Summary
Formerly a monastic church for the Franciscan order who were given the site by Reading Abbey in 1285. The building served as the Guildhall for Reading and then a hospital and gaol from the C16 to the mid-C19 and was then converted back to a church from 1862 by the borough surveyor, William Woodman.
Reasons for Designation
Greyfriars Church, Reading is listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* the building retains the core of its structure as a rare Franciscan friary church, with arcades to either side of the nave, original tracery patterns and walls of knapped flint;
* subject to a sympathetic programme of restoration by the local architect William Woodman in the C19, showing a scholarly and archaeological approach to the work.
Historic interest:
* as the best-preserved Franciscan church in England which is still operating as a place of public worship;
* a building with a notably varied career; the subject of conversion in the period between the C16 and C19 to serve as the Reading Guildhall and then a hospital and town gaol, the building retained much of its essential fabric and was then restored to use as a church.
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. Reading’s position at the junction of the Thames and Kennet was crucial and it is possible that there was a river port here during the Roman occupation. The first mention of the town as a royal vill came in 870 due to a Viking camp, and by 1086 there was a thriving urban community, recorded in the Domesday Book. Reading Abbey was founded in 1121 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. By 1525 Reading was the largest town in Berkshire and the tenth largest in England when measured in taxable wealth due to its trade in wool and cloth.
The dissolution led to the monastic complex becoming a royal palace and by 1611 the town’s population had grown to over 5,000. A number of the timber-framed houses from this period survive in Castle Street and Market Place. The Civil War caused a defensive ring of earthworks to be built around the town and caused much damage.
During the C18, Reading became a prosperous market town and administrative centre, due to the development of the town’s waterways and road links. In 1723 the River Kennet was transformed into a canal, linking Reading to Newbury, further extended by the opening of the Kennet and Avon Canal in 1810, to create a route between Reading and the Bristol Channel. Turnpike roads were also improved, establishing major coaching routes from London to Oxford, the West Country and the southern coast. Iron works and brewing caused the expansion of the town further west along the Oxford and Bath Roads and in the older part of Reading, many older, timber-framed buildings were refaced in fashionable brick. A new town hall was built just northeast of the west end of Friary Street in 1786.
In the C19 the town expanded further; three separate railway companies ran routes through the town to London, causing a rapid increase in population (9,400 in 1801 to 21,500 in 1851 and over 70,000 by 1900) as well as the development of Reading’s famous Three B’s industries: beer (Simonds Brewery, 1785-2010), bulbs (Suttons Seeds, 1837-1974) and biscuits (Huntley and Palmers, 1822-1976). Growth during this period was characterised by the proliferation of brick terraces, made from the area’s fine clay deposits, and Hardy referred to Reading as ‘Aldbrickham’ in his novel Jude the Obscure. In 1869 the town was confirmed as the county town for Berkshire.
Today, Reading is one of the largest urban areas in the UK without city status. The town centre was considerably changed in 1969 when the Inner Distribution Road opened.
The Franciscan order arrived in Reading in 1233 and were initially given a poor site on which to build their church by Reading Abbey in boggy ground which was prone to seasonal flooding. In 1285 they acquired an adjacent piece of higher ground, including the site of the present church and bordering New Street (now Friar Street). The present church was apparently finished by 1311. It had a nave with aisles and a choir, but no transepts. It seems possible that there was a passageway running across the church at the junction of the nave and choir. A bell tower was added by the C16.
The friary was dissolved in 1538 and the site was granted to Henry VIII’s Groom of the Chamber, Robert Stanshawe. The king kept the church building and granted the nave to the town for use as a guildhall in 1542, but in 1578 the guildhall moved to the former Abbey Hospitium and the Greyfriars Church became a poor house or hospital. From 1614 to 1642 the building fulfilled both functions as a gaol and hospital. Royalist troops were billeted in the building in 1642-1643 but afterwards, the building continued as a gaol, although its dual function as a hospital had ceased. In the C18 and early C19, it was the town bridewell and contemporary prints show the nave without a roof and the functions of the prison and the gaoler’s house being carried out in a series of wooden huts or the converted fabric of the nave aisles, which were still roofed. The prints also show that the reticulated tracery of the west window was preserved despite the dilapidation. The nave roof was removed in 1780 as it had become unsafe and the structure of the original chancel was demolished in around 1808.
