Jan 05 2008
Oracle originally a clothier workhouse
In the heart of Reading is a shopping centre called the Oracle on the same site afore this was a workhouse of the same name:
In January 1626, the town corporation paid William Kendrick (John’s brother) the generous sum of £1,900 for his house and workshops on Minster Street, opposite St Mary’s church, and with handy access to the Holy brook and Mill stream. By 1628, the site had been redeveloped to provide a workhouse for poor clothiers. The impressive building (for which William Brockman, brickmaker of Tilehurst, supplied 200,000 bricks and 20,000 tiles) became known as “The Oracle” — the name possibly deriving from “orchal“, a violet dye obtained from lichen… …The Oracle became a troop garrison during the English Civil War, and then ‘an Habitation for an idle sort of Poor, who lived in it Rent free.’ The building was demolished in 1850 and the site redeveloped.”
write the first thought on Oracle originally a clothier workhouse
