Reading Abbey Today: a Picturesque Ruin
Our
Abbey came to an end in 1539. Books, treasures, relics,
furniture and fittings were all dispersed or destroyed, the
buildings were generally pulled down and the materials reused
elsewhere. The monks were provided with a lump sum or a sma11
pension and turned away to make a new life in the outside
world as best they could. Stones and rafters from the Abbey
Church were used in the rebuilding of St Mary's Church, and
bridges, roads and houses in and around Reading were
constructed with stones from the Abbey. Wooden panelling in
Magdalen College, Oxford, is said to come from Reading. In
the abandoned gardens of the monastery and amongst the ruins,
trenches were dug for the underlying gravel in the 30 acres
of land where once the Abbey stood. For three hundred years
the decay and loss continued. Early maps show less and less
of the monastery buildings still in existence.
The
Abbey Ruins were an appealing subject for artists and in
their pictures the slow collapse and demolition of walls and
arches can be traced. Similarly, antiquarians wrote of what
they could see remaining but no effort was made for its long
term preservation. We can only guess at what documents and
moveable objects from the Abbey existed during these years
but have rotted or were thrown away.
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The Chapter House as it appears today - closely hemmed in
by modern office buildings.
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