Main Building At Reading School

The main building at Reading School, constructed between 1865 and 1871, was designed by Alfred Waterhouse in a Gothic style characterized by rigorous symmetry, except for an octagonal turret with a pyramidal roof located to the right of the central hall. The building is two storeys high with attics, made of red brick featuring blue brick decoration. It has a gabled tiled roof with fishscale bands and vents, which add interest to the skyline, along with chimneys that have three shafts at joined capping and tumbled brickwork.

The terracotta window dressings and details include a diaper panel at the first-floor cill. The hall features eight bays with two stages of pointed geometric tracery windows and dividing buttresses, a corbelled cornice, and a central vent. The turret projects from the north-west corner and has arched louvred openings at the belfry stage. The entrance is located in the two central bays, featuring corbelled arches of three orders and decorative wrought and cast iron gates with wrought iron tympana, leading to a quadrangle known as the "Cloister" at the rear.

The east and west wings each have central and end gables, along with additional minor gables arranged in reflected symmetry. Each wing has roughly eleven bays, with plate glass sash windows on the first floor and plate tracery windows on the ground floor. Entrances are positioned in the fifth bay and in recessed corners to the north-west and north-east. The rear elevation is equally symmetrical, with projecting double gable wings on the sides. The "Cloisters" and associated buildings, likely designed by Charles Smith in the 1880s, feature polydrome brickwork. A boiler house chimney rises from the south-east corner of a building with an apsed south end.

The interiors of the main block retain many original fittings, including a marble pillar in the "Cloisters," where the foundation stone was laid by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales on January 1, 1870. The school has a long and distinguished history, having been re-endowed by Henry VII in 1488, and notable figures such as Archbishop Laud were educated here.