Summary

Large townhouse of around 1750, converted to offices in the C20.

Description

Large townhouse of around 1750-1760, converted to offices late in the C20.

MATERIALS: red brick with wooden door surrounds and stone parapet coping. Slate tile roof throughout.

PLAN: three storeys with cellars and attic accommodation. The ground and upper floors have been subdivided into offices for six companies, though the original house plan remains broadly legible, particularly at ground-floor level, where the four principal rooms are accessed from the central entrance hall. There is a substantial stack dividing the front and rear rooms on the west side of the house, with a passage between the rooms to the west end of the stack, following the side passage arrangement to the cellar. Another two rooms are set to the east at both ground and first-floor levels. Access to the cellar appears originally to have been only from the rear southern elevation, with the internal stairs down being a later insertion. The stairs to the front of the building between the first floor and the attic accommodation are later replacements.

EXTERIOR: the façade to Castle Street is of five bays, symmetrically composed with a six-panel central door standing on a wide stone step approached by a modern path. The door is set within an arched opening with an elaborate scroll fanlight and a keystone with a carved head above. The moulded door surround has foliated enrichment in the spandrels over; the whole framed by large-scale Doric columns with block rustication. The columns support a moulded and ornamented entablature with a bay-leaf frieze and a dentilled pediment. The windows throughout are glazing bar sashes, with two pairs flanking the central door at street level and a range of five to the upper floors. A moulded and bracketed cornice divides the upper-floor windows from the parapet. Partially screened from the street is the hipped roof, with a modern top-lit attic. A lead, conical rainwater head runs down the façade to the left of centre.

The rear (southern) elevation is slightly broader and of four storeys, owing to the tapering out of the plan and the incline of the site to the north, which means the cellar level opens to the rear yard. The fenestration is off-set marginally to the left, again with five bays with glazing bar sashes; the central second-floor window to the stairs elongated and with a round-headed brick arch. A projecting oriel addition is to the left of the central door, this with leaded glazing supported on two cast-iron columns. There is a central flight of stairs with iron balusters up to the ground-floor entrance, this with a six-panel door recessed within a classical surround with a pediment and scroll brackets. The moulded and bracketed cornice beneath the parapet of this rear elevation matches that on the principal façade and returns to the corner of the west elevation, which is otherwise blank. There is a section of early brick wall and an outbuilding attached to the eastern end of the rear elevation. The brick outbuilding has six-panel side door and single-pitch slate tile roof.

INTERIOR: The entrance hall retains much of its mid-C18 decorative scheme, with a bracketed cornice and an Ionic column screen leading through to a cantilevered, open-string staircase. This rises through to the first floor and has turned balusters, curved tread ends and a curtail step (the corresponding staircase to the basement is a later insertion, as noted above). There are four principal rooms to the ground floor, each accessed from the entrance hall. The best preserved of these is the south-eastern rear room, originally the music room, which has an ornate Rococo plaster ceiling with garlands and a central trophy featuring musical instruments in relief. The plasterwork is bordered with a complete bracketed cornice, with two doors to the west, both with eared architraves with beadwork and elaborate pediments featuring foliate scrolls. The narrower of these doors, to the south side, has been blocked and has no corresponding opening to the hall (presumably blocked at the time the internal stairs to the cellar were inserted, which cut across this opening). The windows to the south have eared architraves to the full height of the room, with splayed window shutter boxes.

The western rear room appears to have originally been a dining room. This has a panelled range with a moulded frame integrating a pair of fluted Ionic pilasters. There is a recessed section with a hatch opening beneath, suggesting this was possibly a warming stove for meals brought up from the kitchen. A door set in a moulded architrave with a pediment is at the north end and skirting and a dentilled cornice with a scrolled foliate frieze run consistently in the room. There is a section of fielded panelling to the threshold of the room to the oriel window bay. The front western room is connected to this rear room via a side passage against the former stack; this has a simple moulded cornice, skirting and a dado rail. The chimney breasts to the ground-floor rooms remain, though all are blocked and no fire surrounds are retained. The front eastern room was not inspected.

