Wokingham Town Centre’s Closed Pubs and Breweries Trail .

Wokingham Town Centre’s Closed Pubs and Breweries Trail Society Committee member and Chair of the Berkshire South-East branch of the Campaign for Real Ale, Kevin Lenton, has produced this booklet which sets out a walking trail describing, with accompanying pictures, 27 pubs and breweries that have since closed and been replaced by other occupants or buildings. For example, The Half Moon was an 18thC alehouse in Broad Street on the site now housing the Royal Mail Sorting Office; the Eagle Brewery, which operated in the first half of the 19thC, was situated in Peach Street where you can now find Snappy Snaps.

The trail starts and ends with two pubs still very much in business: The Queen’s Head on the Terrace at the west end of town and The Crispin in Denmark Street.

Lucas Family History: by Louise Lucas Lucas

In October 2022 John Beach, an indirect descendant of the Lucas family, donated to the Wokingham Society a hand-written and beautifully illustrated book by Louise Cecilia Bazalgette Lucas Lucas about her Lucas ancestry. The book, dated 1886-7, when Louise Lucas Lucas was 24 years old, had been dedicated and given by her to her brother Henry Frederick Lucas Lucas and passed from him to later generations.

In 1892 Louise Lucas Lucas married Rev Joseph Stratton, Master of the Henry Lucas Hospital, and remained in Wokingham until her death in 1950. Coincidentally the Society obtained a painting of the Lucas Hospital Chapel by her brother Henry

The Society arranged for the book to be repaired and placed in the Royal Berkshire Archives, with the permission of John Beach and his wife Sue. At the same time it was digitised and subsequently turned in to an eBook so that it can be appreciated by all who look at it at it.

Wokingham in the News: A Chronological History of Wokingham 1771-1999

Society member and local historian Jim Bell has painstakingly transcribed news items about Wokingham from local newspapers, starting from the earliest days of reports about the town. Jim has been able to use these records for some of the books he has written. It is Jim’s wish that the fruits of his meticulous work should be made publicly available and the Wokingham Society Committee has willingly agreed to host the complete set of transcriptions on the Society’s website.

The Chronology eBook is accessible by clicking the cover image or these links for Word and PDF versions.
Use the ‘Search’ facility in the eBook version to find a particular year or topic.

Visitors to the Chronology may copy material from it (using the Word or PDF version), but are asked to include an acknowledgement that it was provided by Jim Bell if it is used in any publication.

A History of Food and Drink in Wokingham by Wokingham Society Committee member and Town Council volunteer Kevin Lenton.

This booklet provides a vivid account of the various ways food and drink have been provided in the town from the founding of a market in the 13th century, through catering for visitors in the coaching inns of the 18th and 19th centuries to the growth of take away outlets and ethnic restaurants in the present day.

Frank Day’s Memories and the Day Family 1930s memories of a Wokingham man and an account of his family.

Frank Day and his five brothers were born and brought up in a cottage in Peach Street in the 1920s. They all went to Wescott Junior School and Frank recalls in captivating detail the shopkeepers and trades people of his youth before he himself joined the London Central Meat Company in Peach Street as a trainee butcher in the 1930s. he served in the RAF as a fighter pilot during the Second World War and never returned to Wokingham thereafter. His written account of his early days has been lovingly transcribed by his daughter-in-law Carol.

Royal Charters

The Wokingham Society’s Executive Committee is pleased to offer this e-Booklet containing the four significant Royal Charters that governed the town of Wokingham between 1227 and 1974.

The texts of the Charters have been available in manuscript or printed form in libraries or archives, but therefore somewhat inaccessible to the local community and others interested in the history of the town. We have transcribed them into electronic form and are making them available, on this website, via the Town Council’s Virtual Museum and through the Berkshire Record Office so that they can be read and quoted freely by all users (subject to appropriate acknowledgement). A printed copy is available in Wokingham Library.

Time Capsule the creation of the time capsule buried outside the Town Hall.

Wokingham Town Council buried this time capsule in 2018, after a major refurbishment of the Market Place. It contained memorabilia from the period that were intended to convey a clear impression of the town to those who disinterred the capsule in 50 years’ time. Items included local newspapers and magazines, bus and train tickets, letters from schoolchildren and a copy of Wokingham Society’s Blue Plaque Trail Guide.

Wokingham Town Football Club in the 1st round of the FA Cup: Remembering the tie against Cardiff 35 years ago.

The Club, the fourth oldest in Berkshire was founded in 1875. It had featured in a number of leagues in its history, winning the Temperance League Championship in 1928 for the second time, and the Isthmian League Division One title in 1982. It was in the following year as members of the Premier Division of the Isthmian League that the Club progressed to the first round of the FA Cup, managing to draw against Cardiff at home and then facing the for a replay at Cardiff. This booklet describes what happened next, as well as chronicling the team’s exploits since then.