EDITOR'S NOTE
Saturday is the day. Heritage Open Days reach their second and final weekend, and this time the big doors open — the Minster, the Town Hall organ, Brock Keep, the Old Cemetery — while the Vegan Festival fills Market Place and Broad Street with forty-odd stalls. Before that, a Tuesday-evening tour of the Green Park wind turbine, and a planning register with more in it than usual: 130 homes on the old gas holder site signed off, and a six-storey co-living block proposed for Friar Street. Trains to Paddington are thin again on Sunday.
FEATURED THIS WEEK
Heritage Open Days — second weekend, Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September
Reading Minster opens its 900 years both days (10am–4pm); Brock Keep, the old Oxford Road armoury turned artist studios, runs tours both days (11am–5pm); the Town Hall's organ day is Saturday 11am–4.15pm; the Old Cemetery at Cemetery Junction has guided tours at 11am and 1.30pm; the Quaker Meeting House and the Royal Berkshire Hospital's medical museum open on Saturday; and Reading Museum runs its Romans Reimagined day with free handling talks on Silchester objects at 11am, 1pm and 2pm. The Abbey Quarter Tour goes again at 11am. All free; a few need booking. Full Reading programme →
BEST FOR KIDS
The Green Park wind turbine tour, Tuesday 15 September, 6pm. Stand underneath the thing you've driven past a thousand times and have the people who run it explain what it does. Suitable for all ages; email [email protected] to reserve a place. On Saturday, a free 45-minute family ballet workshop for 3–5 year olds at Central Library, 11am — limited places. Book the ballet workshop →
NEW THIS WEEK
A six-storey co-living block is proposed for Friar Street. The application, validated this week, would demolish 138–143 Friar Street and part of 144 for a basement-plus-six-storey building of purpose-built shared living, keeping part of 144 for shops or cafés. It is the biggest new town-centre scheme to reach the register since the summer.
HEADS UP
The Forbury closes overnight (7pm–1am) from Thursday 17 to Saturday 19 September between Forbury Road and St Laurence's, with Manor Farm Road first, Monday to Wednesday. And Sunday 20 is another two-of-four-tracks day between Reading and Paddington: amended timetable, and no trains between Slough and Windsor & Eton Central. GWR planned engineering →
👨👩👧 Things To Do
Kids & Family
Green Park Wind Turbine Tour, Tuesday 15 September, 6pm. Part of Heritage Open Days. Free, all ages, pre-booking preferred by email.
Family Ballet Workshop, Central Library, Saturday 19 September, 11am. Led by a dancer from the library's ballet project; for 3–5 year olds and their grown-ups. Free, booking needed.
Romans Reimagined, Reading Museum, Saturday 19 September. Family day around the Silchester collection; the object-handling talks (11am, 1pm, 2pm) are for adults, the rest is for everyone. Free.
Reading Vegan Festival, Market Place and Broad Street, Saturday 19 September, from 11am. Ninth year. Forty-plus stalls, family entertainment and free giveaways. Free entry.
Adults · Date Night
Flo & Joan: With Feeling, South Street, Tuesday 15 September, 8pm. A warm-up for the sold-out Concert Hall date — same show, smaller room. Tickets →
Lucy Porter: Let Yourself Go!, South Street, Friday 18 September, 8pm. A South Street regular with a new hour. Tickets →
From The Jam, Sub89, Saturday 19 September, 7pm. Bruce Foxton and Russell Hastings play The Jam songbook, with Nicky Weller in conversation beforehand. Tickets →
Fin Taylor: The Pre-Emptive Comeback Special, Concert Hall, Sunday 20 September, 7.30pm. Tickets →
Weekend Events
Fri 18 Sep: That's Revolting! art party and market opens at the Rising Sun Arts Centre (to Sunday). Lucy Porter at South Street.
Sat 19 Sep: Heritage Open Days across town — Minster, Town Hall organ, Old Cemetery tours, Brock Keep, Abbey Quarter Tour. Vegan Festival in Market Place. From The Jam at Sub89. Reading Phoenix Choir, Vibrant Voices. Showers possible, 19°C.
Sun 20 Sep: Minster and Brock Keep open again. Festival Evensong at Christ Church. Fin Taylor, Concert Hall. Amended trains to Paddington. Dry and sunny, 21°C.
Looking ahead: Blagrave Street is resurfaced in the daytime on Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 September; the Reading-area rail work on Sunday 27 amends Paddington services again. Mark Steel is at South Street on 1 October.
🏙️ What's New in Reading
Tutu's Ethiopian Table has said goodbye after twenty years. Tutu Melaku opened her Ethiopian café in October 2006 and marked its twentieth anniversary last Saturday with a farewell celebration attended by the Mayor and a representative of the Ethiopian Embassy. One of the town's most-loved small kitchens, and a genuine loss.
A six-storey co-living block for Friar Street. Plans validated this week would clear 138–143 Friar Street and most of 144 for a purpose-built shared-living building — basement, six storeys and rooftop plant — with part of 144 kept for shops or food. It joins the London Street and Greyfriars Road schemes in the pipeline for the town centre.
The 570-flat Napier Court scheme isn't dead. Councillors refused Peveril Securities' two 11-storey blocks opposite King's Meadow in April because none of the flats were affordable. The developer has now appealed to the Planning Inspectorate, so the decision passes to a government inspector.
Royal Elm Park moves again. The enabling works for the long-planned redevelopment around the Select Car Leasing Stadium — 600 flats, an ice rink, a convention centre and a 246-room hotel, first approved in 2018 — went before the planning committee on Wednesday, with officers recommending approval of the contaminated-land conditions that let the first phase, a multi-storey car park, start.
