on Reading Borough Council, which spent approximately £2.8 million on temporary accommodation in 2023/24 and further competition from neighbouring boroughs for precious housing resources does not help this situation.
\r\nThe total expenditure on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), including the total budget for the day-to-day management, maintenance, and operation of the Council's 7,000 social housing properties was £54.1 million, with a further £28.2 million spent on long-term investment in improving and expanding the social housing stock. Around £12.4m in total was spent in 2024/25 on providing new housing amounting to only 57 new units over the period.
\r\n\r\n
Separately, the official rough sleeping count in November 2024 was 57 people, though the Council suggested a figure of 42 from monthly averages might be more representative. Exacerbating the crisis is a chronic shortfall in new affordable home delivery, with the council reportedly falling short of the estimated annual need for new affordable homes, while the total number of council homes has been falling due to 'Right to Buy' sales, despite new building programmes.
\r\nThe Real Cause
\r\nBut the real problem is clear when you look at the reluctant of rich property development companies to provide affordable housing. Over and over again, developers have been able to fide behind ‘Financial Viability Assessment’ (FVA) in order to scale back the number of affordable properties included within their developments. The situation is a national scandal and is particularly acute in Reading.
\r\nReading Borough Council sets a clear policy target - Policy H3 requires 30% of the total dwellings on developments of 10 or more homes to be provided as affordable housing and for smaller sites (5–9 dwellings), a financial contribution equivalent to 20% is sought, which is used to fund off-site affordable housing elsewhere in the borough.
\r\nHowever, according to the Council's latest monitoring report for the 2023/24 financial year, only 21% of the 1,021 new homes completed in the borough were designated as affordable. Whereas this is an improvement on the15-17% achieved in the four years prior, it is still below the 30% policy target and the 400-500 home sit represents would actually have covered the shortfall in the borough theoretically.
\r\nSo, as we watch all these swish new towers go up in our town, remember that the companies benefiting from these massive profits are the ones causing a crisis at ground level.
\r\n", "content_text": "As we approach Christmas, inReading takes a look at the housing crisis affecting our town as, following a Freedom of Information request by Local Democracy Reporter Esmé Kenney, it has emerged that Oxford City Council has moved 34 homeless families to Reading. Oxford remains liable for paying the rent or B&B or hotel accommodation for the moved families, but the burden on social support such as healthcare is moved with the families.\r\nIt’s not so much as a tale of two cities, but the tale of how a prosperous city is having to resolve its housing problems in neighbouring authorities in the shadow of regional reforms which may see them in the same extended ‘Thames Valley’ unitary authority.\r\nAnd this is not just a story about 34 households; it is a symptom of a housing system so gridlocked that \"out-of-area placements\"—once the shameful last resort of London boroughs—have become the standard operating procedure for many of England’s provincial cities and its effects are now being seen in our town.\r\nOxford is, by many metrics, a broken housing market. It is frequently cited as the \"least affordable place to live in the UK\" relative to wages, with median house prices stretching to over ten times the average salary. The city is hemmed in by a Green Belt that has choked expansion, while the relentless demand from the university sector and the booming biotech industry continues to drive rents skyward as more and more land is used for academic and industry uses. The fact that its colleges owns much of the land also exacerbates the situation.\r\nCouncillor Linda Smith, Oxford’s Cabinet Member for Housing, has described the situation as an \"unprecedented rise in homelessness.\" The council is legally obliged to house those in desperate need, but their own stock is full and accommodation in Oxford is expensive thanks to demand from students and tourists as well as locals. The private rental market, usually the safety valve, has become a closed door due to the freeze in Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, which no longer cover the true cost of renting in the city.\r\nFacing a £1.5 million overspend on housing services and a queue of 10 new homeless families presenting every week, Oxford was forced to look outwards. As a result, they have sent 45 families to High Wycombe, two to Slough, and 34 to Reading. Obviously, for the displaced families, this separates them from the communities, schools, GPs, and support networks they are used to.\r\nReading Borough Council has reacted with palpable frustration. The town is fighting its own battle with homelessness. In the same period that Oxford began moving families in, Reading saw an 18% surge in its own homeless presentations, with 402 local households currently stuck in temporary accommodation.\r\nThe friction arises from a quirk of local government finance: when Oxford places a family in a Travelodge or private rental in Reading, Oxford pays the rent, but Reading’s infrastructure bears the load. These families may need places in Reading schools, support from Reading social services, and care from Reading GPs—services already stretched to the breaking point—without a penny of additional funding transferring from Oxford to Reading to cover the difference.\r\nIt would be somewhat unfair to paint Oxford as the villain of this piece. They are caught in a systemic trap that is replicating itself across the South East.\r\nThe practice of \"out-of-area\" placements was normalized by London boroughs sending families to Kent and the Home Counties. Now, the ripple effect has moved further out. As London pushes people to Slough, Slough pushes to Reading, and Oxford pushes to High Wycombe.And the situation is made worse by a number of factors: housing benefits have not kept pace with market rents, making the private rented sector inaccessible to the poor; private landlords are leaving the market thanks to onerous new legislation and, prehaprs the biggest fault of all can be traced back to the Thatcher government and decades of “Right to Buy” without replacement that have left councils with no assets to deploy. The UK does not need hundreds of thousands of houses – it needs hundreds of thousands of social houses.\r\nThe Immigrant MythMeanwhile, housing has also become an issue championed by the extreme right and their perceived claims that ‘immigrants are taking our houses and benefits’. In Reading, as across the UK, it should be noted that a person is ineligible to join the Housing Register (for social housing) if they are subject to immigration control.\r\nData from the 2021 National Census data shows that 15% of people living in social housing in England and Wales were born outside the UK. This is marginally lower than the proportion of the total UK population that is foreign-born. Non-UK-born residents are generally less likely than UK-born residents to be homeowners and are most likely to live in the private rented sector, which often involves higher rent and thus greater use of Housing Benefit, which is part of the Universal Credit system and paid for by central government (although distributed in part by local authorities).\r\nAsylum Seekers are not eligible for social housing or benefits: the estimated 700 asylum seekers in Reading are not permitted to work or claim mainstream benefits (like Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, or social housing). Asylum seekers placed in Reading receive accommodation and basic daily living support from the Home Office (central government), not the local council's welfare system. This support is provided at a low, fixed rate (currently around £7.03 per person per day). \r\n Reading's Housing Crisis\r\nThis notwithstanding, as an affluent commuter belt town Reading is already grappling with a severe housing and homelessness crisis, driven by a shortage of affordable housing and significant cost pressures. The number of households in temporary accommodation due to homelessness has seen a dramatic increase, rising to 402 households as of the end of March 2025 - an 18% increase from the previous year. Crucially, 74% of these households (299) include children, highlighting the impact on families.\r\nThis rise has substantially increased the financial burden on Reading Borough Council, which spent approximately £2.8 million on temporary accommodation in 2023/24 and further competition from neighbouring boroughs for precious housing resources does not help this situation.\r\nThe total expenditure on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), including the total budget for the day-to-day management, maintenance, and operation of the Council's 7,000 social housing properties was £54.1 million, with a further £28.2 million spent on long-term investment in improving and expanding the social housing stock. Around £12.4m in total was spent in 2024/25 on providing new housing amounting to only 57 new units over the period.