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Greyfriars Church

Greyfriars Church

Reading, Berkshire

The building served as the guildhall for Reading and then a hospital and gaol from the C16 to the mid-C19 and was then converted back to a church from 1862 by the borough surveyor, William Woodman

Architectural Features

MATERIALS: flint walling with stone dressings and a plain tile roof

This has plate glass windows of full height and at the centre is a portal with angled surround

C19 furnishings include the pulpit and font of Caen stone, the series of wall monuments and the elaborate wrought iron brackets of the late-C19 gasoliers which were converted to electroliers in 1930 and fitted with new suspended lights in the early C21

The floor was raised in 2000 and is now of white ceramic tiles

At the eastern end beneath a raised platform is an immersion font of cruciform shape

Medieval floor tiles, which were found on site as the building was reinstated as a church, are displayed in a case on the northern wall and show images of hares, stags, dogs and geometrical patterns