Qualla: Reading Abbey

Reading Abbey: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thorvaldsson, CC BY-SA 3.0. Somewhere beneath the car park of Reading Gaol, Henry I of England is buried. He died in Normandy in 1135, and his body was returned to the abbey he had founded fourteen years earlier -- one of the richest and most important religious houses in medieval Europe. When Henry VIII destroyed the abbey in 1538, the last abbot was hanged, drawn, and quartered in front of the church. The buildings were stripped of lead, glass, and facing stone. A prison was built on part of the site. The king who founded the abbey became, in effect, a body beneath a car park -- a fate that drew inevitable comparisons when Richard III was discovered in similar circumstances in Leicester in 2012.

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Image: Thorvaldsson | CC BY-SA 3.0

Reading Abbey: Between Two Rivers

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Merrett from Daventry, England, CC BY 2.0. Henry I founded Reading Abbey in 1121, endowing it with his lands in Reading and beyond, "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors." The site, chosen on a ...

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Image: David Merrett from Daventry, England | CC BY 2.0

Reading Abbey: Relics, Harmony, and Royal Guests

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mendhak, CC BY-SA 2.0. Reading Abbey held over 230 relics, including what was believed to be the hand of St James. A shrivelled human hand found in the ruins during demolition work in 1786 now resides in a Catholic church in Marlow. Around 1240, a monk at the abbey wrote down the song Sumer is icumen i...

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Image: Mendhak | CC BY-SA 2.0

Reading Abbey: Destruction and Dismemberment

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sciencebloke at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The Dissolution of the Monasteries reached Reading in 1538. The last abbot, Hugh Faringdon, refused to surrender the abbey to the king's commissioners. He was tried for high treason, convicted, and executed by hanging, drawing, and quartering outside the very church where he had ...

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Image: Sciencebloke at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Reading Abbey: Ruins Revealed

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Wood, CC BY-SA 4.0. What survives of Reading Abbey is impressive in its stubbornness. The inner rubble cores of the walls stand in several places, including fragments of the central tower piers and parts of the transepts. The chapter house, apsidal with a triple entrance and three great windows, is ...

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Image: Chris Wood | CC BY-SA 4.0