Greyfriars Church is an

evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

, and former

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

friary A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

, in the town centre of

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

in the English county of

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

. The church forms part of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

's Diocese of Oxford. It is the oldest Franciscan church still in use as a place of worship in the UK, and is said to be the most complete surviving example of Franciscan architecture in England. As a consequence, it has been listed as a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

As a friary

The Franciscan order of

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ol ...

s first arrived in Reading in 1233 with the intention of creating a community to minister to the poor and the oppressed. This arrival was not welcomed by the established Reading Abbey, but the fact that the friars had royal

patronage Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...

meant that

Adam de Lathbury Adam de Lathbury, O.S.B., otherwise known as Adam of Lathbury or Adam Lothbury, was a Benedictine monk who ruled as Abbot of Reading Abbey, in the English county of Berkshire, from 1226 to 1238. In 1233, a group of friars of the Franciscan Order ...

, the then abbot, was obliged to assist. Initially the friars were granted a site alongside the road to Caversham Bridge, and by 1259 had erected a

there, complete with church, chapter house, dormitory and refectory. However the site proved prone to flooding, impeding the ability of the friars to undertake their ministry. Eventually

John Peckham John Peckham (c. 1230 – 8 December 1292) was Archbishop of Canterbury in the years 1279–1292. He was a native of Sussex who was educated at Lewes Priory and became a Friar Minor about 1250. He studied at the University of Paris under B ...

, who was both the

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

and a fellow Franciscan, intervened and by 1285 a new site had been obtained at the west end of what is now ''Friar Street''. The new friary on the new site, that was eventually to become Greyfriars Church, was ready by 1311. The friars were expelled in 1538 as part of

King Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disag ...

's dissolution of the monasteries.

As a secular building

At the time of the dissolution, the town of Reading was administered from a

guild hall A guildhall, also known as a "guild hall" or "guild house", is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commonly become town halls and in som ...

known as the ''Yield Hall'', situated beside the River Kennet close to today's ''Yield Hall Lane''. However, by the middle of the 16th century this had proved too small. The mayor, along with Thomas Vachell of Coley Park, petitioned the king to grant the nave and aisles of the church for use as a town hall. In 1543, this petition was granted. The remainder of the church and friary, together with the adjoining grounds, were sold to Robert Stanshawe, after whom the nearby ''Stanshawe Road'' is named. However Greyfriars did not prove a successful town hall, and some twenty years later the council created a new town hall by inserting an upper floor into the refectory of the

Hospitium of St John The Hospitium of St John the Baptist was the hospitium, or dormitory for pilgrims, of Reading Abbey, which today is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. The hospitium was founded in 118 ...

, the former

hospitium Hospitium (; gr, ξενία, '' xenia'', προξενία) is the ancient Greco-Roman concept of hospitality as a divine right of the guest and a divine duty of the host. Similar or broadly equivalent customs were and are also known in other cul ...

of Reading Abbey. This was to remain the site of Reading's civic administration, through the successive re-buildings that eventually created today's

Reading Town Hall Reading Town Hall is the town hall of Reading, Berkshire, England. The town hall was built in several phases between 1786 and 1897, although the principal facade was designed by Alfred Waterhouse in 1875. Situated close to the site of Reading ...

, until the move to

Reading Civic Centre Reading Civic Centre was a civic centre in the town of Reading, itself in the English county of Berkshire. The centre dated from the mid-1970s. History Prior to the 16th century, civic administration for the town of Reading was situated in the ...

in the 1970s. Thereafter Greyfriars was used successively as a

hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

for the poor (1578) and a house of correction for the punishment of idle or vagrant people (1590). In the 18th century it became the town's

jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

. By the middle of the 19th century only the walls survived, and the derelict structure was in danger of collapse.

As a parish church

The church was

restored ''Restored'' is the fourth studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings. Track listing Standard release Enhanced edition Deluxe gold edition Standard ...

around 1863 by the Reading Borough Surveyor, W H Woodman. The original building is constructed from squared and knapped

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

s with a stone plinth and

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es. The tiled roof sweeps down over aisles, and the church has a three bay

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

. The large

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...

and triple arched belfry were added to the church by Woodman. The nave has segmental headed 3 light windows of plain decorated style and an extremely fine west window of 5 lights, in a decorated style with reticulated tracery. The interior is spacious, with a crown post and

wind brace In architecture, wind braces are diagonal braces to tie the rafters of a roof together and prevent racking. In medieval roofs they are arched, and run from the principal rafters to catch the purlin A purlin (or historically purline, purloyne, pur ...

roof supported on original cruciform and quadriblobe shafts. The

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

and

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...

date from the restoration. The Memorial Hall, a building seating about fifty opens both to the north side of the Church and to Sackville Street, was constructed in the early twentieth century. It can be divided into three rooms. The Vicarage building was re-built in 1961–62 with the outward appearance of the original Georgian town house, but with a modern interior. It has now been purchased from the diocese, together with its garden, by the congregation of Greyfriars to be used for the mission of the church, initially as a Day Nursery. Attached to the main church building is the West End, which was constructed in the 1970s to create an entrance foyer and a semi-circular lounge with seating for 100–150. Moveable screens allow for it to be divided into four smaller areas. There are also a small kitchen and toilets. The Greyfriars Centre, adjacent to the Church, was completed in 1983 and consists of a general purpose hall for sports and other activities, a coffee lounge with kitchen, bookshop, two meeting rooms, the Church office, toilets and showers. In 2000, the church's interior was reordered and modernised. The

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

pews were replaced with movable seating to allow greater flexibility in the building's use, such as the large dinners which launch the church's Alpha Courses. The pulpit was moved to the rear of the nave. A

baptistery In Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned structure surrounding the baptismal ...

was also installed.

References

External links