EDITOR'S NOTE
Reading gets itself back. Ninety thousand people leave on Bank Holiday Monday, the schools go back on Wednesday, and by Saturday Kings Meadow is a field full of people again — this time for Pride. It's a week with a clean shape to it: recovery, routine, then the town's biggest free party of the year.
FEATURED THIS WEEK
Reading Pride 2026 — Saturday 5 September, Kings Meadow, parade in at noon
Four stages run all afternoon, with Smalltown Boy, Ace and Lolly headlining the Main Stage, Drag Race UK's Black Peppa performing and Sum Ting Wong hosting, plus a funfair, family area and market stalls. It's free to walk in — organisers ask for a £5 donation at the gate, having had to raise more than £100,000 to put this year's event on at all. Line-up and PridePlus tickets →
BEST FOR KIDS
The summer ends on a Tuesday. Reading's council-maintained schools have an inset day on Tuesday 1 September and pupils return on Wednesday 2 September — academies and free schools set their own dates, so check yours. Before that: Bank Holiday Monday is free, and The MERL's summer holiday activities run to Tuesday 1 September.
NEW THIS WEEK
Rivermead Leisure Centre reopens on Tuesday 1 September. Gym, pool, soft play and café all come back at once after the festival shutdown, and the sports hall and studios are gone for good. If Rivermead is your pool, Tuesday is your day.
HEADS UP
The railway is the problem next weekend, not the roads. Track renewal at Slough means only two of the four lines between Paddington and Reading are open on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 September, so mainline services run to an amended timetable — on Pride day. There are no trains to Windsor & Eton Central at all. GWR planned engineering →
👨👩👧 Things To Do
Kids & Family
Reading Pride's family area, Saturday 5 September. Funfair, family zone and market stalls at Kings Meadow alongside the stages. Free entry, £5 donation asked at the gate. Take waterproofs — see the weather note below.
Summer Holidays at The MERL — final days, to Tuesday 1 September. Free drop-in family activities at the Museum of English Rural Life, Redlands Road. The last chance before the uniform goes back on.
Rhymetime is back to normal. Free drop-in song-and-story sessions for babies and toddlers at Reading Central, Palmer Park, Southcote, Tilehurst and Whitley libraries — Tuesdays and Thursdays mostly, Mondays at Tilehurst. No booking, no cost, and a reliable fixture now term has started.
Adults · Date Night
Full Fat x Vaultage, Milk — Saturday 5 September, 5pm till 2am, free entry. The obvious place to carry on after Pride closes at Kings Meadow. Free in, ten minutes' walk from the site.
Bayeux Tapestry tours, Reading Museum. Guided tours of Britain's full-scale Victorian replica run Tuesday and Thursday at 2.30pm and Saturday at 2pm, £10. An hour with the best thing in town that most people in town have never seen.
Bring Your Own Vinyl, Double-Barrelled Brewery. Occasional Thursday evenings from 5pm in Stadium Way — bring a record, they'll play it. Book a table, because it fills.
Weekend Events
Mon 31 Aug: Bank Holiday. Festival exit day — 90,000 people leaving at once. Avoid Napier Road, Vastern Road and Cow Lane if you're driving.
Tue 1 Sep: Rivermead reopens. Inset day at council schools. Last day of the MERL's summer activities. Mostly sunny.
Wed 2 Sep: Schools return.
Thu 3 Sep: Museum Surgery at Reading Museum, 12–4pm, free — bring an object, have a curator look at it. Rain in the afternoon.
Fri 4 Sep: The best day of the week weather-wise. Nothing scheduled — which is the point.
Sat 5 Sep: Reading Pride, Kings Meadow, parade in at noon. Full Fat x Vaultage at Milk from 5pm. Amended rail timetable to and from Paddington.
Sun 6 Sep: Quiet and cloudy. Rail disruption continues.
Looking ahead: Down at the Abbey is on 11–12 September, Heritage Open Days run 11–20 September, and Friar Street closes overnight from Monday 7 September for resurfacing.
