EDITOR'S NOTE
A dry, warm, properly autumnal week - 21 to 23°C every day and not a drop of rain in the forecast - and a calmer one after Heritage Open Days. The big opening is Dracula at Reading Rep on Wednesday, the first of three weeks. Tuesday brings two free exhibitions: Agatha Christie at the Royal Berkshire Archives, a hundred years after she vanished from Sunningdale, and Jelly's 30-year story at the museum. Nigel Mansell is at the Hexagon on Saturday. On the register, the council has formally objected to more than 3,000 homes on its border, and there's a Christmas ice rink in the pipeline for Hills Meadow. Sunday is the day to check your trains: buses replace them to Basingstoke all day.
FEATURED THIS WEEK
Dracula - Reading Rep Theatre, Wednesday 23 September to Saturday 10 October
Blackeyed Theatre's touring production of Nick Lane's adaptation - Van Helsing and a small band of the young and frightened, 1897, London to Transylvania - with the company's ensemble style, live soundscape and inventive staging. The best-reviewed touring Dracula of recent years, on King's Road for three weeks. Suitable for teens and up. Tickets →
BEST FOR KIDS
Reading Museum opens Jelly: Making Space for Art on Tuesday 22 September - thirty years of the arts charity that has put exhibitions into empty shops, high streets and studios all over town, told through artworks, photographs and archive material in the Welcome Gallery. Free, everybody welcome, and running to February. Pair it with the Bayeux Tapestry tour at 2.30pm on Tuesday or Thursday. Older kids: Dracula (above) is billed for teens and young adults.
NEW THIS WEEK
A Christmas festival with an ice rink is proposed for Hills Meadow. The application, validated this week, is for a temporary rink, marquee, stalls, fairground rides and fencing on the recycling-point end of the Hills Meadow car park in Caversham, from 7 November to 3 January. It's the first outdoor rink proposed for the town in years - and it's now out for consultation.
HEADS UP
Sunday 27 September is a big engineering day for Reading. No trains between Reading and Basingstoke all day (buses instead), buses between Reading and Newbury until 5.30pm, long-distance trains to the West diverted via Swindon, and an amended timetable between Reading and Paddington with two of the four tracks out. Allow a lot longer. GWR planned engineering →
👨👩👧 Things To Do
Kids & Family
Jelly: Making Space for Art, Reading Museum, opens Tuesday 22 September. Free, Welcome Gallery, to 20 February. Thirty years of Reading's most inventive arts organisation.
Bayeux Tapestry Tours, Reading Museum, Tuesday 22 and Thursday 24 September, 2.30pm. The 70-metre Victorian replica, walked end to end with a guide. Britain's only full copy, while the British Museum's own show is sold out.
Rhymetime, all Reading libraries, weekday mornings. Central Library Tuesdays and Thursdays (10.15 and 11.15), Caversham Tuesdays, Palmer Park Tuesdays and Thursdays, Tilehurst Mondays, Battle Fridays. Free, drop in.
Reading's Indie Market, Double-Barrelled Brewery, Sunday 27 September, 1–5.30pm. Local makers - jewellery, homewares, games, candles, bakes - in the taproom, with street food. Free entry.
Adults · Date Night
Monstering the Rocketman, South Street, Wednesday 23 September, 8pm. Henry Naylor's Fringe First winner: Elton John versus The Sun, the tabloid war of the late 1980s. Tickets →
Nadia Reid - Live with Strings, South Street, Thursday 24 September, doors 7.30pm. The New Zealand songwriter with a string section, presented by Heavy Pop. Tickets →
Alfie Moore: Radio Warm-Up Show, South Street, Friday 25 September, 8pm. The copper-turned-comedian swears the audience in as police officers and runs a real case from his book ahead of recording series ten of It's a Fair Cop. Tickets →
An Evening with Nigel Mansell, Hexagon, Saturday 26 September, 7.30pm. The 1992 world champion on Formula Ford to Ferrari, with meet-and-greet add-ons if you want the full grid walk. Tickets →
Harriet Kemsley: Floozy, South Street, Saturday 26 September, 5pm. The 8pm sold out; an extra early show was added. Tickets →
Weekend Events
Fri 25 Sep: Alfie Moore at South Street. Burghfest, the music and beer festival by the Reading Gates at Burghfield, opens at 3pm. Partly sunny, 22°C.
