Summary
A house, rebuilt in the 1850s, with a possible earlier core.
Reasons for Designation
113 Castle Hill, Reading, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a mid-C19 building, with a possible earlier core, which contributes to the character of an architecturally varied historic streetscape.
Historic interest:
* as part of the historic urban development of Reading.
Group value:
* the building is in close proximity to a large number of listed buildings and forms part of a strong historic grouping.
History
Until the C19, most of the land west of Reading town centre was open farmland crossed by two ancient routes passing from London to the West Country. Today, the northern of these is named Oxford Road, while the southern is Castle Street, Castle Hill and Bath Road. Inns and isolated dwellings likely existed on these roads before the C18. Fortifications were built throughout the area by Royalist forces garrisoned in the town during the Civil War with some of the earthworks surviving into the early C19.
From the early C18, development slowly began to spread westward along Castle Hill/Bath Road and Oxford Road. John Rocque’s Map of Berkshire (1761) depicts ribbon development along Castle Hill/Bath Road extending as far as the junction with Tilehurst Road, and individual houses along Oxford Road roughly as far as the present-day Russell Street. More comprehensive development of the area began in the early C19 and progressed gradually over the following 100 years. Development spread further along Castle Street/Castle Hill, with some of the earlier buildings depicted on Rocque’s map seemingly replaced. North-south link roads were also laid out across the market gardens that previously existed between Oxford Road and Bath Road. Terraced housing was erected in considerable quantities during the first half of the century to cater for a variety of social groups.
113 Castle Hill was built in the late 1850s, possibly incorporating the remains of an earlier house on the site. Historically known as Burlton House, the house is recorded as having been considerably enlarged shortly before 1861 by the owner, Mrs Eliza Ratcliffe, who ran a boarding school for girls there. Ratcliffe was a signatory – the only one from Berkshire – of the first female suffrage mass petition to Parliament in 1866 presented by John Stuart Mill. The enlarged house was set within considerable grounds and had a large, square rear projection along the western boundary of the plot. The Italianate design of the principal (north) façade is probably indicative of the house as rebuilt at this time.
In around 1900, the house was partly demolished to allow for the laying out of Field Lane immediately to the east. This was accompanied by some alterations internally and externally – a contemporary newspaper describes the house as a ‘charming new residence’ which was still occupied by the Ratcliffe family. The house was extended to the rear (south), taking up much of its curtailed rear garden. It appears to have ceased operation as a boarding school shortly thereafter and by 1905 it had been sold for use as a private residence.
By 1931, the rear extension had been partly demolished to make way for the present single-storey neo-Georgian building at 1 Field Road. By the early 1960s, 113 Castle Hill, along with this adjacent building housed Berkshire’s trading standards office. A mansard roof with dormers was added to the rear elevation of the house in around 1987.
Details
House, rebuilt in the 1850s, with possible earlier core.
MATERIALS: stuccoed with stone dressings and a roof covering of slate with two, tile-hung mansard roof dormers with timber-clad inner cheeks to the rear roof slope.
PLAN AND EXTERIOR: three storeys plus basement across two bays, the easternmost of which is very wide. The principal elevation onto Castle Hill is of an Italianate design in stucco, with four, channelled, Giant Order Tuscan pilasters rising through the ground and first floors to an entablature containing floral bosses in a frieze. The pilasters rise through an intermediate cornice between the ground- and first-floor levels. The easternmost pilaster sits at the corner of the house and returns onto the eastern elevation along with the entablature above.
The main entrance is in the western bay of the principal elevation and comprises a large moulded doorcase with a bracketed hood accessed via a flight of stone steps with modern rendered walls. To the left (east) is a round-arched sash window set within a moulded surround with rusticated keystone and bracketed sill. The first and second floors each contain two sash windows with margin glazing, with those on the second floor being smaller and having moulded sills. Between the first- and second-floor windows are ornamental panels.
The eastern elevation facing onto Field Road is smooth rendered and contains two margin-glazed sashes within moulded surrounds on the ground floor and stair landing. At basement level, the render is scored to imitate ashlar and contains a window of mid-C20 glass blocks to light the basement. The base of the wall and part of the pavement is tiled with modern tiles. There is a tall rendered link wall between the house and 1 Field Road.
The rear (southern) elevation, partially visible from the street, is smooth rendered and rises through two storeys plus a mansard roof. The first floor contains two six-over-six sash windows, immediately above which runs a line of brick dentils indicating the former eaves height prior to the addition of the mansard roof.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURE: a rendered and scored wall runs between the rear of the property and the neo-Georgian building to the south (Marven House). This wall is approximately 2-3m in height and contains a doorway with steps leading up to it from Field Road. In front of this wall, bordering Field Road, is a lower, rendered boundary wall.