\r\n \r\nSeparately, the official rough sleeping count in November 2024 was 57 people, though the Council suggested a figure of 42 from monthly averages might be more representative. Exacerbating the crisis is a chronic shortfall in new affordable home delivery, with the council reportedly falling short of the estimated annual need for new affordable homes, while the total number of council homes has been falling due to 'Right to Buy' sales, despite new building programmes.\r\nThe Real Cause\r\nBut the real problem is clear when you look at the reluctant of rich property development companies to provide affordable housing. Over and over again, developers have been able to fide behind ‘Financial Viability Assessment’ (FVA) in order to scale back the number of affordable properties included within their developments. The situation is a national scandal and is particularly acute in Reading.\r\nReading Borough Council sets a clear policy target - Policy H3 requires 30% of the total dwellings on developments of 10 or more homes to be provided as affordable housing and for smaller sites (5–9 dwellings), a financial contribution equivalent to 20% is sought, which is used to fund off-site affordable housing elsewhere in the borough.\r\n However, according to the Council's latest monitoring report for the 2023/24 financial year, only 21% of the 1,021 new homes completed in the borough were designated as affordable. Whereas this is an improvement on the15-17% achieved in the four years prior, it is still below the 30% policy target and the 400-500 home sit represents would actually have covered the shortfall in the borough theoretically.\r\nSo, as we watch all these swish new towers go up in our town, remember that the companies benefiting from these massive profits are the ones causing a crisis at ground level.\r\n ", "summary": "A surge in out-of-area placements has left Reading grappling with the impact of Oxford's housing crisis. As resources stretch to the breaking point, we explore the systemic failures displacing families and burdening local infrastructure.", "date_published": "2025-12-01T10:20:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-27T10:20:59.562333+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/dd609f6c.webp", "tags": [ "News" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/dd609f6c.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Oxford Moves Homeless To Reading", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1418, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "
As we approach Christmas, inReading takes a look at the housing crisis affecting our town as, following a Freedom of Information request by Local Democracy Reporter Esmé Kenney, it has emerged that Oxford City Council has moved 34 homeless families to Reading. Oxford remains liable for paying the rent or B&B or hotel accommodation for the moved families, but the burden on social support such as healthcare is moved with the families.
\r\nIt’s not so much as a tale of two cities, but the tale of how a prosperous city is having to resolve its housing problems in neighbouring authorities in the shadow of regional reforms which may see them in the same extended ‘Thames Valley’ unitary authority.
\r\nAnd this is not just a story about 34 households; it is a symptom of a housing system so gridlocked that \"out-of-area placements\"—once the shameful last resort of London boroughs—have become the standard operating procedure for many of England’s provincial cities and its effects are now being seen in our town.
\r\nOxford is, by many metrics, a broken housing market. It is frequently cited as the \"least affordable place to live in the UK\" relative to wages, with median house prices stretching to over ten times the average salary. The city is hemmed in by a Green Belt that has choked expansion, while the relentless demand from the university sector and the booming biotech industry continues to drive rents skyward as more and more land is used for academic and industry uses. The fact that its colleges owns much of the land also exacerbates the situation.
\r\nCouncillor Linda Smith, Oxford’s Cabinet Member for Housing, has described the situation as an \"unprecedented rise in homelessness.\" The council is legally obliged to house those in desperate need, but their own stock is full and accommodation in Oxford is expensive thanks to demand from students and tourists as well as locals. The private rental market, usually the safety valve, has become a closed door due to the freeze in Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, which no longer cover the true cost of renting in the city.
\r\nFacing a £1.5 million overspend on housing services and a queue of 10 new homeless families presenting every week, Oxford was forced to look outwards. As a result, they have sent 45 families to High Wycombe, two to Slough, and 34 to Reading. Obviously, for the displaced families, this separates them from the communities, schools, GPs, and support networks they are used to.
\r\nReading Borough Council has reacted with palpable frustration. The town is fighting its own battle with homelessness. In the same period that Oxford began moving families in, Reading saw an 18% surge in its own homeless presentations, with 402 local households currently stuck in temporary accommodation.
\r\nThe friction arises from a quirk of local government finance: when Oxford places a family in a Travelodge or private rental in Reading, Oxford pays the rent, but Reading’s infrastructure bears the load. These families may need places in Reading schools, support from Reading social services, and care from Reading GPs—services already stretched to the breaking point—without a penny of additional funding transferring from Oxford to Reading to cover the difference.
\r\nIt would be somewhat unfair to paint Oxford as the villain of this piece. They are caught in a systemic trap that is replicating itself across the South East.
\r\nThe practice of \"out-of-area\" placements was normalized by London boroughs sending families to Kent and the Home Counties. Now, the ripple effect has moved further out. As London pushes people to Slough, Slough pushes to Reading, and Oxford pushes to High Wycombe.
And the situation is made worse by a number of factors: housing benefits have not kept pace with market rents, making the private rented sector inaccessible to the poor; private landlords are leaving the market thanks to onerous new legislation and, prehaprs the biggest fault of all can be traced back to the Thatcher government and decades of “Right to Buy” without replacement that have left councils with no assets to deploy. The UK does not need hundreds of thousands of houses – it needs hundreds of thousands of social houses.
The Immigrant Myth
Meanwhile, housing has also become an issue championed by the extreme right and their perceived claims that ‘immigrants are taking our houses and benefits’. In Reading, as across the UK, it should be noted that a person is ineligible to join the Housing Register (for social housing) if they are subject to immigration control.
Data from the 2021 National Census data shows that 15% of people living in social housing in England and Wales were born outside the UK. This is marginally lower than the proportion of the total UK population that is foreign-born. Non-UK-born residents are generally less likely than UK-born residents to be homeowners and are most likely to live in the private rented sector, which often involves higher rent and thus greater use of Housing Benefit, which is part of the Universal Credit system and paid for by central government (although distributed in part by local authorities).
\r\nAsylum Seekers are not eligible for social housing or benefits: the estimated 700 asylum seekers in Reading are not permitted to work or claim mainstream benefits (like Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, or social housing). Asylum seekers placed in Reading receive accommodation and basic daily living support from the Home Office (central government), not the local council's welfare system. This support is provided at a low, fixed rate (currently around £7.03 per person per day).
\r\nReading's Housing Crisis
\r\nThis notwithstanding, as an affluent commuter belt town Reading is already grappling with a severe housing and homelessness crisis, driven by a shortage of affordable housing and significant cost pressures. The number of households in temporary accommodation due to homelessness has seen a dramatic increase, rising to 402 households as of the end of March 2025 - an 18% increase from the previous year. Crucially, 74% of these households (299) include children, highlighting the impact on families.
\r\nThis rise has substantially increased the financial burden on Reading Borough Council, which spent approximately £2.8 million on temporary accommodation in 2023/24 and further competition from neighbouring boroughs for precious housing resources does not help this situation.
\r\nThe total expenditure on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), including the total budget for the day-to-day management, maintenance, and operation of the Council's 7,000 social housing properties was £54.1 million, with a further £28.2 million spent on long-term investment in improving and expanding the social housing stock. Around £12.4m in total was spent in 2024/25 on providing new housing amounting to only 57 new units over the period.
