Summary
A substantial townhouse, built in the early C19, converted to a school by 1848 and into flats by the 1970s.
Reasons for Designation
111 Castle Hill is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as an early-C19 building which contributes to the character of an architecturally varied historic streetscape.
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 through the town from London to the West Country. Today, the northern of these two roads is named Oxford Road, while the southern is named Castle Street/Castle Hill/Bath Road. Inns and some isolated dwellings probably 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 within grounds along Oxford Road about as far as the present-day location of Russell Street. More comprehensive development of the area began in the early C19 and progressed gradually over the next 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 also were 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.
111 Castle Hill was built in the early C19 during the westward expansion of Reading’s inner suburbs along Castle Street/Bath Road. Historically known as Marlborough House, it was built as a private residence and sales particulars for the house from 1842 describe ‘a substantially-erected residence of handsome elevation…containing adequate accommodation for a family of the first respectability, with coach-house, stabling, and other detached offices, lawn at the rear tastefully arranged, and sloping down to a branch of the river Kennet’ (Berkshire Chronicle, 28 May 1842, p2).
By 1848, the building was in use as a boys’ preparatory school and appears to have remained in educational use into the early C20, by which time it was renamed Castle Hill Academy and accepted a wider age range (Reading Observer, 14 September 1907, p1). The school was a forerunner of Crosfields School in Reading. The building had been converted to flats by the 1970s (Reading Evening Post, 29 November 1975, p11) and remains as such today.
The overall form of the house appears to have changed very little since construction and had been established by 1879 at the very latest. The original extensive rear garden was curtailed on two occasions: firstly around 1900 when workers’ terraces were constructed along the newly laid-out Field Road, and then in the late 1940s or 1950s when a small car park and garages were built immediately south of the house on Field Road.
Details
Substantial townhouse, built in the early C19, converted to a school by 1848 and to flats by the 1970s.
MATERIALS: the principal northern elevation and western elevation onto Field Road and stuccoed while the rear (southern) elevation is of painted brick. The roof covering appears to be lead.
PLAN: the building has a square plan with two full-height projections on the rear elevation comprising a bow window across the western half of the elevation and an angled bay window across the eastern half, and a two-storey projection in the centre of the western elevation.
EXTERIOR: the house is of neoclassical design and is of three storeys plus basement across three bays, under a hipped roof. On the principal, Castle Hill elevation, the raised ground floor and upper part of the basement are of smooth rusticated stucco while the first and second floors and the entirety of the western elevation are smooth rendered. The main entrance sits centrally in the principal elevation and comprises a six-panelled door with plain fanlight above, under a simplified Doric porch with pairs of fluted columns and pilasters, accessed via a steep flight of stone steps with no handrail. There are two pairs of windows placed symmetrically on either side of the doorway, consisting of a six-over-six sash window with margin glazing and a smaller opening with modern casement adjacent to the door. The basement contains two modern casements under stucco keystones matching those on the raised ground floor. The first and second floors have three sash windows each, and two small modern casement windows to the left (west) of the central windows, probably later additions. Above the second-floor windows is a parapet with cornice.
The west elevation onto Field Road is smooth rendered with a line of painted brick dentils just visible below the eaves. There are six windows, a combination of sashes and casements, placed irregularly across the ground, first and second floors. The central second-floor window is a round-arched sash with arched glazing to the top frame.
The rear (south) elevation comprises a full-height bow to the left (west) and a full-height canted bay to the right (east). There are large modern casement windows at ground, first and second floors of both projections.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: along the western boundary of the house is a Victorian brick wall laid in Flemish garden wall bond.
