Middle Ages

Timeline

Saxon

St Mary’s

St Giles’

St Laurence’s

The Abbey

The Monks Day

The Abbot

Pilgrims

The Grey Friars

Quakers

Baptists

Congregation-alists

Catholic Church

St Mary’s Castle Street

St Giles’

The original church of St Mary’s soon proved to small for the growing population of the town, St Mary’s, as a minster church, had clergy who looked after people in a large area, including Tilehurst and Pangbourne. However, in winter the River Kennet flooded and made it difficult to reach the southern part of the town. A new church, St Giles, was thus founded to serve the growing number of houses which were being built in the southern part of the town and came under the control of Reading Abbey in 1191. In Victorian times many of the middle parts of the church were removed.

During the Civil War, the tower of St Giles’ was used as a gun platform to fire at the Parliament forces outside the town. Naturally the parliament forces fired back at these guns, damaging the tower.