\r\n\r\n
Separately, the official rough sleeping count in November 2024 was 57 people, though the Council suggested a figure of 42 from monthly averages might be more representative. Exacerbating the crisis is a chronic shortfall in new affordable home delivery, with the council reportedly falling short of the estimated annual need for new affordable homes, while the total number of council homes has been falling due to 'Right to Buy' sales, despite new building programmes.
\r\nThe Real Cause
\r\nBut the real problem is clear when you look at the reluctant of rich property development companies to provide affordable housing. Over and over again, developers have been able to fide behind ‘Financial Viability Assessment’ (FVA) in order to scale back the number of affordable properties included within their developments. The situation is a national scandal and is particularly acute in Reading.
\r\nReading Borough Council sets a clear policy target - Policy H3 requires 30% of the total dwellings on developments of 10 or more homes to be provided as affordable housing and for smaller sites (5–9 dwellings), a financial contribution equivalent to 20% is sought, which is used to fund off-site affordable housing elsewhere in the borough.
\r\nHowever, according to the Council's latest monitoring report for the 2023/24 financial year, only 21% of the 1,021 new homes completed in the borough were designated as affordable. Whereas this is an improvement on the15-17% achieved in the four years prior, it is still below the 30% policy target and the 400-500 home sit represents would actually have covered the shortfall in the borough theoretically.
\r\nSo, as we watch all these swish new towers go up in our town, remember that the companies benefiting from these massive profits are the ones causing a crisis at ground level.
\r\n", "description": "A surge in out-of-area placements has left Reading grappling with the impact of Oxford's housing crisis. As resources stretch to the breaking point, we explore the systemic failures displacing families and burdening local infrastructure.", "dateModified": "2026-05-27T10:20:59.562333+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2025-12-01T10:20:00+00:00", "articleSection": "News", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/oxford-moves-homeless-to-reading/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "332", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/theale-votes-in-greater-reading-battle/", "title": "Theale Votes In 'Greater Reading' Battle", "content_html": "
Residents of Theale are heading to the polls next week to cast a crucial vote on whether their village should remain under West Berkshire Council (WBC) or be absorbed by Reading Borough Council (RBC). The Parish Poll, scheduled for Thursday, November 6th, is the latest flashpoint in the escalating political row over local government boundaries.
\nReading Borough Council\u2019s proposal is to expand its borders to create a \"Greater Reading\" authority, which would encompass key surrounding areas currently governed by West Berkshire. The areas targeted include Theale, along with Calcot, Tilehurst Parish, Purley-on-Thames, and Pangbourne.
\nRBC leaders argue these areas are effectively urban suburbs of Reading and form part of its natural economic area. They contend that the current boundary, drawn over a century ago in 1911, no longer reflects the reality of where people work, shop, and use services.
\nCouncillor Liz Terry, Leader of Reading Borough Council, has stated that including these areas in an expanded Reading borough makes more sense than forcing them into a larger, predominantly rural new authority, which they claim would be the result of WBC\u2019s own reorganisation plans.
\n\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/9ab4a7732f1f.jpg\")
The Proposed Expansion
\u00a0
\nWest Berkshire Council has been vocally opposed to the move, branding it a \"hostile and unsolicited attempted land grab.\"
\nWBC\u2019s own proposal is to merge with South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse councils to create a new \u2018Ridgeway Council\u2019. WBC argues that the communities along the border see themselves as integral parts of West Berkshire.
\nCouncillor Jeff Brooks, Leader of West Berkshire Council, has consistently stressed that these communities have never, and should never, fall under Reading's jurisdiction.
Theale Residents to Have Their Say
\nThe Parish Poll in Theale was initiated after a well-attended parish meeting earlier this month. The vote will give registered electors in the village a chance to directly voice their preference.
\nThe question on the ballot will be: \u201cDo you wish for Theale to remain within the West Berkshire Council boundary?\u201d
\nWhile the result of the local poll is not legally binding, it will serve as a powerful democratic indicator for the ultimate decision-maker\u2014the Secretary of State for Local Government. The outcome will carry significant weight as the government considers the various proposals for Local Government Reorganisation across the region.
\nThe poll is set to take place between 4pm and 9pm on Thursday, November 6th, 2025.
What Happens Next?
\nThe boundary dispute is a direct consequence of the ongoing pressure for local government reform across England. With the final decisions for both the \u2018Ridgeway Council\u2019 and the \u2018Greater Reading\u2019 boundary review still to be made by the government, the democratic choice made by Theale residents next week will add some local participation to this high-stakes political debate, but the ultimate decision on the boundary change remains with the Secretary of State for Local Government.
\nWest Berkshire Council (WBC) and its partners (South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse) are due to submit their final, detailed proposal for the new \u2018Ridgeway Council\u2019 unitary authority by Friday, November 28, 2025.
\nReading Borough Council (RBC) will submit its formal request to the Secretary of State for a Principal Area Boundary Review (PABR) to modify the border and absorb Theale (and other parishes) into a 'Greater Reading' authority \u00a0timed to coincide with the Ridgeway proposal, we understand.
\nThe Theale Parish Poll result will be officially included by WBC as crucial evidence demonstrating local sentiment.
\nThere is a precedent for this, albeit from the distant past, when Caversham was transferred from Oxfordshire to Reading on 9th November 1911.
Government Feedback
\nThe Secretary of State and MHCLG officials will then review both the Ridgeway Council proposal and RBC\u2019s boundary change request. This situation is further complicated by the larger scale proposal to create a Thames Valley Authority stretching from Slough to Swindon with its own mayor and increased local powers.
\nThe government will judge the proposals against statutory criteria, including creating new unitary authorities that are of an appropriate size (generally larger, serving a larger population) with proposals based on sensible economic and geographical areas.
\nEvidence of local support for the change. (The Theale poll strongly supports the WBC position on this point).
\nThere are no decision-points prior to the submission of the final proposals.
\nIf the government decides to take one or both proposals forward, it is legally obliged to carry out a Statutory Public Consultation.
\nThis is a formal, government-run process where all affected councils, community groups, and the general public will be invited to submit their views on the specific proposal(s) being considered for implementation.
\nThe consultation process is essential before any proposal can be implemented.
\nOnce the statutory consultation is concluded, Ministers will decide which, if any, proposal is to be implemented (with or without modification).
\nThe final decision will then be subject to Parliamentary approval.
\nThe entire reorganisation process, if approved, would likely not come into full effect until 2027 or later, allowing for a transition period, when we will be on the cusp of another election and everything may change once more.
