Reading, Berkshire facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Reading Borough of Reading
Town, borough and unitary authority
From top left: Reading's medieval Market Place with Town Hall and 11th century St Laurence's Church, the Maiwand Lion, the Town Centre skyline from the Royal Berkshire Hospital, the 12th Century Reading Abbey ruins, The Oracle shopping centre and River Kennet
Coat of Arms of Reading Borough Council
Motto(s):  A Deo et Regina With God and Queen
Borough of Reading shown within Berkshire
Reading Location in the United Kingdom Show map of the United Kingdom Reading Location in England Show map of England Reading Location in Europe Show map of Europe
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Constituent country	England
Region	South East England
Ceremonial county	Berkshire
Historic county	Berkshire (south of the River Thames) Oxfordshire (north of the River Thames)
Admin HQ	Reading
Settled	871 or earlier
Town status	1086 or earlier
Government
• Type	Unitary authority
• Body	Reading Borough Council
Elevation	61 m (200 ft)
Population  (2005 est.)
• Borough	161,780
• Rank	119th (of 326) (borough)
• Urban	337,108
• Ethnicity (Borough)	74.8% White (65.3% White British) 9.1% South Asian 6.7 % Black 3.9% Mixed 4.5% Chinese and Other Asian 0.9% Other
Demonym(s)	Redingensian, Readingite
Time zone	UTC+0 (GMT)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+1 (BST)
Postal code	RG
Area code(s)	0118
Grid Ref.	SU713733
ONS code	00MC (ONS) E06000038 (GSS)
ISO 3166-2	GB-RDG
NUTS 3	UKJ11
Website	reading.gov.uk

Reading ( RED-ing) is a historic large market town in Berkshire, England, in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers Thames and Kennet. It is on the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, 40 miles (64 km) east of Swindon, 25 miles (40 km) south of Oxford, 40 miles (64 km) west of London, 15 miles (24 km) north of Basingstoke, 13 miles (21 km) southwest of Maidenhead and 15 miles (24 km) east of Newbury. 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, and home to the University of Reading. Every year it hosts the Reading Festival, one of England's biggest music festivals. Among its sports teams are Reading Football Club and Reading Hockey Club, and over 15,000 runners annually compete in the Reading Half Marathon.

Reading dates from the 8th century. It was an important trading and ecclesiastical centre in the Middle Ages, the site of Reading Abbey, one of the largest and richest monasteries of medieval England with strong 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.

History

Reading may date back to the Roman occupation of Britain, possibly as 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 Readingum. The name probably comes from the Readingas, an Anglo-Saxon tribe whose name means Reada's People in Old English, or less probably the Celtic Rhydd-Inge, meaning Ford over the River. 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.

After the Battle of Hastings and the Norman conquest of England, William the Conqueror gave land in and around Reading to his foundation of Battle Abbey. In its 1086 Domesday Book listing, 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. 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 of Reading Abbey, 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 Cook Faringdon, was subsequently tried and convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered in front of the Abbey Church.

The earliest map of Reading, published in 1611 by John Speed

By 1525, Reading was the largest town in Berkshire, and tax returns show that Reading was the 10th largest town in England when measured by taxable wealth. By 1611, it had a population of over 5000 and had grown rich on its trade in cloth, as instanced by the fortune made by local merchant John Kendrick. Reading played an important 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 Revolution of 1688: the second Battle of Reading was the only substantial military action of the campaign.

View of Reading from Caversham by Joseph Farington in 1793

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.

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. The Summer Assizes were moved from Abingdon to Reading in 1867, effectively making Reading the sole county town of Berkshire, a decision that was officially approved by the Privy Council in 1869. The town became a county borough under the Local Government Act 1888. The town has been famous for the Three Bs of beer (1785–2010, Simonds' Brewery), bulbs (1837–1974, Suttons Seeds), and biscuits (1822–1976, Huntley and Palmers).

The town continued to expand in the 20th century, annexing Caversham across the River Thames in Oxfordshire in 1911. Compared to many other English towns and cities, Reading suffered little physical damage during either of the two World Wars that afflicted the 20th century, although many citizens were killed or injured in the conflicts. One significant air raid occurred on 10 February 1943, when a single Luftwaffe plane machine-gunned and bombed the town centre, resulting in 41 deaths and over 100 injuries. The Lower Earley development, built in 1977, was one of the largest private housing developments in Europe. It extended the urban area of Reading as far as the M4 motorway, which acts as the southern boundary of the town. 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.

