The Abbey Site: Dissolution & After
The calm of the cloister was brutally ended in 1539 when the last Abbot, Hugh Faringdon, and two of his monks were executed for treason in front of the Abbey Gate after a mock trial whose verdict was never in doubt. Henry VIII collected the wealth of the Abbey at Reading, as from so many other Abbeys in the kingdom also dissolved at this time, for his royal use. The Abbey buildings were mainly pulled down and the reusable building materials sold off within a few years.
Only a few of the buildings remained in use such as the Abbot's House which was a royal residence up to 1642 when the horrors of the Civil War reached Reading. Now the remaining boundary wall of the Abbey was refortified and entrenchments dug across the Forbury. Much of what was left of the nave of the Church was blown up.
Charles I was held captive for a time in Reading before being taken to London for his execution. In the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when William of Orange invaded from Holland to take the crown of England from James II, a skirmish occurred in Reading between the opposing forces in the market place outside the West Gate of the Abbey. Fifty people died here in an otherwise bloodless take-over of power.
After this a second lengthy period of freedom from war came upon the site, with private houses and gardens being built among the crumbling walls. Some order and care for the remains of the Abbey only came in early Victorian times with the purchase of the Forbury and the Abbey Ruins by Reading Corporation and the laying out of formal municipal gardens among them.
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