Reading Abbey

Anne Beauchamp, 15th Countess of Warwick (14 February 1444 – 3 June 1449), was the only child and heiress of the English nobleman Henry Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick. She died a child aged 5, after which the earldom of Warwick was inherited by her paternal aunt. The title then passed by marriage to Anne's maternal uncle, Richard Neville, the famous 'Kingmaker' of the later Wars of the Roses.

St James's Church is a Roman Catholic church situated in the centre of the town of Reading in the English county of Berkshire. The church is located next to Reading Abbey ruins, between the Forbury Gardens and Reading Gaol. St James's Church continues the traditions of Reading Abbey in the post-Reformation era. Its founder was James Wheble, who owned land in the area at that time. The church was designed by the architect A. W. N. Pugin and is one of his first church designs. Parts of the church were built using stones from the Abbey ruins.The design of the church is Norman, a style not normally associated with Pugin, and was probably influenced by the proximity of the Abbey ruins. The exterior of the building is of flint, with ashlar dressings and a Roman tile roof. Construction started in 1837 and the church opened on 5 August 1840. In 1925, the south aisle and the ambulatory round the apse were added. In 1962, the church was further extended by a north aisle into which was relocated the baptistery. The church is a Grade II listed building.St James's Church, along with St William of York's Church, forms a joint parish within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth. The current parish priest (since February 2010) is Canon John O'Shea. Sunday masses are well-attended often with standing room only; the parish boasts a large number of nationalities among its regular congregation. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster from 2000 to 2009, was baptised in St James's and served at the altar there regularly as a boy.

The Holy Brook is a channel of the River Kennet that flows through the English town of Reading. While of considerable historical significance, the origin and nature of the brook is still unclear. It is probable that some parts of the channel are natural, while other parts were created in medieval times by the monks of Reading Abbey to supply water mills and fish ponds. John Speed's map of Reading (c.1610) shows the brook flowing in the open air throughout, but a map from 1835 shows the town centre section to have been largely culverted by then, as is the case now.The Holy Brook leaves the main channel of the Kennet at a brick structure known as the Arrowhead near the village of Theale, and flows to the north of the main channel until rejoining it just downstream of the centre of Reading. The channel is some 6 miles (9.7 km) in length, of which approximately 600 metres (2,000 ft) are culverted.

HM Prison Reading, popularly known as Reading Gaol, is a former prison located in Reading, Berkshire, England. The prison was operated by His Majesty's Prison Service until its closure at the start of 2014. It is a Grade II listed building and sits on the site of Reading Abbey.

The Blade, also known as Abbey Mill House, is a high-rise and the tallest building in Reading, Berkshire, England. Used for office space, it is 86 metres (282 ft) tall and is visible from many places in the town. The first tenant to occupy the building was Kaplan Financial, who moved to the building from the original Thames Tower.

The siege of Reading was an eleven-day blockade of Reading, Berkshire, during the First English Civil War. Reading had been garrisoned by the Royalists in November 1642, and held 3,300 soldiers under the command of Sir Arthur Aston. On 14 April 1643, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex brought a Parliamentarian army of 19,000 men to lay siege to the town, and began bombarding the town two days later. During the siege, Aston was wounded and command of the garrison passed to Richard Feilding. On 25 April, Feilding requested a truce in order to negotiate the town's surrender. Despite a relief force commanded by King Charles I and Prince Rupert arriving the following day, Feilding held to the truce, and Essex's army was able to repel the relieving army. The surrender terms were agreed on 26 April, and the next day the Royalists left the town for Oxford.

Reading Abbey Girls' School, also known as Reading Ladies’ Boarding School, was an educational establishment in Reading, Berkshire open from at least 1755 until 1794. Many of its pupils went on to make a mark on English culture and society, particularly as writers. Most famous is Jane Austen, who used the school as a model of "a real, honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school".

The Abbey Gateway was originally the inner gateway of Reading Abbey, which today is a large, mostly ruined abbey in the center of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. The gateway adjoins Reading Crown Court and Forbury Gardens and is one of only two abbey buildings that have survived intact, the other being the Hospitium of St John the Baptist. It is a grade I listed building, and includes a porters lodge on the ground floor and a large open room above the gate.The gateway marked the division between the area of the abbey open to the public and the section accessible only to monks, with the abbot's lodging just inside the gateway. The gateway thus became the meeting place between the abbot, who commanded considerable powers within the town, and the people of the town. In 1539, after the dissolution, Hugh Faringdon, the last abbot of Reading was hanged, drawn, and quartered outside the abbey gateway. Whilst the other buildings of the abbey were stripped for lead and stone, the abbot's lodging was turned into a royal palace on the orders of Edward Seymour, who was acting as lord protector as King Edward VI was still a child. The abbey gateway was also retained, as the entrance to the royal residence.Edward's sister, Queen Elizabeth I, was a regular visitor to the royal palace, but during the Civil War the old abbot’s lodgings were damaged, and were not used as a royal palace again. Eventually the palace was demolished and new houses were built alongside the gateway. In the late 18th century one of them was home to the Reading Ladies’ Boarding School, attended amongst others by the novelist Jane Austen. The school used the room above the gateway as a classroom.The gateway was heavily restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott, after a partial collapse during a storm in 1861. In 1900 a series of twelve heads, sculpted by Andrew Ohlson, were added to the gateway.In 2010, the gateway was closed and fencing erected when some of the decorative stonework came loose and fell into the street. It reopened in 2018 after an extensive restoration, which was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The room above the gateway is now used by Reading Museum as part of its learning programme for local schools, whilst the arch below is available for use by pedestrian and cycle traffic. The Reading Half Marathon, held every year in March or April, passes under the gateway at around the 7 miles (11 km) stage.

Reading Crown Court is a judicial facility in Reading, Berkshire. It is a Grade II listed building.

Abbey Mill, or Abbey Mills, is a ruined former watermill on the Holy Brook, a channel of the River Kennet in the English county of Berkshire. The ruins are grade II listed.The mill originally belonged to Reading Abbey, whose monks are believed to have created the Holy Brook as a water supply to this and other mills owned by them. It is situated just to the south of the ruins of the Abbey itself, in the centre of the town of Reading.The mill was built straddling the Holy Brook which marked the southern boundary of the monastic enclosure. It continued to grind corn into the 1950s. Today, all that remains is a section of wall, pierced by three arches. The wall is built of flint with caen stone ashlar dressings and brick filling. The two side arches are round headed, whilst the centre arch over the Holy Brook is larger and pointed.

Forbury Gardens is a public park in the town of Reading in the English county of Berkshire. The park is on the site of the outer court of Reading Abbey, which was in front of the Abbey Church. The site was formerly known as the Forbury, and one of the roads flanking the current gardens is still known as The Forbury. Fairs were held on the site three times a year until the 19th century. The gardens are listed as Grade II in the English Heritage Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.Forbury, a suburb of the New Zealand city of Dunedin, was named after the gardens by early resident William Henry Valpy, who was born in Reading.

The Roseate Reading Hotel (formerly the Forbury Hotel) is a boutique hotel in Reading, Berkshire, England. It is situated in the Forbury, formerly a part of Reading Abbey, and on the southern side of the modern Forbury Gardens. The building that forms the front section of the hotel was the Shire Hall for the County of Berkshire, built in 1911 and used as such until 1981, and is a grade II listed building.