Local History

St Laurence church from the Forbury

Reading Then and Now | Museum of Reading | Blagrave Street | Reading | until Sunday 14 June 2009

Reading: a bustling high-tech hub at the heart of the silicon valley.

The modern Oracle shopping centre looms over a high street full of chain stores. And glimmering new office buildings add to a blocky landscape of bricks and concrete.

Of course nearby is the M4.

With this in mind it's hard to imagine that some parts of the town show views unchanged in 200 years.

Yet you can see for yourself at an exhibition called Reading Then and Now, where 80 drawings and paintings from the Museum of Reading's collection are contrasted with photographs of the same views today.

"Many of the scenes are surprisingly unchanged," says Matthew Williams, senior curator at Reading Museum Service.

"That's something that would surprise people because we hear a lot about Reading changing and lots of new development, but actually there are some buildings that have been around for that 200 years and look almost the same as they did when the artist painted them."

Site of both Oracles

The Oracle

At the exhibition, set up with the help of the Reading Civic Society, a painting from 1840 (see above) shows a building long gone. But a small building to the right is instantly recognisable as one that today houses a tandoori restaurant on the corner of Gun Street, by the Oracle.

"What we've got here is the building that the Oracle shopping centre is named after," says Matthew of the 19th century picture.

"It was a poor house where people could go to work when they lost their jobs in the 17th century - it's the 17th century equivalent of the credit crunch.

"The building that is now a restaurant is still there so you can still ground this scene, even though that Oracle building is gone you can still tell where this was taken from."

Friar Street

A Friar Street scene in a 1938 watercolour looks from the Market Place past some of the historic Tudor timber buildings and past St Laurence church.

"It really does show how you can go over to one bit of town with the Oracle and it's all changed apart from one building," says Matthew, "and here we have another view and every single building is exactly how it was 60 or 70 years ago."

Broad Street

Another painting highlights how parts of Reading's townscape has changed beyond all recognition.

"There's one building here that if you didn't know, you couldn't place in Reading today," says Matthew.

He's referring to an 1899 watercolour of the Green Girls school - a charity school for poor girls in Reading. The picture shows some of the girls in uniform outside the school, which is an imposing building in the middle of Broad Street.

Senior curator Matthew Williams

"If you look at where this is today - it's Super Drug," exclaims Matthew, "and all the buildings are 1960s, 1980s buildings. There's not a single thing in that scene that you can compare to the modern scene."

The school was knocked down and later moved to Russell Street.

"Probably because this site was too important to have this school in the middle of Broad Street when you can have it for shops and commerce," says Matthew.

"Broad Street has always been the main shopping centre for Reading. It's the area that's probably changed the most because the needs of commerce and retail have really changed that area."

Market to manufacturing

The exhibition charts the development of Reading from a small country market town to a manufacturing centre.

Famous for the 3 Bs - beer, bulbs and biscuits, Reading biscuit factory Huntley & Palmer employed 5000 staff by 1900, making it the biggest biscuit factory in the world.

"Nineteenth century Reading really changes and it becomes the brick town we see today with the Victorian architecture, which you can still see all across the town, whether it's the terraced houses or the grand building like the Town Hall," says Matthew.

"In the 20th century the motorway arrives and Reading is still a prime location - on the M4 near to Heathrow near London.

"You can see the changes in the architecture and I think that's what you see in this exhibition, but you can still find things that date right back to the 18th century."

High Bridge, Duke Street - Photo (C) Clive Ormonde

Duke Street

A painting of High Bridge, the bridge in Duke Street, is a prime example.

"That's the original bridge from 1787," says Matthew, "and here's a picture of it today, exactly the same with the same building in the background."

He adds: "You get these juxtapositions of old and new and I think that's what makes Reading very special.

"If you're prepared to look above the shop fronts actually there is a lot of history out there, there's more than people realise and we hope this exhibition will show that."

Reading Civic Society, which helped set up the exhibition, are holding town centre walks on Sunday 1 March, Sunday 5 April and Sunday 3 May 2009.