🏙️ What's New in Reading
Reading Gateway is getting proper EV charging. Six chargers, serving twelve spaces, have been approved for the food and retail park off Basingstoke Road — one bank near Proctor End South, the other by the Premier Inn. Not glamorous, but South Reading has been thin on public charging and this is the first meaningful block of it attached to somewhere people already stop.
The Oxford Road car wash is probably finished. The hand car wash on the land beside The Restoration has lost its route to a permanent permission: the application to keep it running expired in January and was formally disposed of by the council on 13 August. Car washes have occupied that plot in one form or another since 2009, and the operator moved there from London Road in 2022. Nothing has been announced about what replaces it.
A quieter week than most for openings. No new shops or restaurants confirmed for the town centre this week — the Bristol & West Arcade Italian is still fitting out for a pre-Christmas opening, and the Coley post office site remains advertised for a new operator.
🚧 Useful Reading Updates
Roads — nothing in your way next week. No council resurfacing closures are scheduled anywhere in Reading between Monday 31 August and Sunday 6 September. It's the calm before Friar Street: the stretch from West Street to Station Road closes from Monday 7 September to Thursday 10 September, shut throughout with crews working 7pm–1am. Bath Road follows the week after. Full schedule at reading.gov.uk →
Rail — a bad weekend to be heading east. Track renewal at Slough closes two of the four lines between Paddington and Reading on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 September, so expect an amended, thinner mainline timetable both days. No trains run to Windsor & Eton Central; replacement buses go to Windsor & Eton Riverside instead, or you can travel Reading to Windsor & Eton Riverside on South Western Railway via Staines on your existing ticket. The same work repeats on 12/13 and 20 September. GWR planned engineering →
Council — have your say on post-16 travel. A consultation is open on proposed changes to Reading's transport policy for over-16s, covering how the council supports travel to sixth form and college. If you have a child moving into Year 12 this term, this is the one worth ten minutes.
COMING UP THIS WEEK
Mon 31 Aug: Bank Holiday · festival exit day, heavy traffic west of the station · morning showers
Tue 1 Sep: Rivermead Leisure Centre reopens · school inset day · MERL summer activities end · mostly sunny
Wed 2 Sep: Schools return
Thu 3 Sep: Museum Surgery, Reading Museum, 12–4pm · rain in the afternoon
Fri 4 Sep: Driest, sunniest day of the week
Sat 5 Sep: Reading Pride, Kings Meadow, from noon · Full Fat x Vaultage at Milk, 5pm · amended Paddington–Reading rail timetable · rain
Sun 6 Sep: Rail disruption continues · cloudy and quiet
HIDDEN GEM OF THE WEEK
The Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, University of Reading
One of the largest collections of Greek ceramics in the country, kept in a single room in the Edith Morley building at Whiteknights, free to walk into, and known to almost nobody who doesn't work there. Around 4,000 objects: black-figure and red-figure vases, Cypriot and Egyptian pieces, terracotta figures, some of it 3,000 years old and all of it close enough to see the brushstrokes. It was built up from 1922 by Percy and Annie Ure and is still a working teaching collection, which is why it feels less like a museum and more like being let into a cupboard you shouldn't have the key to. Term has just started, so it's open again — check the university's website for the week's hours before making the trip, and pair it with a lap of the Whiteknights lake.
An Egyptian funerary boat in the Ure Museum © Voluremuseum, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
WEATHER THIS WEEK
Pride is the wet one. Saturday 5 September looks like periods of rain — around three hours of it — with a top of 21°C, so take a coat to Kings Meadow and expect the grass to go. Friday is the pick of the week at 23°C and near-cloudless, and Tuesday is the other good one; Bank Holiday Monday starts with showers before brightening. If you have something outdoors you care about, do it Friday.
👀 WORTH KNOWING
Facial recognition vans are in Reading this bank holiday weekend. Thames Valley Police have confirmed live facial recognition units will be deployed in the town over the August bank holiday, scanning faces in public against a watch list of people wanted for serious offences. It's the first large-scale use of the technology here. Whatever you make of it, it's worth knowing it's happening.
GWR wants your children to name a dragon. The train operator has launched a public search for a name for its new plushie mascot dragon, with families invited to send in suggestions. A small thing, but a free and genuinely fun ten minutes with a five-year-old on a wet Saturday.
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