Servants of the Abbey: a Busy Commercial Centre
The Abbey Wharf began as a shelving bank of the river Kennet on which stones were dumped to make it firmer for boats to be drawn up out of the water. It was here that the loads of stone arrived from Caen in northern France for building the Abbey. And probably here also the body of Henry I reached the Abbey for burial after a sea voyage following the death of the king in France. Later the west bank of the Kennet was extended by dumping a vast amount of clayey soil and constructing a timber frontage to the river so that boats could moor against the wharf side. Upright squared-off timbers with tapered ends were driven into the river bed every 75 centimetres. Behind these were horizontal planks holding back the river bank. All this timber work was in oak. On the wharf side was a stone building and a less substantial wooden building adjacent to it on the north.
Mediaeval roads were very poor, being cart-tracks with no make-up of stone and impossibly muddy in wet weather. Water transport was therefore used whenever possible, especially for carrying bulky goods, and the Abbey Wharf was in constant activity. The bargemen there, humping sacks of grain for the Mill, wine imported from the continent, bundles of firewood, could be free in their language and the noise disturbed the monks in their Cloister only 140 metres to the north. We know this because of a written complaint in the margin of a book being copied out there. Some of the mediaeval swear words have come down to be still used now: 'By our Lady' -'Bloody', 'God blind me' -'Cor blimey'. Others -'Gods wounds' -Zounds', have gone out of fashion.
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The Abbey wharf in 1410, viewed from the south - a diorama
in the Museum of Reading. A monk oversees the delivery and
dispatch of goods. In the background is the Abbey church,
which towered over the rest of the town
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