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HM Prison Reading
HM Prison Reading, popularly known as Reading Gaol, is a former prison located in Reading, Berkshire, England. The prison was operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service (now 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.
HM Prison Reading was built in 1844 as the Berkshire County Gaol in the heart of Reading on the site of the former county prison, alongside the ruins of Reading Abbey and beside the River Kennet.
Designed by George Gilbert Scott and William Boynthon Moffatt, it was based on London's New Model Prison at Pentonville with a cruciform shape, and is a good example of early Victorian prison architecture. The Pentonville Prison design of 1842 was based on the design of Eastern State Penitentiary of 1829 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
It was designed to carry out what was the very latest penal technique of the time, known as the separate system. As a county gaol, its forecourt served as the site for public executions, the first one in 1845 before a crowd of 10,000; after 1868 executions took place inside, the last one in 1913.
It was used to hold Irish prisoners involved in the 1916 Easter Rising, for internment in both World Wars, as a borstal and for a variety of other purposes. Most of those interned during the First World War were of German origin but there were also Latin Americans, Belgians, and Hungarians. In 1969 the wing where the Irish had been held was demolished.
In 1973 Reading was re-designated as a local prison, and around that time its old castle wall was removed. The building was designated as Grade II listed in 1978. In 1992 it became a Remand Centre and Young Offenders Institution, holding prisoners between the ages of 18 and 21 years.
Accommodation at the prison consisted of a mixture of single and double occupancy cells, on three wings. There was also a residential unit (Kennet wing) of single occupancy cells for low-security 'open' prisoners. There were two education departments at the prison, one run by the Prison service and one by Milton Keynes College. The remand centre library was run by Reading Borough Libraries.
The historic records of the prison are housed at the Berkshire Record Office and are the subject of a project focused on the history of ‘ordinary’ men in Berkshire charged with indecent assault/gross indecency between 1861-1967, the Broken Futures project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and managed and delivered by Support U, the LGBT+ support and wellbeing charity in the Thames Valley.
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HM Prison Reading
HM Prison Reading, popularly known as Reading Gaol, is a former prison located in Reading, Berkshire, England. The prison was operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service (now 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.
HM Prison Reading was built in 1844 as the Berkshire County Gaol in the heart of Reading on the site of the former county prison, alongside the ruins of Reading Abbey and beside the River Kennet.
Designed by George Gilbert Scott and William Boynthon Moffatt, it was based on London's New Model Prison at Pentonville with a cruciform shape, and is a good example of early Victorian prison architecture. The Pentonville Prison design of 1842 was based on the design of Eastern State Penitentiary of 1829 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
It was designed to carry out what was the very latest penal technique of the time, known as the separate system. As a county gaol, its forecourt served as the site for public executions, the first one in 1845 before a crowd of 10,000; after 1868 executions took place inside, the last one in 1913.
It was used to hold Irish prisoners involved in the 1916 Easter Rising, for internment in both World Wars, as a borstal and for a variety of other purposes. Most of those interned during the First World War were of German origin but there were also Latin Americans, Belgians, and Hungarians. In 1969 the wing where the Irish had been held was demolished.
In 1973 Reading was re-designated as a local prison, and around that time its old castle wall was removed. The building was designated as Grade II listed in 1978. In 1992 it became a Remand Centre and Young Offenders Institution, holding prisoners between the ages of 18 and 21 years.
Accommodation at the prison consisted of a mixture of single and double occupancy cells, on three wings. There was also a residential unit (Kennet wing) of single occupancy cells for low-security 'open' prisoners. There were two education departments at the prison, one run by the Prison service and one by Milton Keynes College. The remand centre library was run by Reading Borough Libraries.
The historic records of the prison are housed at the Berkshire Record Office and are the subject of a project focused on the history of ‘ordinary’ men in Berkshire charged with indecent assault/gross indecency between 1861-1967, the Broken Futures project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and managed and delivered by Support U, the LGBT+ support and wellbeing charity in the Thames Valley.