Vote for your favourite Abbey Gateway carved head
Designs
Hugh Faringdon
The last Abbot of Reading, accused of treason by Henry VIII, and publicly hung, drawn, and quartered outside the gateway in 1539.
Queen Elizabeth I
Who used the abbot’s house and gateway as a royal palace the 1560s.
Jane Austen
Who studied in the gateway from 1785 to 1786 when it was used as a classroom for Reading Ladies’ Boarding School.
Sir George Gilbert Scott
The leading architect who restored the gateway back in 1861 after a thunderstorm caused the archway to collapse.
Dr Jamieson Hurry
A local historian and philanthropist who gifted 12 carved heads in 1900.
A modern stone mason
Based on a female member of the team that worked on the recent restoration of the Abbey.