", "content_text": "Residents of Theale are heading to the polls next week to cast a crucial vote on whether their village should remain under West Berkshire Council (WBC) or be absorbed by Reading Borough Council (RBC). The Parish Poll, scheduled for Thursday, November 6th, is the latest flashpoint in the escalating political row over local government boundaries.\nReading Borough Council\u2019s proposal is to expand its borders to create a \"Greater Reading\" authority, which would encompass key surrounding areas currently governed by West Berkshire. The areas targeted include Theale, along with Calcot, Tilehurst Parish, Purley-on-Thames, and Pangbourne.\nRBC leaders argue these areas are effectively urban suburbs of Reading and form part of its natural economic area. They contend that the current boundary, drawn over a century ago in 1911, no longer reflects the reality of where people work, shop, and use services.\nCouncillor Liz Terry, Leader of Reading Borough Council, has stated that including these areas in an expanded Reading borough makes more sense than forcing them into a larger, predominantly rural new authority, which they claim would be the result of WBC\u2019s own reorganisation plans.\n\u00a0\nThe Proposed Expansion\n\u00a0\nWest Berkshire Council has been vocally opposed to the move, branding it a \"hostile and unsolicited attempted land grab.\"\nWBC\u2019s own proposal is to merge with South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse councils to create a new \u2018Ridgeway Council\u2019. WBC argues that the communities along the border see themselves as integral parts of West Berkshire.\nCouncillor Jeff Brooks, Leader of West Berkshire Council, has consistently stressed that these communities have never, and should never, fall under Reading's jurisdiction.\nTheale Residents to Have Their Say\nThe Parish Poll in Theale was initiated after a well-attended parish meeting earlier this month. The vote will give registered electors in the village a chance to directly voice their preference.\nThe question on the ballot will be: \u201cDo you wish for Theale to remain within the West Berkshire Council boundary?\u201d\nWhile the result of the local poll is not legally binding, it will serve as a powerful democratic indicator for the ultimate decision-maker\u2014the Secretary of State for Local Government. The outcome will carry significant weight as the government considers the various proposals for Local Government Reorganisation across the region.\nThe poll is set to take place between 4pm and 9pm on Thursday, November 6th, 2025.\nWhat Happens Next?\nThe boundary dispute is a direct consequence of the ongoing pressure for local government reform across England. With the final decisions for both the \u2018Ridgeway Council\u2019 and the \u2018Greater Reading\u2019 boundary review still to be made by the government, the democratic choice made by Theale residents next week will add some local participation to this high-stakes political debate, but the ultimate decision on the boundary change remains with the Secretary of State for Local Government.\nWest Berkshire Council (WBC) and its partners (South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse) are due to submit their final, detailed proposal for the new \u2018Ridgeway Council\u2019 unitary authority by Friday, November 28, 2025.\nReading Borough Council (RBC) will submit its formal request to the Secretary of State for a Principal Area Boundary Review (PABR) to modify the border and absorb Theale (and other parishes) into a 'Greater Reading' authority \u00a0timed to coincide with the Ridgeway proposal, we understand.\nThe Theale Parish Poll result will be officially included by WBC as crucial evidence demonstrating local sentiment.\nThere is a precedent for this, albeit from the distant past, when Caversham was transferred from Oxfordshire to Reading on 9th November 1911.\nGovernment Feedback\nThe Secretary of State and MHCLG officials will then review both the Ridgeway Council proposal and RBC\u2019s boundary change request. This situation is further complicated by the larger scale proposal to create a Thames Valley Authority stretching from Slough to Swindon with its own mayor and increased local powers.\nThe government will judge the proposals against statutory criteria, including creating new unitary authorities that are of an appropriate size (generally larger, serving a larger population) with proposals based on sensible economic and geographical areas.\nEvidence of local support for the change. (The Theale poll strongly supports the WBC position on this point).\nThere are no decision-points prior to the submission of the final proposals.\nIf the government decides to take one or both proposals forward, it is legally obliged to carry out a Statutory Public Consultation.\nThis is a formal, government-run process where all affected councils, community groups, and the general public will be invited to submit their views on the specific proposal(s) being considered for implementation.\nThe consultation process is essential before any proposal can be implemented.\nOnce the statutory consultation is concluded, Ministers will decide which, if any, proposal is to be implemented (with or without modification).\nThe final decision will then be subject to Parliamentary approval.\nThe entire reorganisation process, if approved, would likely not come into full effect until 2027 or later, allowing for a transition period, when we will be on the cusp of another election and everything may change once more.", "summary": "Theale residents head to the polls next week for a crucial vote on whether to remain with West Berkshire Council or join Reading Borough Council's proposed 'Greater Reading' authority. The parish poll's outcome will significantly influence the Secretary of State's decision on local government boundaries.", "date_published": "2025-11-01T16:34:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:43:02.829469+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/da5f6470.webp", "tags": [ "Articles" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/da5f6470.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Theale Votes In 'Greater Reading' Battle", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1102, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "Residents of Theale are heading to the polls next week to cast a crucial vote on whether their village should remain under West Berkshire Council (WBC) or be absorbed by Reading Borough Council (RBC). The Parish Poll, scheduled for Thursday, November 6th, is the latest flashpoint in the escalating political row over local government boundaries.
\nReading Borough Council\u2019s proposal is to expand its borders to create a \"Greater Reading\" authority, which would encompass key surrounding areas currently governed by West Berkshire. The areas targeted include Theale, along with Calcot, Tilehurst Parish, Purley-on-Thames, and Pangbourne.
\nRBC leaders argue these areas are effectively urban suburbs of Reading and form part of its natural economic area. They contend that the current boundary, drawn over a century ago in 1911, no longer reflects the reality of where people work, shop, and use services.
\nCouncillor Liz Terry, Leader of Reading Borough Council, has stated that including these areas in an expanded Reading borough makes more sense than forcing them into a larger, predominantly rural new authority, which they claim would be the result of WBC\u2019s own reorganisation plans.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Proposed Expansion
\u00a0
\nWest Berkshire Council has been vocally opposed to the move, branding it a \"hostile and unsolicited attempted land grab.\"
\nWBC\u2019s own proposal is to merge with South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse councils to create a new \u2018Ridgeway Council\u2019. WBC argues that the communities along the border see themselves as integral parts of West Berkshire.
\nCouncillor Jeff Brooks, Leader of West Berkshire Council, has consistently stressed that these communities have never, and should never, fall under Reading's jurisdiction.
Theale Residents to Have Their Say
\nThe Parish Poll in Theale was initiated after a well-attended parish meeting earlier this month. The vote will give registered electors in the village a chance to directly voice their preference.
\nThe question on the ballot will be: \u201cDo you wish for Theale to remain within the West Berkshire Council boundary?\u201d
\nWhile the result of the local poll is not legally binding, it will serve as a powerful democratic indicator for the ultimate decision-maker\u2014the Secretary of State for Local Government. The outcome will carry significant weight as the government considers the various proposals for Local Government Reorganisation across the region.
\nThe poll is set to take place between 4pm and 9pm on Thursday, November 6th, 2025.
What Happens Next?
\nThe boundary dispute is a direct consequence of the ongoing pressure for local government reform across England. With the final decisions for both the \u2018Ridgeway Council\u2019 and the \u2018Greater Reading\u2019 boundary review still to be made by the government, the democratic choice made by Theale residents next week will add some local participation to this high-stakes political debate, but the ultimate decision on the boundary change remains with the Secretary of State for Local Government.
\nWest Berkshire Council (WBC) and its partners (South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse) are due to submit their final, detailed proposal for the new \u2018Ridgeway Council\u2019 unitary authority by Friday, November 28, 2025.
\nReading Borough Council (RBC) will submit its formal request to the Secretary of State for a Principal Area Boundary Review (PABR) to modify the border and absorb Theale (and other parishes) into a 'Greater Reading' authority \u00a0timed to coincide with the Ridgeway proposal, we understand.
