The weir at Fobney Island
In July 2018, the multi-disciplinary artist Peter Driver set out on a three day pilgrimage from the Stanley Spencer Gallery in the village of Cookham to the Sandham Memorial Chapel at Burghclere. A Walk for Stanley is a travel diary that captures the journey in photos, sketches, woodcuts, sonnets and prose.
Our interview with Tony Page continues with reflections on Reading, its waterways and the Abbey.
The ski jump at the end of the IDR in 1984. The Hook and Tackle is the on the left, painted white.
Having carved its way from Caversham Road to the foot of Southampton Street, in the 1970s Reading’s Inner Distribution Road (IDR) stopped abruptly at the ‘ski jump’ where the Oracle roundabout now is. During this hiatus, Reading consulted and debated about whether and how to continue.
Attwells fountain is on the Thames Promenade. The location was once directly connected with the top of Whitley Street by tram and later trolleybus routes. Not so nowadays when all buses with the exception of the No 17, the ‘backbone of Reading’, terminate at Reading Station.
Having recently inhabited the delightful world of Toad, Rattie, Mole and various other riverside creatures in Progress Theatre’s enchanting production of Wind in the Willows, I pondered on how much they would’ve enjoyed messing about on the River Thames in one of these sleek boats at Henley’s Thames Traditional Boat Festival.
By Brenda Sandilands and Gillie Tunley.
The Progress Theatre presents a captivating production of Kenneth Grahame’s timeless The Wind in the Willows this week, in the enchanting setting of Caversham Court Gardens alongside the tranquil Thames.
Canoeists taking part in the Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Race have been passing through Reading on the Kennet and Avon Canal all day today, 26 March 2016.