As one of the largest urban areas in the United Kingdom to be without city status, Reading has bid for city status on three recent occasions — in 2000 to celebrate the new millennium; in 2002 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II; and 2012 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee. All three bids were unsuccessful.

Geography

'As the crow flies' Reading is 36 miles (58 km) due west of central London, 24 miles (39 km) southeast of Oxford, 70 miles (110 km) east of Bristol, and 50 miles (80 km) north of the English south coast. The centre of Reading is on a low ridge between the River Thames and River Kennet, close to their confluence, reflecting the town's history as a river port. Just above the confluence, the Kennet cuts through a narrow steep-sided gap in the hills forming the southern flank of the Thames floodplain. The absence of a floodplain on the Kennet in this defile enabled the development of wharves.

As Reading has grown, its suburbs have spread: to the west between the two rivers into the foothills of the Berkshire Downs as far as Calcot, Tilehurst and Purley; to the south and south-east on the south side of the Kennet as far as Whitley Wood, Lower Earley and Woodley; and to the north of the Thames into the Chiltern Hills as far as Caversham Heights, Emmer Green and Caversham Park Village. Outside the central area, the floors of the valleys containing the two rivers remain largely unimproved floodplain. Apart from the M4 curving to the south there is only one road across the Kennet floodplain. All other routes between the three built-up areas are in the central area, which is a cause of road congestion there.

River Kennet during the 2007 floods at the riverside level of The Oracle

The floodplains adjoining Reading's two rivers are subject to occasional flooding. However, in the 2007 floods that affected much of the UK, no properties were affected by flooding from the Thames and only four properties were affected by flooding from the Kennet.

Depending on the definition adopted, neither the town nor the urban area are necessarily coterminous with the borough. Historically, the town of Reading was smaller than the borough. Definitions include the old ecclesiastical parishes of the churches of St Mary, St Laurence and St Giles, or the even smaller pre-19th century borough. Today, as well as the town centre Reading comprises a number of suburbs and other districts, both within the borough itself and within the surrounding urban area. The names and location of these suburbs are in general usage but, except where some of the outer suburbs correspond to civil parishes, there are no formally defined boundaries. The Reading town area, sometimes referred to as Greater Reading, incorporates the town's eastern and western suburbs outside the borough, in the civil parishes of Earley, Woodley, Purley and Tilehurst. The Reading urban area (officially Reading/Wokingham) additionally includes Winnersh, Wokingham and Crowthorne with an overall population of around 320,000 inhabitants.

Like the rest of the United Kingdom, Reading has a maritime climate, with limited seasonal temperature ranges and generally moderate rainfall throughout the year. The nearest official Met Office weather station is located at the Reading University Atmospheric Observatory on the Whiteknights Campus, which has recorded atmospheric measurements and meteorological observations since 1970. The local absolute maximum temperature of 36.4 °C (97.5 °F) was recorded in August 2003 and the local absolute minimum temperature of −14.5 °C (5.9 °F) was recorded in January 1982.

Demography

Borough of Reading population growth rate from 1801 to 2011

In mid-2018, the area covered by the Borough of Reading had 161,780 inhabitants and a population density of ^{[convert: needs a number]}. Meanwhile, the wider urban area had a population of 318,014 in the 2011 census, ranking 23rd in the United Kingdom. This grew to an estimated 337,108 by mid-2018. According to the 2011 census, 74.8% of the borough's population were described as White (65.3% White British), 9.1% as South Asian, 6.7% as Black, 3.9% Mixed, 4.5% as Chinese and 0.9% as other ethnic group. In 2010, it was reported that Reading had 150 different spoken languages within its population. Reading has a large Polish community, which dates back over 30 years, and in October 2006 the Reading Chronicle printed 5,000 copies of a Polish edition called the Kronika Reading.

Culture

Aerial view of Reading Festival 2007

Every year Reading hosts the Reading Festival, which has been running since 1971. The festival takes place on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend and is the largest of its kind in the UK aside from the Glastonbury Festival. For some twenty years until 2006, Reading was also known for its WOMAD Festival until it moved to Charlton Park in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. The Reading Beer Festival was first held in 1994 and has now grown to one of the largest beer festivals in the UK. It is held at King's Meadow for the five days immediately preceding the May Day bank holiday every year. Reading also holds Reading Pride, an annual LGBTA festival in Kings Meadow.

