It has hosted medieval kings, housed the imprisoned Oscar Wilde, and been decorated by Banksy. But for a decade, the site of the former Reading gaol, built on the footprint of the town’s medieval monastery, has been shuttered and empty, to the frustration of local politicians and campaigners.
Now, a decade after it was mothballed by the Ministry of Justice, the former HMP Reading has finally been sold to a non-profit educational foundation for £7m, the government has confirmed.
Details are limited about the buyer, Ziran Education Foundation, or its plans for the prime town centre site. The organisation’s founder and director, Channing Bi, is a Chinese-born businessman who is resident in Ireland.
The MoJ said the foundation’s initial proposals included plans for “an educational centre providing services to the local community, including a museum outlining the history of the prison and an exhibition space accessible to the public”.
Reading borough council had submitted its own bid for the historic site, backed by MPs and campaigners, hoping to develop it into an accessible cultural and artistic hub. In 2021, the artist Banksy signalled his support for a creative use of the building, painting an escaping prisoner on the outer wall and offering to sell his stencil – thought to be worth £10m – to raise funds for an arts-based bid.
The council’s leader, Jason Brock, said he welcomed the fact that the the new buyer’s plans “recognise the historical significance of this site to Reading, the wider region and nationally”, and said the mooted plans for public access “[sound] encouraging, on the face of it”.
“We have always maintained the Reading gaol site should be about so much more than monetary value and we will look to work alongside the new owners to understand what they intend to achieve with the site,” he said.
However, he underlined the “significant” planning issues that limit development of the 3.8-acre site, which as well as the Grade II-listed Victorian prison contains the buried ruins of part of Reading’s medieval monastery, one of the most important in Europe, and the burial site of King Henry I.
The government had initially wanted to sell the grounds for housing, but a previous preferred buyer pulled out in 2019 after being told its plan for a hotel and high density apartment blocks was unlikely to get planning approval.
“We hope that there will be an early contact to discuss their proposals, because they have no planning permission to do anything within that building, save reopen it as a prison,” Reading’s mayor, Tony Page, told the Guardian. “Whatever is proposed will require not only planning permission [but] all the hoops that have to be gone through with regard to a very sensitive and historic listed building, and a scheduled ancient monument to boot.”
Toby Davies, a local theatre director and member of the Save Reading Gaol campaign, said: “The early noises feel mildly encouraging, because they have put forward words like ‘culture’ and ‘education’.” Campaigners would continue to lobby for an accessible arts use, and for the site to be opened up to the adjacent abbey ruins and riverside, he said.
Ziran Education Foundation’s website says it is “dedicated to promoting a compassionate, peaceful, and sustainable world through education”, but lists only limited other projects, including a scheme recruiting English teachers in the Himalayas. It did not respond to requests for comment.
