Town in Berkshire, England
Reading
Reading's gaol gave us a famous poem, its abbey gave us the oldest English round, and its biscuits went off to the polar ice.
Key information
- County
- Berkshire
- Nation
- England
- Population
- About 174,000 (2021 Census)
- Known for
- Reading Festival, Huntley & Palmers biscuits, Reading Abbey, Reading Gaol, tech companies along the M4
- Famous people
- Kate Winslet, Mike Oldfield, Ricky Gervais, Oscar Wilde (as a prisoner)
- Football clubs
- Reading FC, nicknamed the Royals
About Reading
The town that wrote summer's oldest hit
Around 1260, a monk at Reading Abbey wrote down "Sumer is icumen in", a bright English round for several voices that begins "Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu". It is the oldest surviving piece of its kind in English, and it is known as the Reading Rota. The manuscript now lives in the British Library. The abbey that produced it was founded in 1121 by Henry I, who was buried before its high altar in 1136. It grew into one of the most powerful monasteries in England. Then came the Dissolution. In 1539 the last abbot, Hugh Cook Faringdon, was hanged outside his own abbey church, and the buildings were stripped for stone. Today you can still walk among the huge flint-and-rubble ruins, and the Abbey Gateway survives nearby. Henry I's grave has never been conclusively pinned down.
Danes, a river and a very old argument
Reading sits where the Kennet meets the Thames, and that is the reason for everything. In the winter of 870–871 a Danish army dug in on the tongue of land between the rivers. Æthelred of Wessex and his brother Alfred attacked in January 871 and were beaten back at the Battle of Reading. The name goes back to the Readingas, the people of Reada. The town is pronounced "Redding", which still catches out visitors reading it off a railway timetable. Wool, river trade and later the Great Western Railway, which reached the town in 1840 when Reading station opened on 30 March, made the place. Today it is one of the busiest interchange stations outside London.
Beer, bulbs and biscuits
For much of the 19th century Reading was summed up as a town of beer, bulbs and biscuits. Simonds brewed the beer. Suttons, founded in 1806, sold the seeds and bulbs. And in 1822 Joseph Huntley opened a biscuit shop that became Huntley & Palmers, once among the biggest biscuit makers in the world. The firm shipped its biscuits in decorated tins, which turned into collectables, and sent them across the empire. Polar explorers packed them too. The factory and its tin-making neighbours gave Reading its other nickname, Biscuit Town. Reading Museum keeps a good collection of the tins, and a full-size Victorian replica of the Bayeux Tapestry. The brewery and the biscuit factory are long gone. In their place came the tech firms of the Thames Valley, strung out along the M4, and the University of Reading, which received its royal charter in 1926.
Prisoner C.3.3 and a famous wall
In 1895 Oscar Wilde was convicted of gross indecency and sent to Reading Gaol, where he was prisoner C.3.3, held in a cell on the third landing of C wing. He served the last part of his two-year sentence there until 1897. The experience produced "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" in 1898, his last major work, set around the hanging of a fellow inmate. It made the gaol's name known worldwide. The prison closed in 2013. In 2021 Banksy painted a mural on its wall showing a prisoner escaping on a rope of bedsheets that trails from a typewriter. It was a nod to Wilde, and it brought crowds to the site. Around the corner, Forbury Gardens has the Maiwand Lion, a huge cast-iron beast made by George Blackall Simonds, of the brewing family. He made it in 1886 for the Berkshire Regiment soldiers who died at Maiwand in Afghanistan in 1880.
Kurt Cobain in a wheelchair, and other festival legends
The Reading Festival has been held on the town's riverside since 1971. It began as the National Jazz Festival in Richmond in 1961, later became the National Jazz and Blues Festival, and moved to Reading in 1971. It takes place over the August bank holiday weekend, and it grew from jazz and blues to rock, punk and indie. Its most famous moment came in 1992, when Kurt Cobain rolled on stage for Nirvana's headline set in a wheelchair and a hospital gown, to counter rumours about his health. Reading's sporting heroes are less loud. Reading FC were founded in 1871 and are nicknamed the Royals. In 2005–06 they won the Championship with 106 points, an English second-tier record. The next season they finished eighth in the Premier League. Their home since 1998 has been the stadium originally called the Madejski Stadium, which was officially renamed the Select Car Leasing Stadium in 2021.
Famous faces from the Thames Valley
Reading has produced some big names. Kate Winslet, who starred in Titanic, was born here in 1975. Mike Oldfield, who made Tubular Bells in 1973 at the age of 19, was born in the town in 1953. And Ricky Gervais, the creator of The Office, was born in Reading in 1961. One famous resident did not choose to come. Oscar Wilde's time in the gaol left a stronger mark on the town's image than any of its homegrown stars.