A Tour of Coley Streets - Edited Version (one hour)

This is an edited version of the three separate videos which tour the streets of Coley, Reading. We prepared and presented this video to The History of Reading Society on the 21st of April 2021.

[@jamesavenell1205]

Congratulations on a great resume' of Coley. Was foreign territory for me as I was born at Dellwood Nursing Home, just opposite Prospect Park & resided in Newport Road, close to Caversham Bridge for the initial 28 tears of my life. Remember cycling up Castle Hill , at 14.for a while going to do some work for holiday money, at Bucknells Farm, Southcote. Pretty familiar with Southampton St & when younger used to stand on the corner of Pell St, collecting various vehicle numbers, especially liked the Bulwark Milk containers for some reason. Through train numbering I had a mate who lived at Brixham Road, Whitley so the two of us did uncountable miles up & down Southampton Street to the Basingstoke road & just past the Savoy cinema. Whilst in Reading I suffered National Service but was rewarded, meeting my eternal sweetheart & eventual wife. She was brought up in Woking Surrey ( my parents were originally from there). During 1966 we settled between Guildford & Aldershot although I continued to work down Caversham road at the Signal & Telecommunications works, just opposite the Fire Station, until the early 1980s. Sorry to bore you with that. Well, I was the only Reading boy in our family so it's, come on you Rzzzz.

[@mickmcguire4571]

Brilliant work 👏🏼👏🏼

[@jamstawildman]

Interesting stuff 👍

[@scousepie2]

Im from Liverpool and moved to Reading in 1985, I have lived in coley since 1992, Love the area and the History.. I have been waiting for this sort of information for Year, well done for your joint efforts in collating the videos and images. was there a LIDO in coley by the courts back in the 1960/70s ?. I cant believe how much has gone, shocking. Im not a fan of the IDR concrete urban clearway.. anyhow thank you all.

[@joedoak]

Thanks for the supportive comment. There was a swimming pool behind the School during the 1960s and 70’s (where the old courts used to be). I understand it started leaking during the 1980s, possibly because of subsidence. If you are a member of the Facebook group (History and Events of Coley, Reading) I’ll post an map of that time to get people talking about it. You could join in!

[@markstevens5506]

The free Dutch houses my dad Was born in the middle one

[@TheMasterNo6]

I lived in Coley Hill from 1985 to 2015...

[@XrGrimreap3rX]

44:50 - Where does existing 19 Bridge Street building (Now the health care recruiters) sit within that picture? I thought it may have been the building on its own in the middle but that building has a different frontage

[@joedoak]

19 Bridge Street (Seven Bridges House) was called Linden House. It’s the one in the top of the snapshot of the map. Here’s a link to a page on Raymond Simonds’ history of the brewery which talks about #19 (near the bottom of the page): simondsfamily.me.uk/the-brewery-estate/remaining-buildings-from-the-brewery/

[@joedoak]

A research note sent to us by Malcolm Summers after our presentation at HoRS: “Dear Graham and Joe, Thank you for an excellent video of the Tour of Coley tonight. I thought that you might be interested in a couple of things which I have investigated which came up in the early part of your video. I have researched the history of the Franciscan Friary, the remnant being of course Greyfriars Church which was the nave of the friary church. Regarding Coley the question arises about the possibility that on Castle Street there was a Franciscan chapel. Unfortunately I do not believe that this stands up to scrutiny. The only independent source is John Leland in the 16th century and as you can see in more detail from the attached short article I wrote for the History of Reading Society I believe he simply got the name of the road wrong, as he does not mention the rather hard to miss friary on Friar Street. The second thing I just thought I'd mention is that, in spite of the fact that the Castle Street almshouses have the old Vachel plaque on them, they were not just a replacement for the almshouses on Castle Street that Vachel endowed, which was said in the video. They replaced the almshouses endowed by Sir Thomas Vachel, William Kendrick, John Leche (A'Larder, St Mary's Butts), John Hall and Bernard Harrison. Vachel's endowment of a house for 6 men, Kendrick's for 4 men and a woman, Hall's for 5 women, Leche's for 5 men and 3 women and Harrison for 8 women. Add those up and you get the 32 places that were built in the replacement Almshouses (so Vachel's part was 6 out of 32). The old Vachel plaque was re-discovered in 1954 and was attached to the wall of the new Almshouses in 1962, to the confusion of many people thereafter! I hope that you don't mind me mentioning these, but I thought that you would like to know the detail. Malcolm Summers”