Having lived close to Reading most of my life, I’ve never been in the museum, well apart from when I was a kid possibly but I can’t remember.
There has been one thing especially that I wanted to find there and that is the Silchester Eagle.
One of my favourite places in the local area is the Roman town of Silchester. Now all that remains are its walls, that have remained relatively intact for thousands of years. Quite an astonishing fact when you consider it. Where the town once stood are now fields but one of the old roads still remains, albeit a track that runs from one side of the town to the other.
There have been a number of archaeological digs over the centuries, starting in the year of 1890 with the major work carried out by the Society of Antiquities of London. However Reverend JG Joyce was the first man to survey a smaller area and famously found the Silchester Eagle in 1866. No doubt this put Silchester on the archaeology map and attracted greater interest across a wider field.
I share a photo of the eagle later in the post.
British Bayeux Tapestry
Another famous historical artefact has to be the Bayeux tapestry which you’ll find in Normandy France and next year, you’ll have the opportunity to see it on our own soil whilst it’s on loan to the British Museum, London. This will be the first time it’s been moved in all of 900 years! The reason: The French museum is undergoing extensive renovation work until 2027.
In the late 19th century, an extremely ambitious project was undertaken by a group of Victorian embroiderers to recreate the Bayeux Tapestry in full, painstakingly reproducing every single detail, stitch-by-stitch, so that the Tapestry's timeless story could be enjoyed by the people of Britain.
https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/collections/britains-bayeux-tapestry
This famous scene shows the arrow in Harold’s eye, which many dispute wasn’t how he was killed, his death might have been more brutal.
Look at the bottom of this section, what do we see? Norman soldiers ransacking the corpses of the fallen men, who may have been from both sides, for their armour, chainmail and weapons.
Alice Allen caught my eye because the Victorian Alice shares her complete name with our daughter Alice. Each section was embroidered by as many as 58 people (I think, don’t quote me) as that’s how many scenes there are.
Roman Silchester
An impression of how Silchester looked around 400AD or so.
The Silchester Eagle that was discovered in the Victorian era.
The Berkshire Chronicle
A beautiful building that has stood the tests of time, more recently hosting a bistro restaurant. Originally the home of The Berkshire Chronicle newspaper.
Huntley and Palmers
Reading was famous for it’s biscuits.
You can see and hear what factory life was like for Huntley & Palmers' thousands of workers, through oral history, photographs and historic film, including the earliest surviving film of a British factory.
It’s a fantastic museum and what I’ve shared here is just a small part of the museum. Might do a follow up post in the future.
We have some great little museums around the country. I expect they have to be more media savvy these days and present things in ways to get modern kids engaged. I'm not aware of any Roman stuff too near us, but St Albans has some.
About 30 years ago we saw the Bayeux tapestry. I've heard that some people do not think it's a good idea to transport it to London as it's so fragile. That reminds me that we need to finish watching the BBC drama about Harold and William.
I love St Albans, worked there for a short while and visited the Roman bits there whilst I was on my contract. I’ve not seen the BBC series yet and quite fancy watching it.
!BBH
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!BBH
Thank you
I just finished watching that 8 part, King & Conqueror show we were lucky to get it on one of our free to air channels out in Australia so quicky. I thought it was great
I keep meaning to watch it! I’m impressed you were able to watch it so soon.