Sat 26 Sep: Nigel Mansell at the Hexagon; Harriet Kemsley at South Street; Flo & Joan at the Concert Hall (sold out). Trinity Concert Band's 25th-anniversary gala in the Great Hall at the university, 7pm. Through A Different Lens film festival at the Biscuit Factory from noon. Sunny through high cloud, 21°C.
Sun 27 Sep: Reading at War guided walk, 10am. Indie Market at Double-Barrelled, 1–5.30pm. Sky Full of Stars, the Coldplay tribute, at the Hexagon, 7.30pm. Rail replacement buses to Basingstoke and Newbury. Brilliant sunshine, 20°C.
Looking ahead: Mark Steel is at South Street on Thursday 1 October; Reading Libraries' Fun Palace day is Saturday 3 October; Reading Buses' 125th-anniversary showcase and free vintage running day is on Broad Street on Sunday 4 October; and real Apollo moon rocks come to the university on Saturday 24 October.
🏙️ What's New in Reading
Bar Tokyo wants the old Walkabout. The Wiston Terrace bar off Friar Street has been shut since October, and a new operator has applied to reopen it as Bar Tokyo with alcohol and live music to 3am six nights a week. The council's environmental protection officer has objected to the outdoor music, and the application was due before the licensing sub-committee on Thursday - we'll have the result next week.
The Battle Inn is coming down. Planners have approved the demolition of the former pub on the corner of Bedford Road and Oxford Road for a part-five-storey building of six flats with a shop or café at ground level.
Pret is at the station. A new Pret a Manger has opened on the overbridge at Reading station, between platforms 11 and 12, open from 5.30am on weekdays.
Reading objects to 3,230 homes on its doorstep. Consulted as the neighbouring authority, the council has formally objected to Wokingham's Loddon Garden Village scheme - up to 2,800 homes, three schools and a district centre at Hall Farm, Arborfield, with a new bridge over the M4 - and to a further 430 homes at Newlands Farm off Mole Road. Both decisions sit with Wokingham.
The Thames Valley Park data centre is a month away from a planning application. The team behind the proposed 72MW facility on part of the Microsoft campus in east Reading say they are on track to submit to Wokingham Borough Council by the end of September, after the summer consultation.
🚧 Useful Reading Updates
Roads - Blagrave Street, then a lull. Blagrave Street (Forbury Road to Valpy Street) is resurfaced in the daytime, 8am–5pm, on Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 September - the last of this month's programme in the town centre. Further out, the SGN gas-leak repairs on the A4074 north of Caversham are still sending traffic through Tokers Green; the MP has asked Oxfordshire and SGN to speed them up. Council resurfacing programme →
Rail - Sunday 27 is the one to avoid. Track and structure renewals close the line between Reading and Basingstoke all day (replacement buses, CrossCountry affected too) and between Reading and Newbury until 5.30pm. Trains to Devon and Cornwall go round via Swindon, adding at least 15 minutes - some a further half hour via Bristol. And it's another two-of-four-tracks day between Reading and Paddington, so those services run to an amended timetable. GWR planned engineering →
Council - bins, council tax and the voluntary sector. Recycling Week: the council says food waste collected in Reading is up 16% since the December changes - 721 extra tonnes - and is asking residents to treat the general waste bin as the last resort. The consultation on a simpler council tax support scheme (automatic reductions for people on Universal Credit) opens later this month, and the council is signing a three-year partnership agreement with the town's community and voluntary sector.