The medieval church ruins prompted antiquarian interest from the Berkshire Congress of the British Archaeological Society who visited the site in 1859 and also from Revd. William Whitmarsh Phelps, a former curate of St Laurence Church Reading and Vicar of Trinity Church, Reading, who petitioned for the building to be restored as a church and succeed in April 1862 in purchasing the site. Phelps was very active in raising funds for the work and appointed the Borough surveyor, William Woodman to produce a design. Woodman excavated to establish the eastern and northern extent of the church and discovered foundations on the north side. These were probably for cloister buildings but were interpreted as indicating a former transept, and so more land was bought and Woodman’s design included a transept on each side. It was not possible to buy land to the east and so the architect’s design for a planned choir and chancel could not be built. The arch between the nave and the intended east end was blocked up with bricks and survives in that state. A belfry with three bells was added above the chancel arch.
The building was completed by 1863 with the first organ added in 1864 and the reredos in memory of Revd Dr Barkworth in 1894. More recent work has included repairs to the roof in 1997. In 2000 a major campaign of repair work included the laying of a new floor, the removal of the C19 pews and the digging of a cross-shaped immersion font at the east end. The C19 font and pulpit of Caen stone were removed to the southern aisle and the western end. A reception area with book and coffee shops was added to the lower body of the church building at its west end and opened in November 2021.
Greyfriars is believed to be the best preserved English Franciscan church which is still in use as a place of public worship.
Details
Formerly a friary church for the Franciscan order, who were given this site by Reading Abbey in 1285. The building served as the guildhall for Reading and then a hospital and gaol from the C16 to the mid-C19 and was then converted back to a church from 1862 by the borough surveyor, William Woodman.
MATERIALS: flint walling with stone dressings and a plain tile roof.
PLAN: a nave of five bays with side aisles and two C19 transepts, each of two bays, with a C21 reception area at the western end with curved western walling.
EXTERIOR: window and door surrounds across the building are all of C19 date but appear to follow the original patterns. The south wall, facing Friar Street, has walling of squared flints with stone quoins. A plinth with chamfered ashlar top skirts the building. A doorway at the left has double plank doors and a surround with a series of hollow chamfers and hood mould with foliate end stops. To right there are two windows of three lights with traceried heads with reticulated tracery and segmental heads. The roof slope above has a series of five, small triangular lights with wooden tracery panels. The southern transept to the right of this has a central window to its gabled end of four lights with intersecting tracery to the head. The flanks of the transept have three-light windows with intersecting tracery to their heads.
The eastern end has the intended chancel arch at its centre, bricked up with red bricks which have been colour-washed. Around this arch, the walling is of red bricks, laid in header bond with flint walling beyond. In the gable is a circular window with stone surround, enclosing three quatrefoils and to the apex is the gabled bellcote with three cusped openings for the bells. At either side are pairs of three-light windows to light the transepts, set in flint walling and with interlacing tracery to their heads, as before.
The northern is similar to the southern side, but the walling is of knapped and not squared flints. C20 extensions have been placed against the lower walling and block the lower lights of the windows along this side which conform to the same pattern as those on the south of the building. The whole of this eastern wall was built in 1862, partially replacing earlier fabric at the centre which had become unsafe.
The western side has a central window of five lights with reticulated tracery to its head. This contains some original elements but, as with much of the tracery across the building, is of C19 date, but following the patterns seen in C18 and C19 prints of the building. At either side are buttresses with offsets. To the front of this side is a projecting, single-storey extension of 2021, housing a reception area with coffee and bookshops. This has plate glass windows of full height and at the centre is a portal with angled surround.
INTERIOR: the nave is flanked by aisle arcades of five bays of which the easternmost bay is shorter than the others. These have attached, semi-circular columns to each side with sharply-angled fillets set between. The bases have water-holding mouldings and bell capitals support a series of hollow-chamfered arches. Two columns still show evidence of the initials inscribed by inmates when the building was used as a prison. The roof structures of the nave and aisles are C19 and have ashlar posts, cusped wind braces and, to the nave and transepts, tie beams and king posts with arched braces.
C19 furnishings include the pulpit and font of Caen stone, the series of wall monuments and the elaborate wrought iron brackets of the late-C19 gasoliers which were converted to electroliers in 1930 and fitted with new suspended lights in the early C21. The reredos was designed by William Ravenscroft (see Sources: SM Gold). The organ in the north transept is a replacement fitted in 1888 with a case of 1894.
The area below the western window has been remodelled to accommodate a pair of double doors. The floor was raised in 2000 and is now of white ceramic tiles. At the eastern end beneath a raised platform is an immersion font of cruciform shape. Medieval floor tiles, which were found on site as the building was reinstated as a church, are displayed in a case on the northern wall and show images of hares, stags, dogs and geometrical patterns.
