Images: ruins of Reading abbey apse, passage to wharf, and service building ruins (photos: C. A. Stanford).
Acquired: 1539
Reading was a Benedictine abbey until its dissolution in September 1539. Shortly afterward, Henry converted part of the former monastic buildings into a royal house, and visited in August 1540, so it is likely that alterations did not take place on too great a scale. The abbot’s house likely served as the core of the royal lodging, and the refectory the great hall.
The house was used by Henry’s successors but badly damaged in the Civil War; a description of the property at that time noted the existence of “two sellars, two buttries, a hall, a parlour, a dineing roome, tenne chambers, a garret, with a large gallery, and other small roomes, with two courtyards and a large gate-house” (Colvin, 222). The gatehouse and other ruins, restored, remain today in the town center.