Tymon Burghy

Here is a tip for foreign travel: When you are going to visit somewhere for an apportioned time – like a meeting – schedule your train, taxi, etc for a longer time than you actually want to be there. You never know what you will find when you wander around for a bit. (Of course, if you’re on a time crunch that’s not the recommended course of action.)

    Reading was not on my bucket list of places to visit in the UK – for those of you who just read that as the act of reading, it’s pronounced like red-ing. Reading lies between Oxford and London, one of the stops that I had made on my way to London before but never taken much stock in. It wasn’t until I had to head to Reading to renew my visa that I was able to explore it.

    My thriftiness made it so that my return train ticket to Oxford wouldn’t be for another few hours after my appointment finished up. I left the visa station and decided to explore the city a bit. I had seen some ruins on my way in as I hurried to get to my appointment, so I decided to head for those. I retraced my steps back to where I saw the looming ruins and began exploring. 

    The Reading Abbey was once a massive church founded in 1121 by King Henry I. It stood for hundreds of years as one of Europe’s largest monasteries, hosting many kings and many great medieval era ceremonies. The Abbey was decommissioned in 1538 when King Henry VIII dissolved all of the monasteries in the UK after his separation from the Catholic Church. During the first English Civil War just over a hundred years later in 1642, Royalist armies used the remains of the abbey to house field guns and act as a defensive fort. When the battle was on the verge of loss for the Royalist defenders, the commander ordered the men to destroy much of the abbey so that the Parliamentarians couldn’t use the abbey when they captured the city. The decommissioned church was then brought to more or less the ruins that are there today. 

    Walking through what would’ve been 10m (30ft) tall hallways, it’s not hard to imagine the grandeur of the abbey that stood for hundreds of years as a beacon of Christianity. The history markers and plaques around the ruins told the story of the people who had called the abbey “home”. The towering remains tell the grim story of destruction and conflict, but also the story of hope and faith. In 2018, the Abbey Gateway was fully restored as one of the two structures on site that miraculously survived through the centuries. After walking through all of the ruins and learning about the history of the abbey, I decided to seek out some food.

    I strolled down the pavement near a main road headed in the direction of a KFC nearby. I hadn’t had much if any American food since I had been in the UK and was curious to see how the cuisine was different. As I was walking, I saw a crowd of people gathered on the pavement, phones outstretched photographing something. I walked up to the group and when I looked at the wall in front of us, I realised what it was that they were photographing. Before my eyes, a man in stripes clung to a cord of tied bedsheets, descending the wall. A typewriter hung on the end of the cord. I recognised the style of painting from my art history class, I was staring at a Banksy painting. 

    Banksy is a mystery, they spraypaint their work in the dark of night. Nobody knows who Banksy is, although there is speculation. Banksy’s work always has a meaning and is always well prepared. Banksy is one of the UK’s most famous artists. This piece I had never seen before though. I asked a man from the group to get my picture with the piece and I walked out to the painting and got the picture. After staying a few minutes and really taking in the piece, walked away. I would learn later that the piece I found was less than two weeks old. A month or so later, a part of the painting was painted over by one of Banksy’s rivals.

    I never got KFC after the Banksy painting.I returned to the area near the abbey, found a kebab shop nearby and bought a kebab wrap. I took the wrap to Forbury Gardens, which had previously been part of the abbey, sat on a park bench and enjoyed the weather. After I ate I walked around a bit more of the area following a small paved walking trail through the abbey grounds. After a bit, I returned to the train station and made my way back home to Oxford. 

    The extra time I allowed myself when I scheduled the train allowed me to explore and learn more about the area, it also allowed me to discover the Banksy piece which instantly became one of my favourite works of art.