Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a borough in Berkshire, England, and the county town of Berkshire. It is Berkshire's largest town, with a total built-up area population of 355,596. Most of its built-up area lies within the Borough of Reading, although some outer suburbs are parts of neighbouring local authority areas. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers Thames and Kennet.
Reading is a major commercial centre, especially for information technology and insurance. It is also a regional retail centre, serving a large area of the Thames Valley with its shopping centres, including the Oracle, the Broad Street Mall, and the pedestrianised area around Broad Street. It is home to the University of Reading. Every year it hosts the Reading Festival, one of England's biggest music festivals. Reading has a professional association football team, Reading F.C., and participates in many other sports.
Reading dates from the 8th century. It was a trading and ecclesiastical centre in the Middle Ages, the site of Reading Abbey, one of the largest and richest monasteries of medieval England with royal connections, of which the 12th-century abbey gateway and significant ancient ruins remain. By 1525, Reading was the largest town in Berkshire, and tenth in England for taxable wealth. The town was seriously affected by the English Civil War, with a major siege and loss of trade, but played a pivotal role in the Glorious Revolution, whose only significant military action was fought on its streets. The 18th century saw the beginning of a major ironworks in the town and the growth of the brewing trade for which Reading was to become famous. The 19th century saw the coming of the Great Western Railway and the development of the town's brewing, baking and seed-growing businesses, and the town grew rapidly as a manufacturing centre.
Etymology
The earliest known name for Reading is Readingas, from the 8th century. The name probably comes from the Readingas, an Anglo-Saxon tribe whose name means Reada's People in Old English.The demonym for a person from Reading is Redingensian, giving the name of the local rugby team Redingensians, based in Sonning, and of former members of Reading School.
History
Origins
Occupation at the site of Reading may date back to the Roman period, possibly in the form of a trading port for Calleva Atrebatum. However, the first clear evidence for Reading as a settlement dates from the 8th century, when the town came to be known as Readingas. In late 870, an army of Danes invaded the kingdom of Wessex and set up camp at Reading. On 4 January 871, in the first Battle of Reading, King Ethelred and his brother Alfred the Great attempted unsuccessfully to breach the Danes' defences. The battle is described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and that account provides the earliest known written record of the existence of Reading. The Danes remained in Reading until late in 871, when they retreated to their winter quarters in London.Following the Norman conquest of England, William the Conqueror gave land in and around Reading to his foundation of Battle Abbey. In Domesday Book, the town was explicitly described as a borough. The presence of six mills is recorded: four on land belonging to the king and two on the land given to Battle Abbey. Reading Abbey was founded in 1121 by Henry I, who is buried within the Abbey grounds. As part of his endowments, he gave the abbey his lands in Reading, along with land at Cholsey.
The town grew around a crossing of the River Kennet, about upstream from its confluence with the River Thames. In 1312, King Edward II directed that its bridges should be kept in good order. It is not known how badly Reading was affected by the Black Death that swept through England in the 14th century, but it is known that the abbot, Henry of Appleford, was one of its victims in 1361, and that nearby Henley lost 60% of its population. The Abbey was largely destroyed in 1538 during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. The last abbot, Hugh Faringdon, was subsequently tried and convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered in front of the Abbey Church.
By 1525, Reading was the largest town in Berkshire and the tenth largest town in England when measured by taxable wealth reported in tax returns. By 1611, it had a population of over 5,000 and had grown rich on its trade in cloth, as instanced by the fortune made by local merchant John Kendrick. Reading played a role during the English Civil War. Despite its fortifications, it had a Royalist garrison imposed on it in 1642. The subsequent Siege of Reading by Parliamentary forces succeeded in April 1643. The town's cloth trade was especially badly damaged, and the town's economy did not fully recover until the 20th century. Reading played a significant role during the Glorious Revolution: the second Battle of Reading was the only substantial military action of the campaign.
The 18th century saw the beginning of a major iron works in the town and the growth of the brewing trade for which Reading was to become famous. Reading's trade benefited from better designed turnpike roads which helped it establish its location on the major coaching routes from London to Oxford and the West Country. In 1723, despite considerable local opposition, the Kennet Navigation opened the River Kennet to boats as far as Newbury. Opposition stopped when it became apparent that the new route benefited the town. After the opening of the Kennet and Avon Canal in 1810, one could go by barge from Reading to the Bristol Channel. From 1714, and probably earlier, the role of county town of Berkshire was shared between Reading and Abingdon. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was one of the southern termini of the Hatfield and Reading Turnpike that allowed travellers from the north to continue their journey to the west without going through the congestion of London.
During the 19th century, the town grew rapidly as a manufacturing centre. The Great Western Railway arrived in 1841, followed by the South Eastern Railway in 1849 and the London and South Western Railway in 1856. After the Summer Assizes were moved from Abingdon to Reading in 1867, the privy council made Reading the sole county town of Berkshire in 1869. The town became county borough under the Local Government Act 1888. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the town's three largest industries were known as the Three Bs: beer, bulbs, and biscuits.