\nThe Theale Parish Poll result will be officially included by WBC as crucial evidence demonstrating local sentiment.
\nThere is a precedent for this, albeit from the distant past, when Caversham was transferred from Oxfordshire to Reading on 9th November 1911.
Government Feedback
\nThe Secretary of State and MHCLG officials will then review both the Ridgeway Council proposal and RBC\u2019s boundary change request. This situation is further complicated by the larger scale proposal to create a Thames Valley Authority stretching from Slough to Swindon with its own mayor and increased local powers.
\nThe government will judge the proposals against statutory criteria, including creating new unitary authorities that are of an appropriate size (generally larger, serving a larger population) with proposals based on sensible economic and geographical areas.
\nEvidence of local support for the change. (The Theale poll strongly supports the WBC position on this point).
\nThere are no decision-points prior to the submission of the final proposals.
\nIf the government decides to take one or both proposals forward, it is legally obliged to carry out a Statutory Public Consultation.
\nThis is a formal, government-run process where all affected councils, community groups, and the general public will be invited to submit their views on the specific proposal(s) being considered for implementation.
\nThe consultation process is essential before any proposal can be implemented.
\nOnce the statutory consultation is concluded, Ministers will decide which, if any, proposal is to be implemented (with or without modification).
\nThe final decision will then be subject to Parliamentary approval.
\nThe entire reorganisation process, if approved, would likely not come into full effect until 2027 or later, allowing for a transition period, when we will be on the cusp of another election and everything may change once more.
", "description": "Theale residents head to the polls next week for a crucial vote on whether to remain with West Berkshire Council or join Reading Borough Council's proposed 'Greater Reading' authority. The parish poll's outcome will significantly influence the Secretary of State's decision on local government boundaries.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:43:02.829469+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2025-11-01T16:34:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Articles", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/theale-votes-in-greater-reading-battle/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } }, { "id": "427", "url": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/buesasado-argentinian-grill/", "title": "Buesasado Argentinian Grill", "content_html": "There are two places that seem to always be top of the pops when it comes to eating out in Reading (younger readers can look up that metonym..).\u00a0According to Trip Advisor's rather dodgy algorithm they are the Whittington Tea Barge and Buesasado Argentinian Grill.
\nHaving tried neither, I decided that it was time to see what impressed the keyboard jockeys so much that they felt compelled to put keys to review and dish out five stars aplenty.
\nNow, before we go on, a word about the algorithms that have taken over our lives. Once upon a time I had one of those top ratings on TripAdvisor. Back in the days when I used to travel a lot and was rather more hubristic about my ability to influence the world and its travel and eating decisions than I am today.\u00a0
\nBut my family has always been involved in the hospitality industry and seeing the effect a bad review had on their mental health made me ditch my account and its 7000 reviews and platinum star status back in 2016.
\nThe trouble with online reviews is that people tend to either give five stars or one star. There is nothing in between for most reviewers \u2013 and offering just a distribution of one to five is statistically dubious to start off with.
\nSurely if you give five stars it has to be one of the best meals of your life ? Or is a good bag of chips at Wendy's up there with the oriental duck salad at LBS ? Are Formica tables the same as carpeted rooms with stiff white tablecloths ?
\nPerhaps I am lacking an egalitarian edge but I\u00a0 now totally ignore Trip Advisor, Google and all the other online\u00a0review algorithms with purpose. (The fact that you can easily\u00a0buy the system using review farms in the Philippines also adds to my dubiousness). But there are times where you have to go with the crowd, so down to the back entrance of The Oracle it is.
\nNow, as a Welshman you always feel an empathy with Argentina. Whilst the Irish went to America and the Scots went to Canada in search of their fortunes, the Welsh went to Argentina. In Patagonia you will still find Welsh schools, and teahouses in the shadow of the towering Andes in Chubut will serve you 't\u00ea bach'. My mother often visited 'Y Wladfa' and it has become a place of pilgrimage for many Welsh speakers.
\nWhat the Welsh settlers were able to do was tame the vast pampas and turn them into viable farmland (the land was given to them by the Argentinian authorities who thought that it was worthless). As soon as the settlers had tamed this wild landscape the authorities quickly reasserted their control, of course.
\nIn my teens I remember writing a short story about two soldiers meeting during the Falklands conflict and discovering that they share a language and half a culture in common. So, yes, I have a soft spot for everything Argentinian. After all, snow covered mountains, great wine, the best meat and rugby are all close to my heart.
\nArgentina is home to the original cowboys - the gauchos who headed cattle on the endless pampas. It was they who started the tradition of cooking over fire with the asado - the slow, smoky ritual that remains at the heart of Argentinian life and cuisine.\u00a0
\nThe asado is not just a barbecue; it\u2019s a social ceremony, a declaration of patience and pride, where every cut of meat is treated with attention and care, turned over and over until it reaches smoky perfection. Apparently even the motorway caffs in Argentina have asados.
\nIf France gave the world culinary finesse, Argentina gave it cooking with fire. You can take your South African braai and your southern US firepits, in an age where cooking over open fire has become a Michelin starred night out in London (Welsh chef Tomos Parry being at the head of this trend), it was always the star of the show in Argentinian cooking.
\nThe country\u2019s food culture is anchored in meat, but also in the artistry of simplicity. The gaucho\u2019s grill, or parrilla, has been exported across continents, to New York, London, Tokyo and Reading, alongside chimichurri, that simple sauce of parsley, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil which you can now get bottled in Tesco.
\nTo be fair, Argentina\u2019s contribution to world cuisine isn\u2019t just about beef. Its identity is a real fusion - when waves of Italians arrived in Buenos Aires in the late 19th century, they brought pasta, pizza, and gelato. The locals adapted these with gusto, creating something unmistakably their own. Today, Argentina has its own pizzas and pastas - ravioles, \u00f1oquis, tallarines.
\nThen, of course, is the Spanish influence and the empanada, the humble pastie that has circled the globe. Every region in Argentina claims its own version: spicy beef in Salta, sweet corn in Tucum\u00e1n, juicy chicken in C\u00f3rdoba. What began as a portable lunch for labourers now appears on menus from Madrid to Melbourne, something that the oggie never quite managed to do.
\nAnd let\u2019s not forget dulce de leche, Argentina\u2019s sweetest export, that silky caramel spread born, legend says, from a cook\u2019s accident in a 19th century Buenos Aires kitchen. It now fills croissants in Paris, swirls through gelato in Rome, and appears on cheesecakes in Brooklyn. Paired with alfajores\u2014soft biscuits sandwiched with the same sticky gold\u2014it represents Argentina\u2019s genius for taking the simple and making it sublime.
\nEven Argentina\u2019s drinking culture has been making waves of late. Mate, the bitter herbal tea traditionally drunk with a special metal straw from a gourd, is now attracting queues in Soho as it becomes the latest drink craze. sipped from a shared gourd, has become a symbol of community and mindfulness across the world, now embraced by wellness influencers and footballers alike. And of course, there\u2019s Malbec - the once-forgotten French grape that found its true home in Mendoza\u2019s high-altitude vineyards. It has come to dominate supermarket shelves with its deep bodied taste and keen pricing.
