Reading Minster

Reading Minster stands in the centre of Reading on St Mary’s Butts, a street named after the church. It is the oldest ecclesiastical foundation in the town and was once eclipsed by Reading Abbey before regaining its status. The building gives its name to the street and should not be confused with the nearby St Mary’s Church on Castle Street. A small chapel may have stood on the site as early as the 7th century, founded by Saint Birinus. Silver coins from the 9th century were found in the churchyard during a period of conflict between Kings Ethelred and Alfred of Wessex and the Danes. Queen Ælfthryth later founded a royal nunnery on the site in 979, though only a rounded Saxon door remains from that time. The church’s main body dates from the late 11th century, though it was heavily restored in the 16th century after the Abbey’s dissolution. The pillars separating the south aisle from the nave are believed to have come from the Abbey’s ruins. The octagonal baptismal font, gifted by the Vachell family in 1616, is carved with the arms of several families who intermarried. A black-and-gold monument to William Kendricke and his wife, dated 1635, hangs on the north wall of the chancel. In 1918, a war memorial chapel called St Edward’s Chapel was added, accessed through the old Saxon doorway of the nunnery. The churchyard stretches south and east of the building, crossed by paths that carry heavy pedestrian traffic between town centre areas. A 150-year-old Indian Bean Tree grows in the churchyard, thought unlikely to survive in 2007 but now showing new growth. The Jubilee Cross, built in 1887 to mark Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, stands in the churchyard in a 15th-century style. Most of the bells in the tower date from the 17th and 18th centuries, and the organ, built by Father Willis for the 1862 International Exhibition, is currently being restored.