Reading Town Hall

Reading Town Hall is a group of municipal buildings constructed between 1785 and 1897, with later 20th and 21st century additions. The complex includes the Town Hall, two concert halls, a museum, and register office. It originally also housed the library and art college, together with office space. The buildings were designed by Charles Poulton in 1785–1786, Alfred Waterhouse in 1871–1872, Thomas Lainson in 1879–1882, and John James Cooper with William Roland Howell in 1896–1897. Restoration and additions were carried out by Architects Design Partnership in 1988–1989, 1993, and 2000. The complex incorporates the Victoria Hall (formerly Small Town Hall) of 1785–1786, designed by Charles Poulton and remodelled in 1863 by W.H. Woodman.

Materials

The Waterhouse building uses blue-grey bricks laid in English bond with rubbed brick dressings and a tiled roof. The Lainson block to its north follows a similar Gothic revival style but employs darker grey bricks with red brick and Corsehill sandstone dressings. The later art gallery by Cooper and Howell combines both types of blue-grey brick.

Plan and General Arrangement

The building extends from the junction of Friar Street, Blagrave Street, and Market Place at its southern end to the junction of Blagrave Street and Valpy Street at the north. It has three storeys plus attic dormers set within steeply-sloping roofs, and a basement. A clock tower faces Blagrave Street, with two towers of lesser height facing towards Market Place and Valpy Street.

Exterior

The building is predominantly of grey or blue brick with red brick, moulded brick, terracotta, and sandstone dressings. The Cooper and Howell building of 1896–1897 features a deep panel of terracotta ornament below the second-floor windows. Floor heights increase as the building rises, with greater elaboration to the upper window surrounds. Red brick string courses run around all parts of the 19th century building.

The Waterhouse building turns the corner between Market Place and Blagrave Street by means of a wide quadrant with four bays divided by triangular buttresses. Each window has two lights divided by a mullion, with transoms to the upper, taller windows. The lowest rank of windows has paired lancets placed below segmental relieving arches. The first-floor windows have Caernarfon heads to the lights. A band of moulded brick ornament runs between the first and second floors, and at the top of the wall is a projecting parapet with cusped openings. The buttresses are capped by square finials with pyramidal tops.

To the east of this quadrant stands a tower, largely rebuilt in 1989–1999 following the original pattern but enriched. It has a doorway to the ground floor with a pointed relieving arch. Above is a recessed panel with two ranks of triple lancets. The top stage, which rises above the parapet level, has bartizans to its corners and a central roundel of moulded brick bearing the 20th century arms of the town. A further bay to its right is also rebuilt and similar to those on the quadrant.

Facing Blagrave Street is the clock tower, which has a portal at ground-floor level with a wrought iron screen bearing the words 'THE / TOWN HALL'. Roundels at either side show the date '18 / 75'. Above this, the first floor has three lancets under a conjoined hood mould, above which is a brick panel with two ranks of triple lancets. The upper stage of the tower has bartizans to the corners capped by spirelets. The circular clock face has a moulded surround and above it is a miniature arcade of belfry openings. The steeply-pitched roof terminates in a lead finial and wrought iron weather vane.

To the north of the tower, the former Council Chamber (now known as the Waterhouse Chamber) is placed at first-floor level. It has ground-floor windows as seen on the quadrant, but the chamber windows above rise through two floors and consist of four windows, each of two lights with a central mullion and two transoms. The tympana above the window heads and below the relieving arches have a chequerboard pattern of red and grey bricks. The left pair of windows step forward slightly and are set beneath a gable which shows the arms of Reading in a roundel.

The Lainson range, which adjoins to the north of the Blagrave Street frontage, follows the general pattern of the Waterhouse design in its Gothic revival style and materials and some of the details, but is more uniform in its treatment. The pattern for six of the bays along this front—clustered in groups of four to the right of an entrance portal and two to the left—is similar to the Waterhouse quadrant in having paired lights with lancet heads to the ground-floor windows and Caernarfon heads at first-floor level. The second-floor windows have plate tracery with paired lancets and a roundel to the apex of their relieving arch. Bays are divided by triangular buttresses, as before, with square finials and a miniature arcade to the parapet.

The portal is placed in a projecting gabled wing at right of centre. This has an elaborately-moulded arch with colonettes to the responds and stiff-leaf capitals. Octagonal corner buttresses flank this bay and there is a canted oriel at second-floor level with a richly-moulded support. To the left of this range is a projecting wing with polygonal corner buttress and three bays divided by stepped buttresses. Windows for these museum rooms rise through both ground and first floors. Second-floor windows have moulded surrounds with cusped roundels to their heads. The gable above has two-light windows with traceried roses to their tops, set at either side of a canopied statue of Queen Victoria carrying the orb and sceptre. The arms of Henry III are in a roundel to the apex of the gable. The deep stone band below the second-floor window has a central carving in relief which shows the laying of the foundation stone to Reading Abbey. It was intended to be the first in a series of episodes from the town's history.

At left, or north, and forming the termination of the Lainson additions is a projecting, canted porch-wing whose lower structure is largely of pink sandstone. This has an open lobby at ground level with circular columns and foliate capitals. Above are two-light windows and their aprons have panels of carving, including shields which carry the wording 'ART / GALLERY', 'PUBLIC / LIBRARY', and 'PUBLIC / MUSEUM'.