\nSo, we approached with some anticipation and were not disappointed.
\nThis is a handsome restaurant, all chrome and wood and black and silver on two floors by the Gun Street entrance to the Oracle. It sits beside what is left of Mill Brook and\u00a0 is a steak restaurant from casting central. It is what I think most people \u2013 certainly most men \u2013 think a steak restaurant should look like - masculine, with the few banquets giving the air of a gentleman's club.
\n\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/f0e9e03a4742.jpg\")
\u00a0
\nThe service is tip top, attentive but not intrusive. And the food is excellent.
\nThere are not a lot of places where we can take our nephew and niece since they are both very fussy eaters, and she is vegetarian - I felt a bit uncomfortable and apologetic as we sat opposite a full wall image of a cow showing the cuts of meat us carnivores were about to consume.\u00a0
\nLet me state the obvious, this is not a restaurant for vegetarians. However, with a choice of skinny chips, fat chips and mash and a good array of veggie sides - we had the broccoli, spinach and green beans, the kids were more than happy.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/efc8e87df385.jpg\")
Indeed my nephew, who is prone to spend a lot of time on his ipad, showed early promise as a future Google reviewer when, unprompted, he gave his kids burger, mash and broccoli an average of 9.75 out of 10, asking if he could come back. My niece consumed a whole plate of broccoli, two baskets of fat fries and then declared the additional basket of skinny fries 'the best'. Happy days.
\nWhilst waiting for my wife to finish her Saturday morning chores I indulged in the garlic bread - delicious soft and crunchy ciabatta - which was largely consumed by my nephew - with a generous folio of spare garlic herby butter on the side and their chorizo in wine and onions, which was utterly delicious, soft and sweet with a depth contributed by the rich wine.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/9297724367c2.jpg\")
As you might imagine, the wine list is extensive and dominated by Argentinian reds. Malbecs are the new CabSav, after all. I enjoyed a Patagonian Sauvignon Blanc and the house Patagonian Malbec, both of which were highly serviceable.
\nFor the main course you can go for lamb or swordfish or burgers. But why would you ?
\nThis place is all about the steak, which is all imported from Argentina, not good for the air miles, but genuine.
\nYou can select four cuts in three weights, and even super size by 50gm increments.
\nThe basic 8oz is plenty for most people and comes with a choice of carbs.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/f6b9d3f81c4f.jpg\")
My wife went for the rib eye and I selected the sirloin with fat fries. Given how much beef costs in the supermarket these post Brexit days, the prices are very reasonable, starting at around \u00a319 for a small rump. If you're feeling greedy and indulgent you can go big and start hitting the big bucks, but there is honestly no need.
\nThe veggies, sides and sauces are on top. We had bearnaise and peppercorn, having totally forgotten that chimichurri should have been de facto. Oops, but a good excuse to come back very soon.
\n![\"\"](\"https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/kwedl-migration/2026/05/2334ce6cee58.jpg\")
You can seriously go large and have a steak sampler board or a grill on the board of mixed meats for between \u00a332 and \u00a345 per head, then pretend that you are out on the pampas with the dusty cold breeze from the Andes filling your nostrils with the smell of smoke and crisping meat from the asado to the strains of a gaucho strumming a Spanish guitar, rather than about to spend the afternoon in a shopping centre.
\nBuenasado is an accomplished venture. It does what it says on the tin with aplomb. For once I have to agree with the online reviews. This is one of the best restaurants in Reading.
", "content_text": "There are two places that seem to always be top of the pops when it comes to eating out in Reading (younger readers can look up that metonym..).\u00a0According to Trip Advisor's rather dodgy algorithm they are the Whittington Tea Barge and Buesasado Argentinian Grill.\nHaving tried neither, I decided that it was time to see what impressed the keyboard jockeys so much that they felt compelled to put keys to review and dish out five stars aplenty.\nNow, before we go on, a word about the algorithms that have taken over our lives. Once upon a time I had one of those top ratings on TripAdvisor. Back in the days when I used to travel a lot and was rather more hubristic about my ability to influence the world and its travel and eating decisions than I am today.\u00a0\nBut my family has always been involved in the hospitality industry and seeing the effect a bad review had on their mental health made me ditch my account and its 7000 reviews and platinum star status back in 2016.\nThe trouble with online reviews is that people tend to either give five stars or one star. There is nothing in between for most reviewers \u2013 and offering just a distribution of one to five is statistically dubious to start off with.\nSurely if you give five stars it has to be one of the best meals of your life ? Or is a good bag of chips at Wendy's up there with the oriental duck salad at LBS ? Are Formica tables the same as carpeted rooms with stiff white tablecloths ?\nPerhaps I am lacking an egalitarian edge but I\u00a0 now totally ignore Trip Advisor, Google and all the other online\u00a0review algorithms with purpose. (The fact that you can easily\u00a0buy the system using review farms in the Philippines also adds to my dubiousness). But there are times where you have to go with the crowd, so down to the back entrance of The Oracle it is.\nNow, as a Welshman you always feel an empathy with Argentina. Whilst the Irish went to America and the Scots went to Canada in search of their fortunes, the Welsh went to Argentina. In Patagonia you will still find Welsh schools, and teahouses in the shadow of the towering Andes in Chubut will serve you 't\u00ea bach'. My mother often visited 'Y Wladfa' and it has become a place of pilgrimage for many Welsh speakers.\nWhat the Welsh settlers were able to do was tame the vast pampas and turn them into viable farmland (the land was given to them by the Argentinian authorities who thought that it was worthless). As soon as the settlers had tamed this wild landscape the authorities quickly reasserted their control, of course.\nIn my teens I remember writing a short story about two soldiers meeting during the Falklands conflict and discovering that they share a language and half a culture in common. So, yes, I have a soft spot for everything Argentinian. After all, snow covered mountains, great wine, the best meat and rugby are all close to my heart.\nArgentina is home to the original cowboys - the gauchos who headed cattle on the endless pampas. It was they who started the tradition of cooking over fire with the asado - the slow, smoky ritual that remains at the heart of Argentinian life and cuisine.\u00a0\nThe asado is not just a barbecue; it\u2019s a social ceremony, a declaration of patience and pride, where every cut of meat is treated with attention and care, turned over and over until it reaches smoky perfection. Apparently even the motorway caffs in Argentina have asados.\nIf France gave the world culinary finesse, Argentina gave it cooking with fire. You can take your South African braai and your southern US firepits, in an age where cooking over open fire has become a Michelin starred night out in London (Welsh chef Tomos Parry being at the head of this trend), it was always the star of the show in Argentinian cooking.\nThe country\u2019s food culture is anchored in meat, but also in the artistry of simplicity. The gaucho\u2019s grill, or parrilla, has been exported across continents, to New York, London, Tokyo and Reading, alongside chimichurri, that simple sauce of parsley, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil which you can now get bottled in Tesco.