The Frank Matcham-designed Royal County Theatre, built in 1895, was located on the south side of Friar Street. It burned down in 1937. Within the town hall is a 700-seat concert hall that houses a Father Willis organ. Reading theatre venues include The Hexagon and South Street Arts Centre. Amateur theatre venues in Reading include Progress Theatre, a self-governing, self-funding theatre group and registered charity founded in 1947 that operates and maintains its own 97-seat theatre.

The demonym for a person from Reading is Readingensian, giving the name of the local rugby team Redingensians, based in Sonning, and of former members of Reading School. An alternative demonym is Readingite.

Landmarks

The Maiwand Lion in Forbury Gardens

The Maiwand Lion in Forbury Gardens, an unofficial symbol of Reading, commemorates the 328 officers of the Royal Berkshire Regiment who died in the Battle of Maiwand in 1880. The Blade, a fourteen-storey building completed in 2009, is 128 m (420 ft) tall and can be seen from the surrounding area. Jacksons Corner with its prominent sign, former home of Jacksons department store, occupies the corner of Kings Road and High Street, just south of the Market Place.

Reading has five Grade I listed buildings, 22 Grade II* and 853 Grade II buildings, in a wide variety of architectural styles that range from the medieval to the 21st century. The Grade I listed buildings are Reading Abbey, the Abbey Gateway, Greyfriars Church, St Laurence's Church, and Reading Minster.

Media

Reading has a local newspaper, the Reading Chronicle, published on Thursdays. The town's other local newspaper, the Reading Post, ceased publication on paper in December 2014, in order transition to an online only format under the title getreading. An online magazine, Alt Reading, publishes articles focusing on arts, entertainment and culture in Reading. A local publishing company, the Two Rivers Press, has published over 70 book titles, many on the topic of local history and art.

Three local radio stations broadcast from Reading: BBC Radio Berkshire, Jack FM Berkshire and Heart Thames Valley. Other local radio stations, such as London's 95.8 Capital FM, Basingstoke's The Breeze and East Berkshire's Time 106.6, can also be received. Local television news programmes are the BBC's South Today and ITV's Meridian Tonight.

Transport

The River Thames from Caversham Bridge looking eastwards

Aerial view of Reading station in August 2014

A Great Western Railway Class 800 with a service to London

Reading station platforms showing new footbridge

Reading's location in the Thames Valley to the west of London has made the town a significant element in the nation's transport system.

River

The town grew up as a river port at the confluence of the River Thames and the River Kennet. Both of these rivers are navigable, and Caversham Lock, Blake's Lock, County Lock, Fobney Lock and Southcote Lock are all within the borough. Today, navigation is exclusively for purposes of leisure: private and hire boats dominate traffic, while scheduled boat services operate on the Thames from wharves on the Reading side of the river near Caversham Bridge.

Road

Reading was a major staging point on the old Bath Road (A4) from London to Avonmouth, near Bristol. This road still carries local traffic, but has now been replaced for long-distance traffic by the M4 motorway, which closely skirts the borough and serves it with three junctions, J10-J12. Other main roads serving Reading include the A33, A327, A329, A4074 and A4155. Within Reading there is the Inner Distribution Road (IDR), a ring road for local traffic. The IDR is linked with the M4 by the A33 relief road. National Express Coaches run out of Mereoak Park and Ride, at Junction 11 of the M4. The Thames is crossed by both Reading and Caversham road bridges, while several road bridges cross the river Kennet, the oldest surviving one of which is High Bridge.

Rail

Reading is a major junction point of the National Rail system, and hence Reading station is an important transfer point and terminus. In a project that finished in 2015, Reading station was redeveloped at a cost of £850m, with grade separation of some conflicting traffic flows, and extra platforms, to relieve severe congestion at this station. Railway lines link Reading to both Paddington and Waterloo stations in London. Other stations in the Reading area are Reading West, Tilehurst and Earley. Reading Green Park railway station is planned on the Reading to Basingstoke Line to serve Green Park Business Park. Reading has recently joined the TfL Rail route, consequently appearing on the London Tube Map. When Crossrail (the Elizabeth Line) opens, Reading will become a part of London's new regional express railway. This is planned for 2022.

