Main Building of Reading General Station is a Grade II listed building in the Reading local planning authority area, England. First listed on 21 January 1976. Station building.
Main Building of Reading General Station
- WRENN ID
- sunken-spindle-autumn
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Reading
- Constituency
- Reading Central MP: Matt Rodda (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 21 January 1976
- Type
- Station building
- Address
- Main Building of Reading General Station, Station Hill
- OS grid reference
- SU 714 738
- Coordinates
- 51.45885, -0.97243
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The main building of Reading General Station, constructed between 1865 and 1867, was designed by Mr. Lane, the Chief Engineer of the Great Western Railway Company. This structure is an enlargement and remodelling of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's original station from around 1840 and features Italianate architectural details.
The building is two stories high and symmetrical, made of buff brick from Coalbrookdale with Bath stone dressings and rusticated quoins. It has ten bays in width, with a slight break in the centre four bays. The façade includes a frieze, a moulded cornice, and a blocking course, with the projecting centre featuring console brackets supporting the cornice and a solid pediment above the blocking course.
On the ground floor, the central break showcases a guilloche frieze and panelled pilasters with wreath caps flanking the windows and doorways. There are cornices on console brackets above the first-floor windows, with triangular and segmental pediments over those in the central break. A canopy extends across the ground floor, and the building has a hipped slate roof, although the chimneys have been removed.
A pleasant central cupola is present, featuring round-headed lights and bracket eaves leading to a pyramidal roof topped with a finial. The canopy also extends over ground floor extensions on both sides of the building, with approximately twelve bays to the left and seven to the right.
Local climate
Main Building of Reading General Station sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 730 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 80% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 73% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 34 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 53% of listed buildings. Of these, 14 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
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- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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