Old Reading Talks Series
This all series ticket covers both talks in the “Historic Reading” talks series, for the discounted price of £8 (members £7). You may also book each talk individually – see each separate event page. Both talks are on Thursdays at 2pm in The Centre for Heritage and Family History, Reading. They last about an hour with time for questions and discussion afterwards. Tea, coffee and cake after the talk is included in the price.
A third talk in August is our special VJ Day event. This is a fish and chips lunch after which we will have a talk with Q&A afterwards. This third talk is priced at £12 (to include lunch) (members £11). Please pre-book this separately to the series ticket.
Thursday 10 July 2025 – Reading Greyfriars – from prison to parish church with Malcolm Summers
Built around 1300, Greyfriars Church is one of the oldest buildings in Reading. It is the only surviving part of the town’s Franciscan friary. For almost 250 years, from the early 17th century to the mid-19th, it was used as the borough prison, or Bridewell. In 1862, it was sold to a local clergyman who spearheaded the conversion of the building back to ecclesiastical use. The talk will tell the story of when the building was a Bridewell. It will give a glimpse inside the walls that only the unfortunate few had at the time. It will explore the reasons behind its conversion back to a church, finishing by considering its early years as a parish church, serving a mostly poor community.
Thursday 11 September 2025 – Reading’s Trolleybuses with Dave Hall
This talk looks into the early days of public transport in Reading. It will span the cover the decision in 1934 to replace the remaining tram routes with trolleybuses through to the end of operations in 1966. In the post war years, further routes were converted to trolleybus operation.
The talk includes many photos showing both the trolleybuses and various shops/buildings and cinemas that have long since disappeared. Finally, we take a brief look at those Reading trolleybuses that are preserved and operate at The Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft, North Lincolnshire.
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.
Image: Market Place, Reading in the 70’s by Antony Ewart Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Scroll down to book.
Date
- Thu 10 Jul 2025
Tickets
- £8.00
Location
- 2nd Floor, Reading Central Library, Abbey Square, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 3BQ
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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Malcolm SummersMalcolm Summers is a retired maths teacher and Deputy Head. Originally from Birmingham, he has lived in Reading for forty years, and is married with two grown up children. He wrote “History of Greyfriars Church, Reading” in 2013, and “Reading’s Grey Friars” in 2020. The latter book describes the Franciscan friary from 1233 to 1538, while the former book tells the story of the friary’s sole visible remains. In 2019, Two Rivers Press published his book “Signs of the Times: Reading’s Memorials”. Malcolm has also written two biographies: “Henry George Willink” (after whom the school in Burghfield Common is named) and “Nicolas Appert”, the French inventor of the process of preserving food by canning (and who is also his wife’s great great great great grandfather). He is researching and writing a biography of Thomas Noon Talfourd.
Malcolm has been a member of Greyfriars Church since 1981, and is currently its PCC secretary. He is also the treasurer of the History of Reading Society and of Kisiizi Partners, a UK Charity that supports a Hospital and community in south west Uganda.
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Dave Hall