37 and 39 London Street

Summary

Pair of townhouses, built in the mid- to late C18, with number 39 incorporating part of an earlier building. The ground floor was converted to commercial use during the early C19 and subsequently rebuilt during the late C20. The upper floors were converted to office use during the late C20.

Reasons for Designation

37 and 39 London Street are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

*     as a pair of mid- to late-C18 buildings with earlier origins that contribute 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 buildings are in close proximity to a large number of listed buildings and form part of a strong historic grouping.

History

The first written record of Reading dates from the ninth century when the name seems to have referred to a tribe, called Reada’s people. It is possible that there was a river port here during the Roman occupation, and by 1086 there was a thriving urban community, recorded in the Domesday Book. The early Anglo-Saxon settlement is believed to have been located in the Castle Street and St Mary’s area, which has St Mary’s Minster at its heart.

Reading Abbey was founded in 1121 on a site to the north-east of the core of the Saxon town and this transformed Reading into a place of pilgrimage as well as an important trading and ecclesiastical centre with one of the biggest and richest monasteries in England.

A new bridge over the River Kennet had been built by 1186 and London Street was laid out with plots of land as part of the Abbot of Reading Abbey’s urban planning vision. The aim was to divert trade and traffic to the new marketplace at the gates of the Abbey. The transition from the old marketplace at St Mary's Butts was at first resisted by the merchants of Reading but the move was complete by the C14. The dissolution of the Abbey led to the monastic complex becoming a royal palace and by 1611 the town’s population had grown to over 5,000 as a result of its cloth trade John Speed’s map shows that by 1611, both sides of London Street had been developed with continuous frontages for a considerable distance southward, beyond the modern junction with Crown Street-London Road, with long gardens, outhouses and fields beyond. Several buildings which predate Speed’s map survive on London Street, some concealed behind later, brick façades. Following significant upheaval during the Civil War, the town flourished during the C18 and C19, and the survival of many fine Georgian and Victorian buildings which characterise London Street testifies to the prosperity of the street during this period.

37 and 39 London Street are a pair of townhouses that were constructed during the mid- to late C18. Number 39 appears to incorporate part of an earlier building, with a series of timber studs visible in the through passage at the southern end of the London Street elevation. The buildings are the subject of very early photographs taken in around 1845 by the pioneer of photography, Henry Fox Talbot, who carried out photographic experiments in Reading during the 1840s. At that time, number 37 remained a private dwelling, while the ground floor of number 39 had been converted to commercial use and was the location of a bookshop named Lovejoy’s Library. Lovejoy’s remained at number 39 until the 1890s and has remained in use as a bookshop ever since under various owners. By 1895, Lovejoy’s had expanded into the ground floor of number 37. Sometime during the later C20, the ground floors of numbers 35, 37 and 39 were combined to form a single shop. Large extensions were added to the rear of numbers 37 and 39 during the late C20, filling the entire building plot and replacing earlier rear extensions.

Details

Pair of townhouses, built in the mid- to late C18, with number 39 incorporating part of an earlier building. The ground floor was converted to commercial use during the early C19 and subsequently rebuilt during the late C20. The upper floors were converted to office use during the late C20.

MATERIALS: number 37 is of red brick with a plain tile roof, while number 39 is of silver-grey brick with red brick dressings with a plain tile roof. The two buildings share a late-C20 shopfront with brown brick stall risers and timber-framed glazing.

EXTERIOR: number 37 is of three storeys across three bays onto London Street, under a pitched roof with a hipped roof to the rear range to the east. The building shares a ground-floor shopfront of around the 1960s with number 35 to the north and number 39 to the south. The first and second floors are of red brick laid in header bond. Each of the upper floors has three, six-over-six, timber sash windows recessed into the brickwork, with segmental-arched heads. Between the two floors is a brick plat band and above the second-floor windows is a painted, dentil cornice, possibly of stucco. Above the cornice is a stone-coped, brick parapet. At the northern end of the elevation is a historic cast iron downpipe and hopper. There are three, square, metal pattress plates, one on the first floor and two on the second floor. The rear elevation of the C18 front range is largely concealed by the later extension. There appears to be a hipped dormer to the northern half of the elevation. A brick chimney stack rises through the ridge of the rear range. The late-C20 extension to the rear (east) fills the entire building plot. It is single-storey and has a green roof.

Number 39 is also of three storeys across three bays, with a late-C20 shopfront contiguous with number 37, and three timber sash windows on the first and second floors with a brick string in between and a painted, dentil cornice and brick parapet above. In contrast to number 37, the upper floors are of silver grey brick with red brick window dressings and columns of red brickwork up each side of the elevation. The window heads are flat arches in gauged brickwork. The first-floor windows have six-over-six glazing while on the second floor, the two outer windows have three-over-six glazing and the central window has three-over-nine glazing. The building has an unusual roof form, with three parallel pitches orientated north-south, forming two valleys, with hipped elements at either end of the two valleys. The easternmost roof slope continues down to the first floor and has a hipped-roof dormer. To the rear (east) is a long, three-storey, C20 extension which is rendered externally and has a flat roof. Attached to the east is a single-storey, brick building with a slate roof, possibly of the late C19 or early C20.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

39028

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Bradley, S, Tyack, G, The Buildings of England: Berkshire, (2010), pp438-440.

Websites
Ditchfield, PH, Page, W, A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 3 (1923), pp336-342, accessed 4 September 2023 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol3
Reading Borough Council, History of Reading (2012), accessed 4 September 2023 from https://web.archive.org/web/20120425235452/http:/www.reading.gov.uk/

Other
Reading Borough Council, ‘Huntley & Palmers Audio Trail: Market Place and London Street’. Available at: https://www.reading.gov.uk/planning-and-building-control/heritage-and-conservation/readings-high-street-heritage-action-zone/community-engagement/reading-audio-trails/huntley-palmers-audio-trail-market-place-and-london-street/

End of official list entry

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