13 Castle Street

Summary

House constructed during the C18 incorporating parts of an earlier, possibly C17 building. It is currently (2023) in use as offices.

Reasons for Designation

13 Castle Street, Reading listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a C18 building, incorporating building fabric of earlier origins, it contributes to the character of an architecturally varied historic streetscape.

Historic interest:

* as part of the urban development of Reading’s ancient core.

Group value:

* the building is in close proximity to a large number of listed buildings and forms part of a strong historic grouping.

History

The crossroads formed by the north-south route of St Mary’s Butts and Bridge Street and the east-west route of Gun Street and Castle Street is believed to be the centre of the original Saxon settlement at Reading, established sometime before the ninth century, with the lowest crossing point of the River Kennet lying a short distance away to the south. Reading was well-established by the time of the Norman Conquest, and the Domesday Book (1086) records six mills and a large estate in the town. St Mary’s Church, which lies on the north-east corner of the crossroads and was mostly rebuilt in 1551-1555, was the town’s primary church until the establishment of Reading Abbey in the C12 and became so again following the dissolution in the late 1530s.

Running west from the crossroads, Castle Street forms part of the ancient route through the town between London and the West Country, and the street historically contained many inns and guesthouses. As Reading expanded beyond its medieval limits during the C18 and C19, development spread further along Castle Street. Earlier buildings were gradually replaced with substantial townhouses and public buildings in brick or Bath Stone, although some timber-framed buildings of the C16 and C17 survive.

13 Castle Street is a former house now in use as offices. Its principal, north range was built in the early to mid-C18, incorporating an earlier house probably of the C17. To the rear of the Castle Street range is a three-storey, southward projection, which may be part of the original C17 or C18 building. A shopfront had been installed on the Castle Street frontage during the early C19, and since then the building has had a number of different uses including as the premises of a painter and decorator and a butcher’s shop (Berkshire Chronicle, 16 December 1843, p2; Reading Mercury, 23 August 1856, p6).

The building has been in use as offices since the later C20. The early-C19 shopfront was replaced with a modern replica during the 1970s, and sometime after 1988 a single-storey, flat-roofed extension was added to the rear of the property.

Details

House constructed during the C18 incorporating parts of an earlier, possibly C17 building. It is currently (2023) in use as offices.

MATERIALS: the building is constructed of vitrified, silver grey-brick with red-brick dressings, with a late-C20 timber and render shopfront, and rendered rear elevations, all under a roof covering of clay plain tiles.

PLAN: the building is laid out on a C-shaped plan comprising a principal, north range fronting Castle Street, a rear range extending southward along the eastern plot boundary, and a later, full-width extension to the south.

EXTERIOR: the building is of three storeys across three bays under a transverse pitched roof with three small hips projecting northward, one to each bay, and a three-storey rear range to the south under a pitched roof. The principal, north elevation has a replica historic shopfront of the 1970s, with bow windows on either side of a doorway with a six-panel door and radiating fanlight, and a pediment and cornice above supported on four pilasters with Soanian incisions set on either side of the bow windows. The first and second floors are finished in grey-brick headers with red-brick window surrounds linked by columns of red brick. Each floor carries three timber sash windows within timber surrounds set flush with the brickwork, those on the first floor having six-over-six glazing and those on the second floor having three-over-three glazing. Above the second-floor windows, a cornice has been removed leaving a narrow, brick string course below a short, coped brick parapet, with a hopper and drain on the east side. There are four, S-shaped iron pattress plates at the height of the first-floor window heads.

To the rear (south) is a three-storey range under a gabled roof containing a pitched-roof dormer facing westwards, with timber casement windows at first-floor level. Further south is a single-storey, flat-roofed extension of the late C20, spanning the width of the plot.

INTERIOR: the building is understood to have been remodelled internally but retains a historic staircase with turned balusters, ball finials and pendants to newels.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

38790

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Bradley, S, Tyack, G, The Buildings of England: Berkshire, (2010), p438-440, p471

Websites
Reading Borough Council, History of Reading (2012), accessed 28 September 2023 from https://web.archive.org/web/20120425235452/http:/www.reading.gov.uk/residents/history-of-reading/
Ditchfield, PH, Page, W, A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 3 (1923), pp.336-342, accessed 28 September 2023 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol3

Other
Berkshire Chronicle, 16 December 1843, p2
Reading Mercury, 23 August 1856, p6

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