The Save Reading Gaol campaign took a stand at the weekend with a march in the town centre to raise the profile of the campaign. The aim is to turn the iconic site into an arts and culture hub, create a public space and save its heritage instead of it becoming luxury flats.
Conservative MP Alok Sharma and Labour MP Matt Rodda joined Reading Mayor Cllr Rachel Eden joining forces to help raise the profile of the Save Reading Gaol campaign.
Marching drummers made part of the demonstration
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Campaign to save Reading Goal
The campaign claims the site is a crucial piece of heritage, not only for Reading but for Berkshire and the UK, significant for its architecture and wealth of archaeology buried beneath it.
The vision is to see much of the grade II listed building as possible repurposed to house a range of arts and community benefits including art exhibitions, music, theatre, crafts, educational workshops and social spaces including a café and a restaurant.
The prison has an infamous history and a wealth of stories surrounding it. It is probably best known as the setting for Oscar Wilde’s famous poem the Ballad of Reading Gaol written following his own stretch at the facility after he was incarcerated for ‘gross indecency’ between 1895 and 1897.
Actor Liam Neeson also recently got involved and helped raise the profile, narrating the Oscar Wilde poem on a video that was released by campaigners.
The gaol was closed in January 2014 and the site put on the market ‘to the highest bidder’, putting it at risk of being turned over to housing. Since 2019 the campaign has stepped up a gear with A-list celebrities including Kate Winslet, Kenneth Branagh and Natalie Dormer all lending their support having themselves lived in the town.
American actor Stacy Keach served six months at the Reading prison after being arrested for cocaine smuggling in 1984. And boxer Anthony Joshua was placed on remand there for two weeks in 2009 after he was charged following what he describes as ‘fighting and other crazy stuff’.
More recently in February 2021 the illusive street artist Banksy tagged the wall with an illustration showing a convict escaping using a typewriter, a nod to the literary history of the prison – and later that same year it was revealed he would invest £10 million into an arts and community bid for the building by selling the stencil he used to create the artwork on the building itself.
In 2019 around 1,000 people gathered at Reading Gaol to give it a metaphorical ‘hug’. The physical demonstration saw them all link hands around the building to show support for it being saved and used as an arts and cultural venue.
Prior to the march, Reading West Conservative MP Alok Sharma and Matt Rodda, Labour MP for Reading East, met with new Prisons Minister, Damian Hinds, to lobby for the community art option.