The staircase to the first floor leads to an open landing, this with engaged Doric pilasters to an acanthus leaf cornice with garland frieze. There are four rooms corresponding broadly to the ground-floor arrangement. These all retain their cornices, with dentils to the rear eastern room, though those to the other rooms are simply moulded with matching dado rails. A later staircase has been built in the centre of the north range to the second floor, rising through to the attic accommodation. There are no specific historic fixtures of note to the second storey and attic. The cellar has barrel-vaulted bays to the north with two rooms with substantial lateral beams to the south, one presumably a former kitchen for the house, though no cooking range or other associated fixtures survive to mark this out. The western cellar passage has a simple six-panel door to the rear yard with L-strap hinges. A matching door with the upper panels glazed is set to the east of the external stairs.

History

The first written record of Reading dates from the C9 when the name seems to have referred to a tribe, called Reada’s people. It is possible that there was a river port here during the Roman occupation, and by 1086 there was a thriving urban community, as recorded in the Domesday Book. Reading Abbey was founded in 1121 and this transformed Reading into a place of pilgrimage as well as an important trading and ecclesiastical centre with one of the biggest and richest monasteries in England. By 1525 Reading was the largest town in Berkshire and the tenth-largest in England when measured in taxable wealth. The dissolution led to the monastic complex becoming a royal palace and by 1611 the town’s population had grown to over 5,000 as a result of its cloth trade. A number of the timber-framed houses from this period survive in Castle Street and Market Place.

Reading became a prosperous market town and administrative centre over the course of the C18, driven by the development of the town’s waterways and road links. In 1723 the River Kennet was transformed into a canal, linking Reading to Newbury, further extended by the opening of the Kennet and Avon Canal in 1810, to create a route between Reading and the Bristol Channel. Turnpike roads were also improved, establishing major coaching routes from London to Oxford, the West Country and the southern coast. Iron works, brewing and malting caused the expansion of the town further west and in the older part of Reading, many timber-framed buildings were refaced in fashionable brick and several substantial new houses were built. Holybrook House was amongst the most important houses of the mid-C18 in Reading, probably having been built in around 1750-1760 for the prosperous merchant John Spicer. A prominent figure in Reading in the mid-C18, Spicer was three times mayor (in 1736, 1744 and 1756) and had influential connections in the City of London. The house is stylistically redolent of the architect Sir Robert Taylor, although no firm attribution can be made. The name of the house references the Holy Brook in Reading, which runs to the south-east of the house and would originally have formed the boundary of the garden, as it remained until shortly after the Second World War.

Holybrook House remained one of the most desirable and imposing residential properties in Reading throughout the late C18 and into the C19, maintaining a long tradition as a residence of many of the town's mayors. The first paving stone in Reading, from works by the town’s Paving Commissioners, was noted to have been ceremonially laid here before the door of the ‘mayor’s house’ on 8 August 1785. Into the 1800s the house was resided in by William Exall, who was a partner in the ironworks Barrett, Exall & Andrewes and Mayor of Reading in 1854-1855. The house was subsequently home to another mayor of the town, the department store owner, William McIlroy. His son, William Jr., was born in the house in 1893 and went on to serve five consecutive terms as mayor between 1938 and 1943. In the inter-war years, the house was occupied by the Workers' Educational Association, a group founded to promote higher education among the working classes. During the Second World War, the house was used as a nursery school, as it remained into the 1960s. The immediate context of the house was radically altered by the building of the Inner Distribution Road in the 1970s, which was driven through Castle Street, requiring the present retaining wall to be constructed against the west end for structural support following the demolition of an adjacent building. Holybrook House now serves as offices for several companies, though elements of the plan arrangement and notable original features have been retained, which are detailed below.

Reasons for Listing

Holybrook House, 63 Castle Street, Reading, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a refined and carefully detailed house of 1750-1760, stylistically redolent of the work of Sir Robert Taylor;
* for the quality of the decorative schemes and fixtures in several of the principal rooms, most notably the music room with its especially fine plasterwork ceiling featuring Rococo garlands and a trophy of instruments.

Historic interest:

* as a well-preserved example of a prosperous merchant’s house of the mid-C18, the status of the house and its importance within the town marked by its association with a series of mayors of Reading who resided here throughout the C18 and C19.

Group value:

* with other listed buildings on the south side of Castle Street, including the Grade II-listed 59 and 61 Castle Street (NHLE entry 1321958) and Talbot House (NHLE entry 1113419), which are adjacent to the east.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17533826

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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