Did You Know?

Reading is a large town on the Thames and Kennet rivers in southern England. It’s known for the annual Reading Festival, an outdoor rock music event. Shops and riverside restaurants dot the town centre. The Reading Museum contains exhibits on the town’s history and displays a Victorian replica of the Bayeux Tapestry. The ruins of the 12th-century Reading Abbey lie beside Forbury Gardens, a Victorian formal garden.

The 18th century saw the beginning of a major iron works in the town and the growth of the brewing trade for which Reading was to become famous. ... In the 2011 census, the urban area around Reading had an estimated population of 318,014, making it one of the largest towns in the UK without city status. Reading is the largest town in the UK, but it has seen three separate bids to become a city get snubbed in recent years

One reason for the building of the Reading hospital was the large number of serious injuries occurring during the construction of the Great Western Railway.The first patient treated at the Royal Berks was George Earley, a railway worker aged 15. He was treated for a severe compound fracture of the upper arm which required amputation at the shoulder.

Many famous faces hail from Reading including Hollywood starlet Kate Winslet. A whole host of other celebrities also come from the town including Kenneth Branagh, Ricky Gervais, Chris Tarrant, Jeremy Kyle, Natalie Dormer and Nicholas Holt. As well as this, the one and only Kate Middleton is also from Reading and singer Bryan Adams even lived here for a short time.

Reading Football Club is a professional association football club based in Reading, Berkshire. The team play in the Championship, the second tier of English football.

In 2011 a sausage casserole ended up in the Buses' lost property. It was claimed by a woman called Susan Stout, who thanked the company for rescuing her family dinner after her son had left it on a bus.

Legend has it that Ghandi once stopped off at Castle Street in the city to enjoy tea, cakes and of course, a spot of meditation .

Reading was home to the first ever Little Chef restaurant opened in 1958.

During the second world war, Reading was considered a safe town in that it was unlikely to be bombed. Many children from London were evacuated to the town early in the war.But it was not entirely safe. In an air raid on 10 February 1941 41 people were killed and 153 were injured.