\nTo be fair, Argentina\u2019s contribution to world cuisine isn\u2019t just about beef. Its identity is a real fusion - when waves of Italians arrived in Buenos Aires in the late 19th century, they brought pasta, pizza, and gelato. The locals adapted these with gusto, creating something unmistakably their own. Today, Argentina has its own pizzas and pastas - ravioles, \u00f1oquis, tallarines.\nThen, of course, is the Spanish influence and the empanada, the humble pastie that has circled the globe. Every region in Argentina claims its own version: spicy beef in Salta, sweet corn in Tucum\u00e1n, juicy chicken in C\u00f3rdoba. What began as a portable lunch for labourers now appears on menus from Madrid to Melbourne, something that the oggie never quite managed to do.\nAnd let\u2019s not forget dulce de leche, Argentina\u2019s sweetest export, that silky caramel spread born, legend says, from a cook\u2019s accident in a 19th century Buenos Aires kitchen. It now fills croissants in Paris, swirls through gelato in Rome, and appears on cheesecakes in Brooklyn. Paired with alfajores\u2014soft biscuits sandwiched with the same sticky gold\u2014it represents Argentina\u2019s genius for taking the simple and making it sublime.\nEven Argentina\u2019s drinking culture has been making waves of late. Mate, the bitter herbal tea traditionally drunk with a special metal straw from a gourd, is now attracting queues in Soho as it becomes the latest drink craze. sipped from a shared gourd, has become a symbol of community and mindfulness across the world, now embraced by wellness influencers and footballers alike. And of course, there\u2019s Malbec - the once-forgotten French grape that found its true home in Mendoza\u2019s high-altitude vineyards. It has come to dominate supermarket shelves with its deep bodied taste and keen pricing.\nSo, we approached with some anticipation and were not disappointed.\nThis is a handsome restaurant, all chrome and wood and black and silver on two floors by the Gun Street entrance to the Oracle. It sits beside what is left of Mill Brook and\u00a0 is a steak restaurant from casting central. It is what I think most people \u2013 certainly most men \u2013 think a steak restaurant should look like - masculine, with the few banquets giving the air of a gentleman's club.\n\u00a0\n\n\u00a0\nThe service is tip top, attentive but not intrusive. And the food is excellent.\nThere are not a lot of places where we can take our nephew and niece since they are both very fussy eaters, and she is vegetarian - I felt a bit uncomfortable and apologetic as we sat opposite a full wall image of a cow showing the cuts of meat us carnivores were about to consume.\u00a0\nLet me state the obvious, this is not a restaurant for vegetarians. However, with a choice of skinny chips, fat chips and mash and a good array of veggie sides - we had the broccoli, spinach and green beans, the kids were more than happy.\n\nIndeed my nephew, who is prone to spend a lot of time on his ipad, showed early promise as a future Google reviewer when, unprompted, he gave his kids burger, mash and broccoli an average of 9.75 out of 10, asking if he could come back. My niece consumed a whole plate of broccoli, two baskets of fat fries and then declared the additional basket of skinny fries 'the best'. Happy days.\nWhilst waiting for my wife to finish her Saturday morning chores I indulged in the garlic bread - delicious soft and crunchy ciabatta - which was largely consumed by my nephew - with a generous folio of spare garlic herby butter on the side and their chorizo in wine and onions, which was utterly delicious, soft and sweet with a depth contributed by the rich wine.\n\nAs you might imagine, the wine list is extensive and dominated by Argentinian reds. Malbecs are the new CabSav, after all. I enjoyed a Patagonian Sauvignon Blanc and the house Patagonian Malbec, both of which were highly serviceable.\nFor the main course you can go for lamb or swordfish or burgers. But why would you ?\nThis place is all about the steak, which is all imported from Argentina, not good for the air miles, but genuine.\nYou can select four cuts in three weights, and even super size by 50gm increments.\nThe basic 8oz is plenty for most people and comes with a choice of carbs.\n\nMy wife went for the rib eye and I selected the sirloin with fat fries. Given how much beef costs in the supermarket these post Brexit days, the prices are very reasonable, starting at around \u00a319 for a small rump. If you're feeling greedy and indulgent you can go big and start hitting the big bucks, but there is honestly no need.\nThe veggies, sides and sauces are on top. We had bearnaise and peppercorn, having totally forgotten that chimichurri should have been de facto. Oops, but a good excuse to come back very soon.\n\nYou can seriously go large and have a steak sampler board or a grill on the board of mixed meats for between \u00a332 and \u00a345 per head, then pretend that you are out on the pampas with the dusty cold breeze from the Andes filling your nostrils with the smell of smoke and crisping meat from the asado to the strains of a gaucho strumming a Spanish guitar, rather than about to spend the afternoon in a shopping centre.\nBuenasado is an accomplished venture. It does what it says on the tin with aplomb. For once I have to agree with the online reviews. This is one of the best restaurants in Reading.", "summary": "Fed up with algorithm-driven reviews, one local critic puts TripAdvisor\u2019s top-rated Buesasado Argentinian Grill to the test to see if the food matches the hype.", "date_published": "2025-11-01T10:18:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-05-29T23:43:08.333755+00:00", "authors": [ { "name": "test1_caa2a9" } ], "image": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/22183f8d.webp", "tags": [ "Food Blog" ], "_blocalai": { "structured_data": { "@type": "NewsArticle", "image": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/assets/images/ua17c56df/p5b859a18/2026/05/22183f8d.webp", "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": "" }, "author": { "name": "test1_caa2a9", "@type": "Person" }, "@context": "https://schema.org", "headline": "Buesasado Argentinian Grill", "publisher": { "url": "https://inreading.co.uk", "logo": { "url": "https://blocalai-storage.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/publications/logos/ua17c56df-2fdb-4df3-a0f2-e91f14421942/2026/02/45143885.png", "@type": "ImageObject" }, "name": "inReading", "@type": "Organization" }, "wordCount": 1743, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleBody": "There are two places that seem to always be top of the pops when it comes to eating out in Reading (younger readers can look up that metonym..).\u00a0According to Trip Advisor's rather dodgy algorithm they are the Whittington Tea Barge and Buesasado Argentinian Grill.
\nHaving tried neither, I decided that it was time to see what impressed the keyboard jockeys so much that they felt compelled to put keys to review and dish out five stars aplenty.
\nNow, before we go on, a word about the algorithms that have taken over our lives. Once upon a time I had one of those top ratings on TripAdvisor. Back in the days when I used to travel a lot and was rather more hubristic about my ability to influence the world and its travel and eating decisions than I am today.\u00a0
\nBut my family has always been involved in the hospitality industry and seeing the effect a bad review had on their mental health made me ditch my account and its 7000 reviews and platinum star status back in 2016.
\nThe trouble with online reviews is that people tend to either give five stars or one star. There is nothing in between for most reviewers \u2013 and offering just a distribution of one to five is statistically dubious to start off with.
\nSurely if you give five stars it has to be one of the best meals of your life ? Or is a good bag of chips at Wendy's up there with the oriental duck salad at LBS ? Are Formica tables the same as carpeted rooms with stiff white tablecloths ?
\nPerhaps I am lacking an egalitarian edge but I\u00a0 now totally ignore Trip Advisor, Google and all the other online\u00a0review algorithms with purpose. (The fact that you can easily\u00a0buy the system using review farms in the Philippines also adds to my dubiousness). But there are times where you have to go with the crowd, so down to the back entrance of The Oracle it is.