Air

There have been two airfields in or near Reading, one at Coley Park and one at Woodley, but they have both closed. The nearest airport is London Heathrow, 25 miles (40 km) away by road. An express bus service named RailAir links Reading with Heathrow, or the airport can be accessed by rail by taking the Paddington train and changing to the TfL Rail service at Hayes & Harlington. In addition, Birmingham Airport, Gatwick Airport and Southampton Airport can all be accessed via direct trains from Reading railway station.

Public transport

Today local public transport is largely by road, which is often affected by peak hour congestion in the borough. A frequent local bus network within the borough, and a less frequent network in the surrounding area, are provided by Reading Buses and its subsidiaries Newbury & District and Thames Valley Buses. Other bus operators serving Reading include Arriva Shires & Essex, Thames Travel and Oxford Bus Company. ReadiBus provides an on-demand transport service for people with restricted mobility in the area.

Bike sharing

In March 2011, Reading Borough Council approved a bike sharing scheme similar to London Cycle Hire Scheme, with 1,000 bicycles available at up to 150 docking stations across Reading. However this scheme came to an end in March 2019, with the operator unable to cover the operational costs or find a sponsor to do so.

Religion

St Mary's Church tower, chequered with flint and ashlar

Reading Minster, or the Minster Church of St Mary the Virgin as it is more properly known, is Reading's oldest ecclesiastical foundation, known to have been founded by the 9th century and possibly earlier. Although eclipsed in importance by the later Abbey, Reading Minster has regained its importance since the destruction of the Abbey.

Reading Abbey was founded by Henry I in 1121. He was buried there, as were parts of his daughter Empress Matilda, William of Poitiers, Constance of York, and Princess Isabella of Cornwall, among others. The abbey was one of the pilgrimage centres of medieval England; it held over 230 relics including the hand of St. James. Today all that remains of the abbey are the inner rubble cores of the walls of many of the major buildings of the abbey, together with a much restored inner gateway and the intact hospitium.

The mediaeval borough of Reading was served by three parish churches: Reading Minster, St Giles' Church, and St Laurence's Church. All are still in use by the Church of England. The Franciscan friars built a friary in the town in 1311. After the friars were expelled in 1538, the building was used as a hospital, a poorhouse, and a jail, before being restored as the Church of England parish church of Greyfriars Church in 1863.

The Bishop of Reading is a suffragan bishop within the Church of England's Diocese of Oxford. The bishop is based in Reading, and is responsible for the archdeaconry of Berkshire. There are a total of 18 Church of England parish churches in Reading.

Reading Town Hall and St Laurence's Church tower from the Market Place

St James's Church was built on a portion of the site of the abbey between 1837–40, and marked the return of the Roman Catholic faith to Reading. Reading was also the site of the death of Blessed Dominic Barberi, the Catholic missionary to England in the 19th century who received John Henry Newman into the Catholic faith. There are now a total of 8 Roman Catholic parish churches in Reading.

Reading has had an organised Jewish community since 1886. At least one Jewish family living in the area has been traced back as far as 1842. The group grew to 13 families, who in 1886 declared themselves a community and commenced building a synagogue. On 31 October 1900, Reading Hebrew Congregation officially opened in a solemn public ceremony, packed to capacity with dignitaries, led by the Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler. Reading Hebrew Congregation, which still stands on its original site at the junction of Goldsmid Road and Clifton Street near the town centre, is a Grade 2-listed historical structure, built to a traditional design in the Moorish style. The community is affiliated with the Orthodox United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. It continues to serve the community. In 2015, the Jewish Community of Berkshire (JCoB) was formed in order to continue such communal functions such as Jewish education for children (cheder) and Rabbinic Services for the region after Reading Hebrew Congregation downsized its workforce. JCoB now serves as the center of activity for younger Jews in the region. Reading also has a Liberal Jewish community which convenes in the Reading Quaker Meeting House an active Jewish Society for students at the university, as well as being served by a Reform Jewish community which convenes in nearby Maidenhead Synagogue.

There is presently one mosque, the Central Reading Mosque on Waylen Street. The £3–4m Abu Bakr Islamic Centre, on Oxford Road in West Reading, was granted planning permission in 2002. The community-funded project began construction in 2006, but, as of July 2008, had no estimated completion date. A second Islamic centre in eastern Reading has also been granted planning permission. This £4m project has garnered some controversy.

Reading also has places of worship of other religions, the Shantideva Mahayana Buddhist centre, a Hindu temple, a Sikh gurdwara, a Salvation Army citadel, a Quaker meeting house, and a Christadelphian Hall.

