Reading Abbey Timeline

• 870-871   Viking army encampment – first record of Reading as a Royal town

• 1086   Royal borough recorded around the Saxon minster church of St Mary

• 1121   Reading Abbey founded by King Henry I, endowed with land across Britain and religious relics, chiefly the hand of St James the Apostle

• 1125   Secular functions of the Abbey include the embryo Reading School

• 1136   Henry I buried in front of the High Altar

• 1164   Abbey church consecrated by Archbishop Thomas Becket in the presence of Henry II

• 1185   Henry II receives Heraclius, patriarch of Jerusalem at the Abbey

• About 1240   ‘Sumer is icumen in’, the earliest known English round written down

• 1254   Royal charter given to the town

• 1359   Marriage of John Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster at the Abbey. Their son was Henry IV, first Lancastrian King of England

• 1453   Parliament summoned to meet at Reading by Henry VI

• 1464   Edward IV publicly announces Elizabeth Woodville as his Queen after they secretly marry

• 1485   Grammar School established by Henry VII in the Refectory of the Hospitium

• 1486   Grammar School is reconstituted in the name of King Henry VII

• 1539   Dissolution of Abbey by Henry VIII – Abbot Hugh Cook Faringdon executed for treason

• 1557   St Laurence churchyard created

• 1560   Charter from Elizabeth I, a frequent visitor to Reading staying in her royal residence within the former Abbot’s Lodgings

• 1578   Town Hall moves into the Hospitium’s refectory, probably in a chamber above the school

• 1643   Siege of Reading – earthwork defences built around Reading

• 1688   ‘The Reading Fight’ – troops of James II and William III clash in the town’s streets, the only bloodshed of the Glorious Revolution

• 1720   A mob led by Mayor Robert Blake (Blake’s Cottages commemorates his wharf) destroys canal works on the Kennet Navigation, fearing loss of trade

• 1776   First antiquarian survey of Abbey Ruins

• 1785   Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra attend school in Abbey Gateway

• 1786   Reading Corporation moves from the Hospitium Refectory to the newly opened Georgian Town Hall built next to it. Reading School moves from the Hospitium Refectory to new school building in The Forbury. House of Correction built in the Forbury.

• 1791   St Laurence’s churchyard enlarged

• 1793   Enlarged County Gaol opens in the Forbury

• 1804   Simeon Monument designed by John Soane, a native of Reading

• 1810   Kennet & Avon Canal opens

• 1833   Abbey South Transept and Chapter House purchased by public subscription

• 1837   Suttons’s Seeds opens their premises in Market Place

• 1837-1840   St James Roman Catholic church designed by A.W.N. Pugin

• 1840   Brunel’s Great Western Railway arrives in Reading

• 1841   Huntley & Palmers, world’s biggest biscuit factory opens

• 1842-1844   County Gaol rebuilt by Scott and Moffat

• 1856   Public Pleasure Gardens laid out in the east part of the Forbury

• 1861-1862   Sir George Gilbert Scott restores the Abbey’s Inner Gateway after its collapse

• 1871   After seven centuries in the Abbey precinct a new site for Reading School is opened in Erleigh Road

• 1875   Town Hall designed by local resident Alfred Waterhouse

• 1883   Reading Museum opens to the public

• 1886   Maiwand Lion memorial unveiled

• 1897   Oscar Wilde leaves Reading Gaol

• 1911   Berkshire’s Shire Hall opens

• 1915   Abbey becomes a Scheduled Ancient Monument

• 1932   World War Memorial unveiled

• 1943   Air raid damages Town Hall and St Laurence’s church, killing 41 people

• 1962   Sutton’s Seeds vacates town centre site and Prudential develop offices on the site

• 2006   Forbury Gardens restored with Heritage Lottery Fund support

• 2007   Simeon Monument and Market Place restored

• 2013   Reading Prison closes