The Boundary changes hands, sort of. Stonegate is moving the pub into its leased-and-tenanted business and recruiting a new publican. It stays open and trading as normal while that happens.
🚧 Useful Reading Updates
Roads — the Forbury and Manor Farm Road. Manor Farm Road (Longships Way to Basingstoke Road) is resurfaced overnight Monday 14 to Wednesday 17 September, 7pm–1am. The Forbury, from the Forbury Road junction to St Laurence's Church, follows Thursday 17 to Saturday 19, same hours. Then Blagrave Street (Forbury Road to Valpy Street) in the daytime, 8am–5pm, on Monday 21 and Tuesday 22. Full schedule at reading.gov.uk →
Rail — Sunday 20 is the one to plan around. Network Rail's Slough track renewal takes two of the four lines between Reading and Paddington again on Sunday 20 September, so services run to an amended timetable. No trains between Slough and Windsor & Eton Central; buses run to Windsor & Eton Riverside, or use South Western via Staines on the same ticket. Paddington services are amended again on Sunday 27 for work in the Reading area. GWR planned engineering →
Council — 20mph, King's Road and council tax. The council is going to consultation on 20mph limits with humps and cushions for eight residential streets off the Oxford Road, five years after residents petitioned for them. It is also proposing to break up the outbound King's Road bus lane so drivers turning left into Reading College, Kingsgate Street and Rupert Street have a longer run-in, after a string of collisions. And a simpler council tax support scheme — automatic reductions for people on Universal Credit, no forms — goes out to consultation later this month.
Planning — a busier register than usual. Decided: the 130-home scheme on the former gas holder site off Kenavon Drive (buildings of two to nine storeys) had its revised design, parking and energy strategy approved; the Grade II-listed former doctors' surgery at 1 Christchurch Road can become three flats; a house at 8 Blenheim Road becomes two; and a self-build house on land beside Tilehurst station was refused. Validated: the Friar Street co-living block above, six flats in the former Russell Hall on the Oxford Road, a refurbishment of Units 10–12 Rose Kiln Lane, and new render for the Clayfield Copse sports pavilion.
COMING UP THIS WEEK
Mon 14 Sep: Manor Farm Road overnight closures start (to Wed) · Heritage Open Days at the Berkshire Family History Centre, 11am–4pm · morning showers then warm, 24°C
Tue 15 Sep: Green Park wind turbine tour, 6pm · Flo & Joan, South Street, 8pm · Team Sport licensing consultation closes · a shower early, 21°C
Wed 16 Sep: Mull Historical Society, South Street · Josh Berry work-in-progress, South Street Studio · cloudy and dry, 18°C
Thu 17 Sep: The Forbury overnight closures start (to Sat) · Phil Ellis, South Street, 8pm · rain most of the day, 18°C
Fri 18 Sep: That's Revolting! opens at the Rising Sun · Lucy Porter, South Street, 8pm · Jazz in Reading: Five Way Split · dry, 19°C
Sat 19 Sep: Heritage Open Days — Minster, Town Hall organ, Old Cemetery tours 11am & 1.30pm, Brock Keep, Abbey Quarter Tour 11am, Romans Reimagined at the museum · Vegan Festival, Market Place, from 11am · Family Ballet Workshop, Central Library, 11am · From The Jam, Sub89 · showers possible, 19°C
Sun 20 Sep: Minster and Brock Keep open · Festival Evensong, Christ Church · Fin Taylor, Concert Hall, 7.30pm · amended trains to Paddington · sunny, 21°C
HIDDEN GEM OF THE WEEK
Reading Old Cemetery, Cemetery Junction
Everyone knows the name of the junction; almost nobody goes through the gates. Behind the twin lodges where the London Road and Wokingham Road split is one of the best Victorian garden cemeteries in the south: opened in 1843 by a private cemetery company, laid out with winding paths, mature cedars and yews, and full of the monuments of the people who built the town — brewers, biscuit-makers, seed merchants, MPs — alongside a hundred-odd Commonwealth war graves. It is free, open every day, and looked after by a friends' group who know every story in it. This Saturday, 19 September, they give guided tours at 11am and 1.30pm for Heritage Open Days, no booking needed. Go on a quiet weekday morning too — it is one of the few places in east Reading where you cannot hear the traffic.
Reading Old Cemetery © Ben Sutherland, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
WEATHER THIS WEEK
Warm start, wet middle, decent weekend. Monday and Tuesday are 24°C and 21°C with a shower first thing and sun after — Tuesday evening at the wind turbine should be fine. Wednesday is cloudy but dry; Thursday is the day to write off, with rain for most of it at 18°C. Friday is dry, Saturday risks a passing shower at 19°C — take a layer for the cemetery tour and the Vegan Festival — and Sunday is the best day of the week, sunny and 21°C.
👀 WORTH KNOWING
Minster Street is the most-fined road in Reading. The westbound bus gate by the Oracle issued 8,019 penalty notices in 2025/26, worth £259,940 to the council — more than any other street in the borough, according to figures obtained under Freedom of Information. If you're not a bus, taxi or bike, don't.
A Reading company has booked a rocket. NewOrbit, based in the town, has secured a launch slot for NEO-1 in the third quarter of 2028 — a commercial satellite that will fly in very low Earth orbit, 200–300km up, two to three times closer than most satellites. Only two missions in history have stayed that low; this would be the first anyone can buy a place on.
Every tree on the Whiteknights campus, online. The University of Reading has put up an interactive guide to more than 850 trees and 320 species on the main campus, with 9,000 photos of leaves, bark and seasons. Handy for the walk around the lake — and for settling arguments.
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