20th century
The town continued to expand in the 20th century, annexing Caversham across the River Thames in Oxfordshire in 1911, as well as most of Tilehurst to the west at the same time. Reading suffered much less physical damage than many other English towns and cities during the two world wars of the 20th century, although many citizens were killed or injured. In one significant air raid on 10 February 1943 a single Luftwaffe plane strafed and bombed the town centre, causing 41 deaths and over 100 injuries.The Lower Earley development, begun in 1977, was one of the largest private housing developments in Europe, extending the urban area of Reading as far as the M4 Motorway. Further housing developments have increased the number of modern houses and hypermarkets in the outskirts of Reading. A major town-centre shopping centre, The Oracle, opened in 1999, is named after the 17th-century Oracle workhouse, which once occupied a small part of the site. It provides three storeys of shopping space and boosted the local economy by providing 4,000 jobs.
21st century
As one of the largest urban areas in the United Kingdom without city status, Reading has unsuccessfully bid for city status four times – in 2000 to celebrate the new millennium; in 2002 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II; in 2012 for the Diamond Jubilee; and in 2022 to mark the Platinum Jubilee.Governance
for the borough is provided by Reading Borough Council, which has been a unitary authority providing all local government functions since 1998. There are no civil parishes in the borough. Some of the built-up area's outer suburbs are outside the borough boundaries in West Berkshire and Wokingham. These outer suburbs belong to civil parishes, in some cases with their own town status.Reading has elected at least one Member of Parliament to every Parliament since 1295. Since the 2024 general election, the borough of Reading has been divided between the parliamentary constituencies of Reading Central, Reading West and Mid Berkshire, and Earley and Woodley.
Reading is the site of venues for both the Crown Court, administering criminal justice, and the County Court, responsible for civil cases. Lesser matters are dealt with in a local magistrates' court.
Administrative history
Reading was an ancient borough, being described as a borough by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086. The borough was initially controlled by Reading Abbey as its manorial owner. The town gradually gained a degree of independence from the abbey from the 13th century onwards, particularly after the town's gild merchants were granted a royal charter in 1253. Following the dissolution of the abbey in 1538 the borough was granted a new charter in 1542. The borough boundaries were then set out in a subsequent charter from Elizabeth I in 1560. The borough covered the whole of the parish of St Laurence and parts of the parishes of St Giles and St Mary. The part of St Giles' parish outside the borough was known as the hamlet of Whitley, and the part of St Mary's parish outside the borough was known as the tithing of Southcote.The borough was reformed in 1836 to become a municipal borough under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which standardised how most boroughs operated across the country. The borough boundaries, which had not been changed since 1560, were enlarged in 1887 to take in Southcote, Whitley, the north-western parts of Earley, and the eastern end of the parish of Tilehurst. When elected county councils were established in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, Reading was considered large enough for its existing borough council to provide county-level services, and so Reading was made a county borough, independent from Berkshire County Council.
The borough boundaries were enlarged again in 1911 to take in Caversham on the north bank of the Thames from Oxfordshire, and most of the parish of Tilehurst to the west.
Local government was reformed in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, which saw Reading redesignated as a non-metropolitan district, with Berkshire County Council providing county-level services in the borough for the first time. Ahead of those reforms, the borough council campaigned to have Reading's boundaries enlarged to take in Earley, Woodley, Purley on Thames, the residual Tilehurst parish, and the eastern part of the parish of Theale. The government decided to make no change to Reading's boundaries, leaving them as they had been since last reviewed in 1911. Shortly after the 1974 reforms came into effect, a more limited review of the borough's boundaries north of the Thames was carried out, which saw the Caversham Park area and part of the parish of Mapledurham on the western side of Caversham transferred into the borough of Reading in 1977.
The borough council became a unitary authority in 1998, when the county council was abolished under the Banham Review, which saw the borough council take over county-level functions, effectively restoring the council to the powers it had held when Reading was a county borough prior to 1974. As part of those reforms, the Local Government Commission had initially recommended expanding Reading's boundaries to include Earley, Tilehurst parish, Purley on Thames and the parts of the parishes of Shinfield, Burghfield and Theale north of the M4 motorway, but it was ultimately decided to leave Reading's boundaries unchanged.
Reading's boundaries south of the Thames therefore have not changed since 1911, despite the urban area having now expanded well beyond the borough boundaries. Cross-boundary working between the borough council and the neighbouring councils which cover the suburban and adjoining rural areas is sometimes criticised, particularly over matters such as transport and school catchment areas.
Prior to the 16th century, civic administration for the town of Reading was situated in the Yield Hall, a guild hall situated by the River Kennet near today's Yield Hall Lane. After a brief stay in what later became Greyfriars Church, the town council created a new town hall by inserting an upper floor into the refectory of the Hospitium of St John, the former hospitium of Reading Abbey. For some 400 years up to the 1970s, this was to remain the site of Reading's civic administration through the successive rebuilds that eventually created today's Town Hall. In 1976, Reading Borough Council moved to the new Civic Centre. In 2014, they moved again to civic offices in a refurbished existing office building on Bridge Street, in order to facilitate the demolition and redevelopment of the previous site.