Resources

These are some of the resources that we find useful in understanding and researching Reading’s heritage and reviewing conservation area appraisals

Publications

  • Terry Allsop – Caught on Camera : Reading in the 70s
  • Martin Andrews – Fox Talbot and the Reading Establishment. Two Rivers Press 2014.
  • Grenville Astill – Historic Towns in Berkshire
  • Charles Coates – History and Antiquities of Reading
  • Mark Clapson – Working-class Suburb: Social Change on an English Council Estate, 1930 – 2010 (mainly about Whitley)
  • William Silver Darter – Reminiscences of Reading
  • John Dearing – Reading Pubs
  • John Dearing, David Cliffe and Evelyn Williams – Abbot Cook to Zero Degrees, an A to Z of Reading Pubs and Breweries
  • Joan Dils – Reading, A History
  • John Doran – History and Antiquities of the Town and Borough of Reading in Berkshire
  • Sidney M Gold – A Biographical Dictionary of Architects at Reading
  • Leslie Harman – The Parish of St Giles-in-Reading
  • Wayland Kennet – Preservation (1972). More than just a history of heritage conservation and preservation.
  • London Street Study Group – London Street Described (1800-1900)
  • Fiona Macdonald and Adam Lödeön – Berkshire Archaeology – East Berkshire Historic Landscape Characterisation (2019). Download report from the Archaeology Data Service.
  • John Man – The History and Antiquities, Ancient and Modern, of the Borough of Reading in the County of Berks
  • John Man – The Stranger in Reading
  • Malcolm Petyt (Ed) – The Growth of Reading
  • Pevsner et al – Buildings of England, Berkshire 1966 & 2010
  • Daphne Phillips – Story of Reading
  • John Piper & John Betjeman – Berkshire Architectural Guide
  • Geoff Sawers – Broad Street Chapel (Waterstone’s Broad Street)
  • Cecil Slade – Historic towns – Reading, Maps and plans of towns and cities in the British Isles, with historical commentaries, from earliest times to circa 1800 (taken from Historic Towns, Volume 1, General editor M. D. Lobel)
  • Cecil Slade – Town of Reading and its Abbey
  • Ann Smith – 100 years of Shops in Reading (published by Reading Library)
  • Adam Sowan – Abattoirs Road to Zinzan Street: Reading Streets and their Names
  • Adam Stout – RISC: of Books, Stones, Friends and Visions (35-39 London Street)
  • Dennis Wood – Views from the Hill: The Story of Whitley and Memories of Whitley from Times Past (includes Christchurch Road)

Websites

Maps

  • Roger Amyce 1552 Survey – a plan of Reading based on the survey, first drawn by Dr S Peyton in 1919 and subsequently updated, copy in Reading Local Studies Library
  • Board of Health Maps 1853 at the Berkshire Record Office and copies at Reading Local Studies Library
  • Goad insurance maps – 1895 online at wikimedia commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Goad_fire_insurance_maps_of_Reading
  • Goad insurance maps – all years at Reading Local Studies Library
  • Reading Civil War (1643) siege fortifications at the British Library (not online) https://tinyurl.com/yzxf4nw8

Images

Reading Borough Library and Reading Museum both have extensive image collections which have been digitised and are available to view online.

Berkshire Record Office and the Museum of English Rural Life/University Special Collections Service also have collections which include images of Reading.

The Simonds family website (see above) has a growing gallery of brewery, pub and hotel images, both external and internal.