Planning -- the border, a pub and a rink. Decided: the council objected, as neighbouring authority, to the 2,800-home Loddon Garden Village and 430-home Newlands Farm schemes in Wokingham; the former Battle Inn on Bedford Road can be replaced by six flats over a commercial unit; and 164–166 Caversham Road can become a 14-bedroom house in multiple occupation. Validated: the Hills Meadow Christmas festival and ice rink (7 November to 3 January); the third floor of Regents Gate on Crown Street from offices to two flats; a shop at 16A Norcot Road to two flats; and two three-bed houses on the old garage workshop at 76A Queens Road, Caversham.
COMING UP THIS WEEK
Mon 21 Sep: Blagrave Street daytime resurfacing, 8am–5pm (and Tuesday) · Berkshire Industrial Archaeology Group talk on steam · sunny, 21°C
Tue 22 Sep: Jelly: Making Space for Art opens, Reading Museum · Agatha Christie exhibition opens, Royal Berkshire Archives · Bayeux tour, 2.30pm · sunny and warm, 23°C
Wed 23 Sep: Dracula opens at Reading Rep (to 10 Oct) · Monstering the Rocketman, South Street, 8pm · warm, some cloud, 23°C
Thu 24 Sep: Nadia Reid, South Street, doors 7.30pm · Bayeux tour, 2.30pm · cloudy but warm, 22°C
Fri 25 Sep: Alfie Moore, South Street, 8pm · Burghfest opens, 3pm · partly sunny, 22°C
Sat 26 Sep: Nigel Mansell, Hexagon, 7.30pm · Harriet Kemsley, South Street, 5pm · Trinity Concert Band gala, Great Hall, 7pm · Through A Different Lens, Biscuit Factory, from noon · sunny, 21°C
Sun 27 Sep: Rail replacement buses Reading–Basingstoke (all day) and Reading–Newbury (to 5.30pm); amended trains to Paddington · Reading at War walk, 10am · Indie Market, Double-Barrelled, 1–5.30pm · Sky Full of Stars, Hexagon, 7.30pm · brilliant sunshine, 20°C
HIDDEN GEM OF THE WEEK
Greyfriars Church, Friar Street
The flint church at the western end of Friar Street that gave the street its name, and one of the most complete surviving Franciscan friary churches in England. The Grey Friars arrived in Reading in 1233, were given boggy ground that flooded, and finally built this in 1311 on higher land the abbey let them have. The friary was dissolved in 1538 and the building spent the next three centuries as the town's guildhall, a hospital and then the borough gaol, before a restoration in 1863 gave it back to worship - which makes it the oldest Franciscan church still in use in the country. It is Grade I listed, still a busy parish church, and its wide, plain medieval nave is unlike anything else in town. Free to step into whenever the doors are open; check greyfriars.org.uk for times. Five minutes from the station, and most people have walked past it a thousand times.
Greyfriars Church © Jack1956, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
WEATHER THIS WEEK
The best week of the autumn so far. Dry from Monday to Sunday, 21°C on Monday rising to 23°C on Tuesday and Wednesday, 22°C Thursday and Friday under more cloud, then 21°C on Saturday and a brilliantly sunny 20°C on Sunday. No excuses for the Reading at War walk or the Indie Market - and Dracula's opening night will be a warm one for a gothic horror.
👀 WORTH KNOWING
The Heather Small mural has gone. The 12-metre portrait of the M People singer on the side of Haslams on Friar Street, painted in 2023 as the Reading starting point of the Camino Inglés street-art trail to Southampton, only ever had three years' temporary consent - and it's now been painted out, to the dismay of pilgrims who came to see it.
Reading Buses is 125. The company marks it with a showcase on Broad Street on Sunday 4 October - buses from the 1940s to its newest electrics, a free running day with vintage buses on historic routes from St Mary's Butts, plus a commemorative book and mugs.
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