The History of the Site of Reading Central Library
The building of the current Reading Central Library, on which work started in 1982 and was finished in
1985, occupies a site that was partly within the precincts of Reading Abbey,
and because of this historical importance, a team of archaeologists from the
Wessex Trust for Archaeology excavated the area before building work began.
The team was led by John Hawkes and this account is drawn from a booklet
providing a more complete account of the early history of the site. The account
of the 19th and 20th centuries is provided by Daphne Phillips, a former
Reference and Local
Studies Librarian.
Early History
As the site lies outside the late Saxon/ early medieval settlement of Reading,
no evidence of occupation was found before the building of Reading Abbey in the
12th century. But there was evidence from soil samples that the land north of the
Holy Brook was being farmed, and as well as small pieces of pottery dating between
the tenth and early twelfth centuries, a silver penny of William I was found; it
was minted between 1077 and 1080 and was neatly clipped in half to form a
half-penny.
On the other side of the Holy Brook - the south or King's Road side
- the site
was unclaimed marshland at this time.
The Monastic Stables
The foundation of the Abbey in 1126 heralded the emergence of Reading as a
town of importance and influence, though it had been for some time a place of
local significance. The Abbey had its own mint around
1044-1046 and, according to the Domesday Book, achieved the status of 'borough'.
The Abbey and its grounds covered over 30 acres and therefore dominated the
town; and not just physically, because the Abbots had extensive powers to
administer justice in the town as well as in the Abbey. The Holy Brook formed a
convenient southern boundary and also drove the Abbey's watermill, a remnant of
which can be still seen a little way down stream from the
Library.
There must have been a number of warehouses and outbuildings around the mill
and very few have been located. However, one is believed to have been the
stables, and this lay on the northern side of the watercourse, extending onto
part of the new library site. Until the present development, parts of this
building's south wall were visible, running parallel to the Holy Brook. The
building is known as the stables principally because it was marked the "Queen's
Stables" on John Speed's map of 1610, and although this is generally accepted
as good evidence, the excavation in fact revealed little supporting evidence.
Two very long east-west walls set 8m (26 feet) apart, massively built of
flint and mortar over 1 m thick were uncovered. They showed that the building
must continue to the west under Abbey Square and to the east underneath and
possibly beyond the Baptist Church; in all it was traced for over
50m (167 feet)
with no sign of end walls, original doors or windows.
It must therefore be assumed that the major entrance was at one end, with
windows high up. Large quantities of broken clay tiles suggest a tiled roof,
with pottery finds pointing to construction around 1170- 1220. The building was
divided by a central row of pillars but there was no other internal partitioning.
Outside the building, some evidence was found of timber revetments on the
banks of the Holy Brook, used to channel the stream to make it fast flowing to
drive the water mill.
At some time between 1380 and 1420, the stables were rebuilt, with the main
structure remaining but the roof was supported on a double row of central pillars.
From 1536, monasteries began to be closed by agents of Henry VIII and the
last Abbot of Reading, Hugh Faringdon, was brutally executed after refusing to
acknowledge the King's supremacy in religious matters, and resisting the
suppression of the Abbey. Immediately, there was a substantial amount of
destruction and quantities of building materials were taken and used in the
construction of other buildings in the town, notably St Mary's Church. Some
buildings were retained for the use of the Royal household but the greater part
of the Abbey fell into decay.
From Civil War to the Nineteenth Century
Very few finds were associated with the latest phases of the stables, and
thus it is particularly difficult to date these later events. From the available
evidence it does appear that the stables survived the Dissolution, and demolition
may not have occurred until the time of the Civil War; much damage was caused to
what still remained of the Abbey buildings during the Parliamentary siege of
1643.
It is likely that the larger roof timbers and pillars were sold, together
with any intact roof tiles, lead and scrap metal. The roof evidently collapsed
inwards, smashing the remaining tiles and lesser roof timbers. The wood was
burnt on the site and fragmentary remains of unidentifiable charred timber were
found amongst the destruction rubble. The main east-west walls at least survived,
although it is probable that they were reduced in height
Amongst the rubble were a number of items not from the stable building itself,
and it seems that the area may have been used to dump material from elsewhere in
the Abbey. The finds include objects which must have come from the church;
fragments of an ivory figurine of the Virgin and Child probably date to the
latter part of the fourteenth century and are a rare survival of a pre-Dissolution
religious icon. More substantial items include carved, painted and gilded masonry.
This fine stonework was once part of an ornamental screen, perhaps a tomb canopy,
and its design suggests that roofs and timbers were saleable commodities.
