Reading Gaol (main building) former Her Majesty's Prison

This county gaol was built between 1842 and 1844 by George Gilbert Scott and William Boynthon Moffatt. It underwent major alterations around 1970.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed of red brick with Bath stone dressings, though most of the stone has now been replaced with concrete. The roofs were originally slate but have been replaced with asbestos tiles.

Original Layout and Subsequent Demolition

The main prison building originally stood within a square enclosure of approximately three acres, surrounded by a high boundary wall with octagonal corner towers. On the north side was a large, multi-towered gatehouse complex providing accommodation for resident staff including the governor, deputy governors, warders, matron and chaplain, as well as providing additional security. Against the north wall and alongside the gatehouse was a block containing the women's cells.

All these structures were demolished around 1970, leaving only the cruciform main building standing today.

The Main Building: Plan and Original Function

The surviving building comprises four wings, designated A to D, which converge on a central semi-octagon.

The upper three floors of A, B and C wings contained the male felons' cells. Originally there were twelve cells on each floor in B wing and twenty-five in the longer A and C wings. Prisoners on the upper two floors accessed their cells via galleries connecting through the central octagon.

The basement beneath A wing originally contained the prison kitchens and, in a sealed-off area to the west accessed via a tunnel leading outside the prison wall, a munitions store for the Berkshire militia. This latter space was absorbed into the prison proper in 1878 and was last used as the prison hospital. The basement under B wing contained baths, punishment cells, a knife room and an officers' cleansing room.

D wing was aligned with the old gatehouse and formed the entrance to the main building. The ground floor and basement contained the debtors' cells: first-class debtors on the ground floor opposite the governor's office and visiting rooms, second-class debtors in the basement along with the reception cells and coal store. The first and second floors contained the chaplain's and schoolmaster's offices, a room from which the governor could oversee activity in the central octagon, and—rising through both floors in the centre of the wing—the prison chapel. Executions took place on a scaffold built against the eastern side of the wing.

1970s Alterations and Exclusions

As well as the rebuilding of the perimeter walls, the works of around 1970 saw the construction of a number of new buildings within the old prison yards. These are plain red-brick structures of one and two storeys, and include: a new gatehouse at the north-west corner of the site; an administration block with visiting and interview rooms, abutting D wing to the north; and, in the angle between A and B wings, an education and training building which now also contains the prison chapel and kitchens. In the angle between B and C wings is a former workshop of around 1910, a single-storey brick building with a part-glazed roof. These structures and the rebuilt perimeter wall that encloses them are not of special interest and are excluded from the listing.

External Appearance

Scott and Moffatt's design displays the Tudor-Gothic details employed in their workhouse and hospital designs, here combined with castellated elements—battlements to the entrance block and central octagon, machicolations under the eaves throughout—intended to give a fortress-like aspect. The visual inspiration for the design, which was much criticised for its elaboration and expense, is said to have been Warwick Castle.

The alterations of around 1970 greatly changed the building's external appearance: the original two-light cell windows were replaced with single square openings containing barred double-glazed window units, and most of the stone-dressed elements were replaced in concrete. An unaltered original cell window survives in the basement of D wing.

D Wing Exterior

D wing is the main focus for architectural display. The projecting frontispiece at the northern end is fully crenellated and features tall ridged and corbelled chimney stacks, diapered brickwork and mullion-and-transom windows. The ground-floor entrance doorway has been lost, absorbed into a single-storey addition of around 1970.

The wing behind is dominated by the tall chapel windows with their simple Gothic tracery. Beneath these, on the western side, are more mullion-and-transom windows, originally serving the administrative offices. On the eastern side are the smaller pointed windows of the debtors' cells. In the centre is a larger archway, now bricked up, through which condemned prisoners were led out onto the scaffold.

A, B and C Wings Exterior

A, B and C wings have pitched roofs over the central galleried section and flat roofs over the cell blocks on either side. The latter have the square concrete-framed windows installed around 1970. The pitched-roof sections terminate in gabled projections with very tall mullion-and-transom windows—now of concrete replacing the original stone—which are the main source of light to the internal galleries. There is a similar window, likewise renewed, where each wing abuts the octagonal hub. Here the cell blocks terminate in quadrants to allow light to penetrate the central space.

The octagon itself has a crenellated parapet and a tall central turret, also crenellated, which forms the main stack for the plenum ventilation system.

Interior

The interiors have been much altered, with original features removed and a variety of modern fittings and finishes applied.

The original cells with their jack-arched brick vaults mostly survive, but in the majority of cases they have been doubled up by removing the wall between each pair. The Tudor-arched entrance doorways now have flat concrete lintels and renewed doors.

The metal gallery structures with their curved supporting brackets and cross-braced balustrades are original. The ceiling over the galleries is a pointed brick vault, while the central octagon has a brick vault with moulded stone ribs and corbels, and lozenge-shaped ceiling lights cut through the webs of the vault. Air extracted from vents in the cells originally passed through the space above the vaults and out through the plenum tower.

Suspended at first-floor level within the octagon was a glazed Gothic pavilion structure from which prison staff could keep watch on movements in A, B and C wings and, via the tall side windows, in the prison yard outside. This pavilion has been replaced with a modern prefabricated cabin.

In the basement under A wing, the layout of the former munitions store is still legible, despite the inserted ceiling and the demolition of the access tunnel. Beneath B wing some original cells survive, including high-security 'punishment' cells for the confinement of violent inmates.

The Chapel

The chapel, later used as a games room, is a double-height space with an arch-braced queen-strut roof and central skylight. It originally contained a multi-tiered timber gallery structure that allowed each prisoner to observe the service from within an enclosed box. This arrangement, designed to minimise contact between prisoners in accordance with the 'separate system', can still be seen at Lincoln Castle but has been completely lost at Reading along with all other fittings and decoration.

Elsewhere in D wing the layout of the offices survives, as do some of the debtors' cells.