\nNow, as a Welshman you always feel an empathy with Argentina. Whilst the Irish went to America and the Scots went to Canada in search of their fortunes, the Welsh went to Argentina. In Patagonia you will still find Welsh schools, and teahouses in the shadow of the towering Andes in Chubut will serve you 't\u00ea bach'. My mother often visited 'Y Wladfa' and it has become a place of pilgrimage for many Welsh speakers.
\nWhat the Welsh settlers were able to do was tame the vast pampas and turn them into viable farmland (the land was given to them by the Argentinian authorities who thought that it was worthless). As soon as the settlers had tamed this wild landscape the authorities quickly reasserted their control, of course.
\nIn my teens I remember writing a short story about two soldiers meeting during the Falklands conflict and discovering that they share a language and half a culture in common. So, yes, I have a soft spot for everything Argentinian. After all, snow covered mountains, great wine, the best meat and rugby are all close to my heart.
\nArgentina is home to the original cowboys - the gauchos who headed cattle on the endless pampas. It was they who started the tradition of cooking over fire with the asado - the slow, smoky ritual that remains at the heart of Argentinian life and cuisine.\u00a0
\nThe asado is not just a barbecue; it\u2019s a social ceremony, a declaration of patience and pride, where every cut of meat is treated with attention and care, turned over and over until it reaches smoky perfection. Apparently even the motorway caffs in Argentina have asados.
\nIf France gave the world culinary finesse, Argentina gave it cooking with fire. You can take your South African braai and your southern US firepits, in an age where cooking over open fire has become a Michelin starred night out in London (Welsh chef Tomos Parry being at the head of this trend), it was always the star of the show in Argentinian cooking.
\nThe country\u2019s food culture is anchored in meat, but also in the artistry of simplicity. The gaucho\u2019s grill, or parrilla, has been exported across continents, to New York, London, Tokyo and Reading, alongside chimichurri, that simple sauce of parsley, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil which you can now get bottled in Tesco.
\nTo be fair, Argentina\u2019s contribution to world cuisine isn\u2019t just about beef. Its identity is a real fusion - when waves of Italians arrived in Buenos Aires in the late 19th century, they brought pasta, pizza, and gelato. The locals adapted these with gusto, creating something unmistakably their own. Today, Argentina has its own pizzas and pastas - ravioles, \u00f1oquis, tallarines.
\nThen, of course, is the Spanish influence and the empanada, the humble pastie that has circled the globe. Every region in Argentina claims its own version: spicy beef in Salta, sweet corn in Tucum\u00e1n, juicy chicken in C\u00f3rdoba. What began as a portable lunch for labourers now appears on menus from Madrid to Melbourne, something that the oggie never quite managed to do.
\nAnd let\u2019s not forget dulce de leche, Argentina\u2019s sweetest export, that silky caramel spread born, legend says, from a cook\u2019s accident in a 19th century Buenos Aires kitchen. It now fills croissants in Paris, swirls through gelato in Rome, and appears on cheesecakes in Brooklyn. Paired with alfajores\u2014soft biscuits sandwiched with the same sticky gold\u2014it represents Argentina\u2019s genius for taking the simple and making it sublime.
\nEven Argentina\u2019s drinking culture has been making waves of late. Mate, the bitter herbal tea traditionally drunk with a special metal straw from a gourd, is now attracting queues in Soho as it becomes the latest drink craze. sipped from a shared gourd, has become a symbol of community and mindfulness across the world, now embraced by wellness influencers and footballers alike. And of course, there\u2019s Malbec - the once-forgotten French grape that found its true home in Mendoza\u2019s high-altitude vineyards. It has come to dominate supermarket shelves with its deep bodied taste and keen pricing.
\nSo, we approached with some anticipation and were not disappointed.
\nThis is a handsome restaurant, all chrome and wood and black and silver on two floors by the Gun Street entrance to the Oracle. It sits beside what is left of Mill Brook and\u00a0 is a steak restaurant from casting central. It is what I think most people \u2013 certainly most men \u2013 think a steak restaurant should look like - masculine, with the few banquets giving the air of a gentleman's club.
\n\u00a0
\n
\u00a0
\nThe service is tip top, attentive but not intrusive. And the food is excellent.
\nThere are not a lot of places where we can take our nephew and niece since they are both very fussy eaters, and she is vegetarian - I felt a bit uncomfortable and apologetic as we sat opposite a full wall image of a cow showing the cuts of meat us carnivores were about to consume.\u00a0
\nLet me state the obvious, this is not a restaurant for vegetarians. However, with a choice of skinny chips, fat chips and mash and a good array of veggie sides - we had the broccoli, spinach and green beans, the kids were more than happy.
\n
Indeed my nephew, who is prone to spend a lot of time on his ipad, showed early promise as a future Google reviewer when, unprompted, he gave his kids burger, mash and broccoli an average of 9.75 out of 10, asking if he could come back. My niece consumed a whole plate of broccoli, two baskets of fat fries and then declared the additional basket of skinny fries 'the best'. Happy days.
\nWhilst waiting for my wife to finish her Saturday morning chores I indulged in the garlic bread - delicious soft and crunchy ciabatta - which was largely consumed by my nephew - with a generous folio of spare garlic herby butter on the side and their chorizo in wine and onions, which was utterly delicious, soft and sweet with a depth contributed by the rich wine.
\n
As you might imagine, the wine list is extensive and dominated by Argentinian reds. Malbecs are the new CabSav, after all. I enjoyed a Patagonian Sauvignon Blanc and the house Patagonian Malbec, both of which were highly serviceable.
\nFor the main course you can go for lamb or swordfish or burgers. But why would you ?
\nThis place is all about the steak, which is all imported from Argentina, not good for the air miles, but genuine.
\nYou can select four cuts in three weights, and even super size by 50gm increments.
\nThe basic 8oz is plenty for most people and comes with a choice of carbs.
\n
My wife went for the rib eye and I selected the sirloin with fat fries. Given how much beef costs in the supermarket these post Brexit days, the prices are very reasonable, starting at around \u00a319 for a small rump. If you're feeling greedy and indulgent you can go big and start hitting the big bucks, but there is honestly no need.
\nThe veggies, sides and sauces are on top. We had bearnaise and peppercorn, having totally forgotten that chimichurri should have been de facto. Oops, but a good excuse to come back very soon.
\n
You can seriously go large and have a steak sampler board or a grill on the board of mixed meats for between \u00a332 and \u00a345 per head, then pretend that you are out on the pampas with the dusty cold breeze from the Andes filling your nostrils with the smell of smoke and crisping meat from the asado to the strains of a gaucho strumming a Spanish guitar, rather than about to spend the afternoon in a shopping centre.
\nBuenasado is an accomplished venture. It does what it says on the tin with aplomb. For once I have to agree with the online reviews. This is one of the best restaurants in Reading.
", "description": "Fed up with algorithm-driven reviews, one local critic puts TripAdvisor\u2019s top-rated Buesasado Argentinian Grill to the test to see if the food matches the hype.", "dateModified": "2026-05-29T23:43:08.333755+00:00", "timeRequired": "PT0M", "datePublished": "2025-11-01T10:18:00+00:00", "articleSection": "Food Blog", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@id": "https://inreading.co.uk/articles/buesasado-argentinian-grill/", "@type": "WebPage" } }, "view_count": 0, "read_time": 0 } } ] }