Weekly Photo Challenge … Escape

Those of us who live in Reading, Berkshire either love the town or hate it, people escape to Reading and many escape from it.

We moved here in the early 1980s from north London; we were pleased to escape from semi-detached suburbia to somewhere where we might find work and affordable rent and a subsequent mortgage.

Little did we know that we had moved to the home of the Reading Rock Festival.  To where every teenager in the UK and further escape to; very August Bank Holiday; when all the locals escape from,  to avoid the noise and violation.( this in my opinion is unfounded)

However,  it was Reading Prison that came t mind when I read this week’s Photo Challenge; It is not the most visually pleasing of buildings.  It does have at least one ‘romantic’ connection; it was the ‘home’ of Oscar Wilde for a time and where he wrote the Ballad of Reading Gaol.

I understand from a recent visitor (not an inmate I hasten to add)  that the cell where he was imprisoned is marked accordingly. But, It does beg the question, does anyone actually care about this ridiculous fact?

The prison is relatively new, built in 1840 and described in the Illustrated London News as

‘Standing, as it does on the rising ground at the entrance of Reading, and close to the site of the venerable abbey, this new prison is from every side the most conspicuous building, and, architecturally, by far the greatest ornament to the town’

It is the largest of the town’s public buildings and before the other buildings had encroached the surrounding walls then it would have looked very imposing.  It is built of red Tilehurst brick with decorative quoins of Bath stone, the turrets and crenulations give an impression of a 15th century castle.  Nonetheless I am sure each prisoner would plan to escape such a vile environment.