Town twinning

Reading is twinned with:

• Düsseldorf, Germany (since 1947, officially since 1988)
• Clonmel, Ireland (since 1994
• San Francisco Libre, Nicaragua (since 1994)
• Speightstown, Barbados (since 2003)

Reading is also a sister city of:

• Beruwala, Sri Lanka (since 2004)
• Reading, Pennsylvania

Economy

Reading International Business Park. This crescent of offices beside the A33 are home to Verizon, a telecommunications company. They were formerly the European headquarters of WorldCom before its demise

The front of the store on Broad Street

The central lake makes a virtue of the necessity of flood alleviation measures

Green Park wind turbine viewed from Lime Square

Reading is an important commercial centre in the Thames Valley and Southern England. The town hosts the headquarters of several British companies and the United Kingdom offices of foreign multinationals, as well as being a major retail centre. Whilst located close enough to London to be sometimes regarded as part of the London commuter belt, Reading is a net inward destination for commuters. During the morning peak period, there are some 30,000 inward arrivals in the town, compared to 24,000 departures. Major companies Microsoft, Oracle and Hibu (formerly Yell Group) have their headquarters in Reading. The insurance company Prudential has an administration centre in the town. PepsiCo and Wrigley have offices.

Global pharmaceutical giant, Bayer Life Sciences relocated to Reading's Green Park Business Park in 2016. Reading has a significant historical involvement in the information technology industry, largely as a result of the early presence in the town of sites of International Computers Limited and Digital Equipment Corporation. Other technology companies with a significant presence in the town include Huawei Technologies, Pegasystems, Access IS, CGI Inc, Agilent Technologies, Cisco, Ericsson, Symantec, Verizon Business, and Commvault. These companies are distributed around Reading or just outside the borough boundary, some in business parks including Thames Valley Park in nearby Earley, Green Park Business Park and Arlington Business Park.

Reading town centre is a major shopping centre. In 2007, an independent poll placed Reading 16th in a league table of best performing retail centres in the United Kingdom. The main shopping street is Broad Street, which runs between The Oracle in the east and Broad Street Mall in the west and was pedestrianised in 1995. The smaller Friars Walk in Friar Street is closed and will be demolished if the proposed Station Hill redevelopment project goes ahead. There are three major department stores in Reading: John Lewis & Partners (known as Heelas until 2001), Debenhams (now closed down), and House of Fraser. The Broad Street branch of bookseller Waterstone's is a conversion of a nonconformist chapel dating from 1707. Besides the two major shopping malls, Reading has three smaller shopping arcades, the Bristol and West Arcade, Harris Arcade and The Walk, which contain smaller specialist stores. An older form of retail facility is represented by Union Street, popularly known as Smelly Alley. Reading has no indoor market, but there is a street market in Hosier Street. A farmers' market operates on two Saturdays a month.

Sport

The Madejski Stadium, home of Reading Football Club

The Madejski Stadium as viewed from the stadium's north stand.

The Voco Reading Hotel, pictured when still known as the Millennium Madejski

The Reading Half Marathon 2004 climbing Russell Street in West Reading

Reading is the home of Reading Football Club, an association football club nicknamed The Royals, formed in 1871. Formerly nicknamed 'The Biscuitmen' and based at Elm Park, the club plays at the 24,161 capacity Madejski Stadium, named after chairman Sir John Madejski, and which opened in 1998. After winning the 2005–06 Football League Championship with a record of 106 points, Reading spent two seasons in the Premier League before being relegated to The Championship. For the 2012–2013 season, the club again competed in the Premier League, after securing first place in the Championship in the 2011–2012 season, but were relegated back down to the Championship at season's end. Reading Town Football Club, formed in 1966, played at Scours Lane and were playing in the Hellenic League Premier Division but were dissolved in 2016, while fellow non-league football club Reading City Football Club now play at Scours Lane after moving from Palmer Park Stadium at the end of the 2015–16 season. Scours Lane was also renamed to Rivermoor Stadium in 2016.

Reading is home to three senior semi-professional rugby clubs: Reading Abbey RFC, Rams RFC and Reading RFC. The Reading Rockets are the town's semi-professional basketball team. They compete in the second tier English Basketball League Division 1, though they have tried several times in recent years to move up to the top tier British Basketball League. They play home games at the Rivermead Leisure Complex, and are coached by Manuel Peña Garces. In 2016–17 the club embarked on an 18-game winning streak. The town hosts Australian Rules football team Reading Kangaroos and American football team Berkshire Renegades. Palmer Park Stadium has a velodrome and athletics track. It is used by Reading Athletic Club and the Berkshire Renegades for training. Reading Hockey Club enter teams in both the Men's and Women's England Hockey Leagues.

