Reading
Reading is a town of thriving commercial, industrial and administrative activity. Thus most of Reading’s waterside heritage has disappeared under new development but, fortunately, much of the Town’s history has been well documented and survives.

Reading really started to grow and to take advantage of its geographical position when Henry I founded an important Benedictine monastery there in the 12th century. The cloth industry took the lead in the Middle Ages exploiting locally produced wool and the River Kennet to power the fulling mills. At about the same time, tanneries developed alongside the River Kennet and the town became famous for its leather goods.

High Bridge was the limit of navigation on the Kennet and through the centuries many wharves developed from Kennet Mouth to High Bridge. Reading was the centre of a rich agricultural area and produce was gathered in, processed, and sent down to the Thames and on to the markets of London. As a result, a return trade in imported groceries and heavy goods, for distribution over a wide area of southern England, developed.

Reading’s shopkeepers, innkeepers and mill owners were almost the sole suppliers and buyers for the region and they greeted with anger plans to open the River Kennet for navigation as far as Newbury. Such was their fear over loss of monopoly that violence ensued against bargemen as the waterway was being built. But the Kennet Navigation did finally open in 1724, bringing enormous benefits to Reading as the trading area widened. Processing industries such as brewing, sawmilling and biscuit-making flourished.

Several ironworks grew up in the Katesgrove area, the largest being Reading Ironworks Ltd, which covered 12 acres extending across the River Kennet. After nearly 100 years, it went into liquidation in 1888. The Napoleonic wars spurred the further development of the sailcloth industry and Musgrave Lamb’s sailcloth factory produced so much sailcloth for the Royal Navy that the Battle of Trafalgar was said to have been won in Katesgrove Lane. Industries developed in a large area east of the River Kennet, and the river from County Lock to Fobney Lock was once lined with wharves. Local clay provided the base material for a big brick making industry in this area, with the Kennet providing useful transport. Waterloo Kiln closed in the late 1940s.

Reading’s wharves on the Kennet were at their busiest following the linking of the River Kennet at Newbury to the Avon at Bath, thus linking London and Bristol by an inland route. The development of the railway, however, resulted in a gradual decline of the river-borne traffic and today nothing is left of industries that once lined Reading’s river banks. Sadly, the new industries do not use the River Kennet for transport.

For further information on the Canal’s history, follow this link to view the Canal Heritage pages.