The modern development of the site began with the laying down of Kings Road in
the 1830's, after which small shops, businesses and public houses were
established at various times on the library site. Adjoining it in Kings Road,
J & C Cocks built a new warehouse for their highly successful sauce and
pickles, and on the eastern side of that a Baptist Chapel was opened in 1834.
The old crooked lane running behind these buildings, formerly known as Hookers
Green, was dignified with a new name, Abbey Square. The Abbey Mill at the other
end of the lane continued to grind, and was worked by the Soundy family from the
mid 19th century until the 1960's.
The Twentieth Century
By the beginning of the 20th century Sutton's Royal Berkshire Seed
Establishment had extended south and east from Market Place to Abbey Square,
and in acquiring the land on the north side of the Holy Brook became responsible
for the preservation of the remains of the Abbey stables. These remains consisted
of at least five flint buttresses supporting a wall which itself contained a good
many abbey flints. Strengthened by steel girders, this ancient wall became part
of the rear wall of Sutton's potato department and staff mess rooms. Between it
and the Holy Brook was a flat bank about 2.5m (8 feet) wide to which few people were
allowed access, so that willow herb, daisies, yarrow and other plants grew there
undisturbed. Suttons maintained the wall and the bank until 1962 when the firm
left Reading.
Before Sutton's mess rooms were built on the corner about 1911 the site was
occupied by Shervall’s restaurant, a working men's eating house whose decor
included marble topped tables with wrought iron legs. Shervall's was one of
several restaurants along Kings Road to which Huntley and
Palmers' employees
who had worked the 6-8.30 am shift went for a hot breakfast, hurrying to be back
at work by 9.00 am sharp.
On the south side of the brook the corner site was occupied for many years by
the York House public house, and next to this was Thomas Thorp's religious
bookshop. On Saturdays when the market was held in the Market Place two of
Sutton' s men used to take a mobile stall to Thorp's to be stocked up with
books and then hauled to its position in the Market Place, where it was manned
for the day by volunteers from the Bible Society.
The shop to the east of Thorp's was run by Perry & Cox, an old established
Reading firm of umbrella makers who became sports outfitters in the present
century. Between them and the pickle factory was Louis Rogers' pork butchers shop.
Smells and Sounds of Old Abbey Square
The buildings along this part of Kings Road backed directly onto the Holy Brook,
which despite edicts to the contrary was traditionally used for the disposal of
domestic garbage. Even Mr Thorp was regularly seen emptying his teapot out of a rear
window into the water; while quantities of vegetable peelings floating out from the
culvert under Kings Road helped to identify the day's menu at the Ship Hotel.
Accumulated debris was a nuisance to Mr Soundy the miller who had to protect his
mill with a grating across the stream. When matters got really bad he would adjust
the sluice gate upstream near Castle Street almshouses in order to lower the water
level for cleaning the riverbed. When the level rose again swans were sometimes
found trapped in the brook between the mill and the bridge in Abbey Square, and had
to be rescued. As many as five or six swans might be seen ignominiously taken away
in wheelbarrows to the open reaches of the Kennet
Throughout the early part of the present century the whole of Abbey Square was
alive with various activities, sometimes smelly. Machinery at the Soundy's mill
could be' heard humming day and night, and from Ridley's sawmills across Abbey
Street came the sound of huge trees being converted into timber. A distinctive
sound came from Cocks' pickle factory when the coopers were preparing barrels for
filling. These were made of wood with iron bands that had to be tightened by a
means of a large hammer and wedge.
Soundy's used traction engines for the haulage of all their wheat and flour,
while in the winter months Pilgrim's horses and carts brought huge loads of potatoes
from the railway goods yards to Sutton's potato department
Tramcars clanged up and down Kings Road until the 1930's, and people who worked
in the area remember the town band that played every week on the pavement outside
Perring's furniture store.
Remembered smells were the pungent spicy aromas from the vats of sauce and
piccalilli simmering in the pickle factory and the late summer seasonal smell when
a group of women could be seen in the factory yard peeling quantities of onions and
preparing red cabbage. Sutton's fertiliser stores also contributed to the atmosphere
and so, according to wind direction, did the smell of baking from Huntley and
Palmer's (particularly ginger nuts) and of processing hops from
Simonds' Brewery.
All these have now gone. The sixties, which saw so much of old Reading pass away,
saw the demolition of Sutton's buildings and Soundy's mill, replaced by Forbury
House and Abbey Mill House, and the closure of Cocks' factory (demolished around
1985), Ridley's sawmill and the Baptist Chapel. The smaller businesses changed hands
several times and the York House became estate agents' offices. These too are gone,
and Reading's Central Library is established in an area of rapid, large-scale
development.
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