Rowing is pursued by the Reading Rowing Club and the Reading University Boat Club, both next to Caversham Bridge, whilst Reading Blue Coat School trains at Sonning adjacent to the Redgrave Pinsent Rowing Lake in Caversham, which provides training facilities for the Great Britain National Squad. However, almost all club rowing is done on the River Thames. The annual Reading Town Regatta takes place near Thames Valley Park, with the Reading Amateur Regatta taking place in June, usually two weeks before the Henley Royal Regatta. The town was home to a motorcycle speedway team, Reading Racers. Speedway came to Reading in 1968 at Tilehurst Stadium, until the team moved to Smallmead Stadium in Whitley, which was demolished at the end of 2008. The team is inactive pending the building of a new stadium, which was once hoped to be completed in 2012. The Reading Racers reformed in 2016 and joined the new Southern Developmental League upon its formation in 2017 winning its inaugural season undefeated. The team started back up in Eastbourne and currently races in Swindon awaiting return to a track in Reading.

The Reading Half Marathon is held on the streets of Reading in March of each year, with 16,000 competitors from elite to fun runners. It was first run in 1983 and has taken place in every subsequent year except 2001, when it was cancelled because of concerns over that year's outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, 2018, when it was cancelled on the morning of the race due to heavy overnight snowfall, and 2020, when it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The British Triathlon Association was formed at the town's former Mall health club on 11 December 1982. Britain's first ever triathlon took place just outside Reading at Kirtons's Farm in Pingewood in 1983 and was revived 10 years' later by Banana Leisure with one of the original organisers as Event Director. Thames Valley Triathletes, based in the town, is Britain's oldest triathlon club, having its origins in the 1984 event at nearby Heckfield, when a relay team raced under the name Reading Triathlon Club. The Hexagon theatre was home to snooker's Grand Prix tournament, one of the sport's ’Big Four’, from 1984 to 1994.

Education

Part of the University of Reading's main Whiteknights Campus

Entrance to the Museum

The rear garden, with the original East Thorpe House in the centre

Reading School, founded in 1125, is the 16th oldest school in England. There are six other state secondary schools and 38 state primary schools within the borough, together with a number of private and independent schools and nurseries. Alfred Sutton Boys' School closed in the mid-1980s. Reading College has provided further education in Reading since 1955, with over 8,500 local learners on over 900 courses. English language schools in Reading include Gateway Languages, the English Language Centre, ELC London Street and Eurospeak Language School.

The University of Reading was established in 1892 as an affiliate of Oxford University. It moved to its London Road Campus in 1904 and to its new Whiteknights Campus in 1947. It took over the Bulmershe College of Higher Education, a teacher training college, in 1989, becoming Bulmershe Court Campus. The Henley Management College, situated in Buckinghamshire and about 10 miles (16 km) from Reading, was taken over in 2008, becoming Greenlands Campus. The University of West London maintains a presence in the town for its higher education students, principally in nursing, but has now divested itself of its previous ownership of Reading College and its further education students.

Museums

The Reading Museum opened in 1883 in the town's municipal buildings. It contains galleries relating to the history of Reading and to the excavations of Calleva Atrebatum, together with a full-size replica of the Bayeux Tapestry, an art collection, and galleries relating to Huntley and Palmers. The Museum of English Rural Life, in East Reading, is a museum dedicated to recording the changing face of farming and the countryside in England. It houses designated collections of national importance. It is owned and run by the University of Reading, as are the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, the Cole Museum of Zoology and the Harris Botanic Gardens, all of which can be found on the university's Whiteknights Campus. The small Riverside Museum at Blake's Lock tells the story of Reading's two rivers, the river Kennet and the Thames. In the suburb of Woodley, the Museum of Berkshire Aviation has a collection of aircraft and other artefacts relating to the aircraft industry in the town.

Notable people

Images for kids

• 

  The Abbey Gateway, where Jane Austen went to school

• 

  The Royal Berkshire Hospital original frontage, built in 1839 with bath stone

• 

  The former hospitium

• 

  The interior of the ruined chapter house

See also

In Spanish: Reading para niños