Turning the corner from Blagrave Street to Valpy Street is the range added by Cooper and Howell in 1896–1897. This housed the library reading room on the ground floor and the art gallery on the first floor and consequently has elaborate fenestration to the ground floor and no windows to the top-lit first floor. It too follows the style of its predecessor buildings with similarly-coloured brickwork and bays which are, in this case, divided by polygonal buttresses terminating in square finials. A deep sandstone plinth has basement windows with metal grilles. The ground-floor windows turning the angled corner have cusped heads to the lights and above them are terracotta panels which portray a series of local and national historic events. At street level, there is also a tablet commemorating the life of William Isaac Palmer, the local biscuit manufacturer, who contributed to the cost of both the Lainson and Cooper and Howell buildings. The five windows facing Valpy Street have two lights and quatrefoil heads which rise into gablets with panelled terracotta dressings. The blind grey brick walling at first-floor level is divided by the buttresses and topped by a running arcade of terracotta with two large, canopied niches to the angled corner.

To the left, or east of this, is a further part of the earlier building designed by Lainson, which originally housed Reading School of Art and Science. This is in a plainer style than his Blagrave frontage and has a gabled wing at right and a turret at left. The ground floor has doors to both right and left with five mullioned and transomed windows between. At first and second floor levels there are a joined triplet of lights at right and a single light to left with two paired lights between. The turret at left has a pyramidal roof and the gable at right has three grouped lancet lights. A gable above these records the date as '1879' in a roundel.

The eastern front, facing the churchyard of the Church of St Laurence, is partially masked by later buildings joined to the eastern end of the former School of Art and Science and forming neighbouring properties. The eastern side of the Victoria Hall (formerly known as the Small Town Hall), built in 1785–1786 by Charles Poulton, can be seen. This has five windows placed behind gauged-brick relieving arches. These each have sashes of four by six panes and the space between their square heads and the arches above was opened during the remodelling of the interior in 1863 by W.H. Woodman to give the windows arched heads that include a pattern of semi-circular and round panes.

Interior

The oldest of the current interior spaces is the Victoria Hall (formerly the Small Town Hall), of 1785–1786, designed by Charles Poulton and remodelled internally in 1863 by W.H. Woodman. This has a coffered ceiling and panelled walls with three bays to each end wall divided by pairs of columns with Composite capitals and lateral niches. A bust of the young Queen Victoria is shown in a roundel at the north end. Six windows with arched heads run along the eastern wall and the western wall has blind arched panels matching this effect. These indicate where windows used to be before the Waterhouse extension was built.

The former Council Chamber (now called the Waterhouse Chamber) was designed by Alfred Waterhouse and has a stone fire surround to the north wall with an overmantel including an arcade of Gothic arches and a shield with the arms of the town. Fixed seating and desks have been removed, but the gallery front extends along the east side of the room, now adapted to form a first-floor passageway. The large windows have panels of stained glass in Waterhouse's characteristic style with pink and green quarries against a grisaille background. The dogleg staircase which leads up from the portal entrance to the Waterhouse block has pointed arches piercing the central spine wall with wrought and cast-iron brackets supporting the wooden handrail. These arches and others at basement level had moulded heads.

The Concert Hall, which forms part of the Lainson addition, was originally approached by a staircase leading up from a portal at ground level which now forms the entrance to the whole complex. As part of the late-20th and early-21st century alterations this stair was removed, but the three pointed arches to its landing have been retained with a balustrade, forming a lobby to the concert hall and allowing views down to the entrance. The hall is entered from the lobby by five sets of double doors. The hall has a coffered ceiling with a series of glazed, quadrant lights running around the perimeter. There is a cantilevered, horseshoe-shaped balcony to three sides of the hall and walls at both levels are panelled, those at the upper level having arched heads divided by Composite pilasters. The lower panels are divided by polished wood pilasters with inlaid marble panels and brackets for the original gas lights. The chandeliers suspended from the central ceiling appear to be the original gasoliers, converted for electric lighting. In the centre of the eastern end is the Father Willis organ which originally stood in the Small Town Hall (now called the Victoria Hall) but which was enlarged and moved, and given a Baroque style of wooden case, designed by Thomas Lainson Junior and carved by J.T. Chappell. This stands to the rear of the stage, flanked by tiers of chorus seating.

The former School of Art and Science, by Lainson, has a dogleg staircase with square newels and spire finials and balusters in the form of Gothic colonettes. The museum rooms have panelled ceilings and cast-iron columns decorated with spiralling foliage motifs. The staircase also uses elaborate cast iron panels for the balustrade and screens.

In the Art Gallery wing by Cooper and Howell the former ground-floor reading room, which is now the registry office, has a panelled eastern wall and ceiling.

Subsidiary Feature

Area railings of cast and wrought iron run around the bowed part of the Waterhouse building. They guard the sunken area which is set before the basement of this part of the building. Panels have a screen of vertical bars with closely-set dog bars to the lower body. Uprights which divide the panels are capped by tri-part spikes.