A Tour of Coley Streets (Part 1) 

Many thanks for making and sharing this! It's great! I was born in Wokingham hospital in 1951and raised in Reading, 192 Kings Road, we moved away in 1961 but returned to Reading in 1967 to live on Cumberland Road, we moved to the top floor of Irving Court Coley Park in 1976 they were still Council flats then and were still really well looked after, 3 blocks in a lovely park setting as you would certainly know, Our view from our 14th floor was absolutely amazing, that flat was a bargain rent wise and we considered ourselves very fortunate in being alloted it, I would imagine those are all under private ownership nowadays and worth a pretty penny! 🤣 We all (Mum & Dad, my Wife & I emigrated to Australia in 1981 after I finished up in the Merchant Navy, I spent most of my life (apart from trips away to sea) in Reading until I was 30, I served my apprenticeship at SPP formerly Pulsometer Pumps, known affectionately of course as "The Pulso" 🤣 Still in Aussie and here I shall happily stay but I'm proud to call myself a Reading ight if that's the proper word?😂 and I've always taken a keen interest in my old home town and seeing how much it's changed especially in the last 43 years since we left, Again Thankyou for making this and sharing! My 86 year old brother (also here) very interested too as he was brought up in Reading from 1944 until him and his wife emigrated in 1968, our Australian friends and fam that were born out here, very interested in this and to see where we come from! Cheers, sorry I could prattle on for hours but Thankyou and we're looking forward to part 2 Cheers Mate 10/10! 👍🇳🇿

This is a really interesting history of the local area. Really looking forward to the second part.

It's criminal just how much of Reading's old architecture has been demolished, in my opinion

Thoroughly enjoyable. Well done for putting this together.

I wanted to find out where Coley steps were and 4 minutes in you nailed it! Such a well narrated video.

This is brilliant!! Thank you

My daughter has just sent me this link. We lived at 11 Willow Street and my grandparents at 6 Bright Street. I used to visit the sawyard to collect sawdust for my rabbit. Simmonds Brewery used to stable their horses next to there, beer was still delivered by horse and dray then. When they delivered to the Blue Lion which had a yard, the horses were backed in to off load the barrels, I used to make sure I was always around to hold the horses, i was only 7/8 at the time so you can imagine how big they were to me. They weren't the only horses around, we had a neighour in Parnel Street who kept pigs opposite Coley Park, he collected scraps for his pigs in a very smelly cart drawn by his horse, Toby. Again I used to make sure I was around when he came home for putting a nose bag on Toby, I would then wait while Mr. and I cannot remember his name had finished his lunch.. There was also Nobby a very handsome black horse who drew the baker's van, I always had a sugar cube ready for him. I also went fishing with my brother in the Holy Brook catching minnows and sticklebacks. .We lived in Coley late 50s and moved around 1961.

Very interesting, even though I worked at Hewens/Morris Garages from 1966 until 1974 there was lot in that area that I hadn't known about.

I'm a Russell Street resident and always on the look out for old photo's / images of the Russell St area (preferably the upper half)....if anyone does find any content, my thanks in advance

This is really interesting. We're looking at buying a house in field road and i've been trying to find out what the steep mound behind the house was. I thought it might have been the entrance to the mine but turns out its the possible remnants of the civil war fortifications. Would be interested to find out more about it