Greyfriars Church

Greyfriars Church

This building was originally a friary church of the Franciscan order, founded when the site was granted by Reading Abbey in 1285. From the 16th century onward it served the town in secular roles as guildhall, hospital and gaol until the mid-19th century, when it was converted back to a church from 1862 by the borough surveyor William Woodman. The structure is constructed of flint walling with stone dressings and a plain tile roof.

The plan consists of a nave of five bays with side aisles, two 19th-century transepts each of two bays, and a 21st-century reception area at the western end with curved western walling.

The southern exterior wall facing Friar Street displays squared flints with stone quoins. A plinth with chamfered ashlar top runs around the building. A doorway on the left has double plank doors with a surround featuring a series of hollow chamfers and a hood mould with foliate end stops. To the right are two three-light windows with traceried heads showing reticulated tracery and segmental heads. Above the roof slope are five small triangular lights with wooden tracery panels. The southern transept contains a central window of four lights with intersecting tracery in its gabled end, flanked by three-light windows with intersecting tracery to their heads.

The eastern end has a bricked-up chancel arch at its centre, executed in red bricks laid in header bond, colour-washed. Beyond this the walling is of flint. The gable contains a circular window with stone surround enclosing three quatrefoils. At the apex stands a gabled bellcote with three cusped openings for the bells. On either side are pairs of three-light windows lighting the transepts, set in flint walling with interlacing tracery to their heads. This entire eastern wall was constructed in 1862, partially replacing earlier unsafe fabric at the centre.

The northern side is similar to the southern but uses knapped rather than squared flints. 20th-century extensions against the lower walling obscure the lower lights of windows conforming to the same pattern as those on the south.

The western side has a central window of five lights with reticulated tracery to its head. This contains some original elements but, like much of the tracery across the building, is of 19th-century date following patterns seen in 18th and 19th-century prints of the building. Buttresses with offsets flank this window. A projecting single-storey extension of 2021 houses a reception area with coffee and bookshop, featuring full-height plate glass windows and a central portal with angled surround.

The interior nave is flanked by aisle arcades of five bays, the easternmost being shorter than the others. These have attached semi-circular columns to each side with sharply-angled fillets set between. The bases display water-holding mouldings and bell capitals support a series of hollow-chamfered arches. Two columns retain inscriptions of initials carved by inmates during the building's use as a prison. The roof structures of the nave and aisles are 19th-century, constructed with ashlar posts, cusped wind braces, and tie beams with king posts and arched braces to the nave and transepts.

19th-century furnishings include a pulpit and font of Caen stone, a series of wall monuments, and elaborate wrought-iron brackets from late-19th-century gasoliers, which were converted to electroliers in 1930 and fitted with new suspended lights in the early 21st century. The reredos was designed by William Ravenscroft. The organ in the north transept is a replacement fitted in 1888, with a case dated 1894.

The area below the western window has been remodelled to accommodate a pair of double doors. The floor was raised in 2000 and now consists of white ceramic tiles. At the eastern end beneath a raised platform is a cruciform immersion font. Medieval floor tiles discovered during the building's reinstatement as a church are displayed in a case on the northern wall, showing images of hares, stags, dogs and geometrical patterns.