Houses and Estates Talks Series
This all series ticket covers all three talks in the “Houses and Estates” Talks series, for the discounted price of £12.50 (members £10). You may also book each talk individually – see each separate event page. All talks are on Thursdays at 2.30pm. The venue is the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, Reading (next to the back of Reading Central Library). They last about an hour with time for questions and discussion afterwards. Tea, coffee and biscuits is included in the price.
Thursday 16 July 2026 – The History of Yeomanry House with Katie Amos
Many of us will have visited Yeomanry at some point over the years – to register a birth or death or to attend a wedding. Best known as the former home of the Berkshire Register Office (and Berkshire FHS), but what of its past, and where does its name come from? From its origins on the fringes of the town, to polite society, a school, military links and weddings, this house has seen it all. Discover its history and some of the families associated with it.
Thursday 20 August – Purley Park and its Estate with Catherine Sampson
Built about 1800 to replace an earlier house by the river, Purley Park and its estate dominated the landscape in Purley until its sale from 1920 onwards. The talk will cover the changing and sometimes turbulent history of the estate from the 1500s to present day. Also, some of the families associated with it. We will look at some of its lost buildings including its thatched lodge gates, gardener’s cottage and boathouse and the parkland which was gradually replaced with housing during the twentieth century. However, it is the families associated with the house who provide the most interesting and sometimes controversial stories. The gambler who “lost” the house over a card game at White’s Club, the book and print collector who donated his vast collection to Eton College, and the irrascible Major Storer who mistakenly threw his wife’s china tea service into the Thames.
Thursday 17 September 2026 – Opulence and neglect: the changing fortunes of the Vachells of Coley House, 1638-1705 with Dr Margaret Ounsley
Using two inventories of goods in Coley House taken in 1630 and 1710, Dr Margaret Ounsley reveals what they tell us about everyday life in one of Reading’s ‘great houses’ at these times, but also the massive social and economic changes going on in the 17c and the changing fortunes of the Vachell family.
Find out more in these fascinating face-to-face talks.
Pre-booking is preferred, but you can pay on the door for this series ticket at the first talk, if there are spaces available.
Location image: Abbey Church – Gazamp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped)
Scroll down to book.
Date
- Thu 16 Jul 2026
Tickets
- £12.50
Location
- Abbey Square, Reading RG1 3BE
Category
Organiser
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The Centre - Berkshire FHS
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Email
booking@berksfhs.org.uk -
Website
https://berksfhs.org/branches/
Speakers
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Catherine Sampson MScCatherine is a veteran family and social historian. Her own family history research is mainly concentrated in East Anglia and the North-East.
She loves history across all periods, both the very early and the more modern. She regularly gives talks across Berkshire and the surrounding counties.
Catherine is Chairman and Projects Coordinator for Berkshire Family History, and chairman of Project Purley, Purley’s local history society. She has published several histories of her own family and in 2010 edited “Purley in Old Images”. She is currently working on a new book on the history of Purley’s River Estate.
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Katie AmosLocal Studies Lead, Reading Central LibrariesKatie has been working at Reading Library for around 30 years, mostly in the Local Studies Department, where she is now Local Studies Lead. Through her work here, she has developed an interest in family history, and has been researching her own tree for the last 18 odd years. This led to her first book on her Timms family, and her second book came about from a customer request and is on the history of the Mansion House in Prospect Park. When not researching she loves contemporary English folk music, reading and also works for the Hexagon theatre as part of their front of house team.
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Dr Margaret OunsleyMargaret Ounsley completed a Masters in English Local History from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in legal history from the University of Reading. Her doctoral research focussed on the administration of the Poor Law in Reading in the eighteenth century. She has a long-standing interest in the history of Coley, where she has lived for forty years, and co-managed the Coley Local History Project in 1989 which produced the ‘Talking of Coley’ series, which has recently been revised and reissued as ‘Coley Talking’.