What do you know about Reading UK?
 

My little family may have the opportunity to relocate to Reading for my husband's job. Coming from the Seattle area this will be a huge step for us. However, I'm having a hard time finding information about the city. It has an entry on Wikipedia but it's not in my Great Britain guide book and searching through posts on this site is utterly fruitless. Try searching "reading" and you'll see what I mean! I just need some reassurance that my lack of results is because it is just not very touristy and not because it's a terrible city. Wikipedia did mention that it was voted the worst place to raise children in the UK, but the city contested that by citing the criteria for the decision. I hope you don't mind my asking a non-travel specific question -- but I have posted and read so many other posts here that I really trust this community and know you're the experts! Thanks.

I used to know Reading pretty well -- but that was <b>years</b> ago and it has grown a lot and a lot has changed. But there are several Fodorites who know it well either because they live nearby or have to travel through frequently. So you will get some specifics.

But my main comment is though Reading itself may be pretty blah (it never was a tourism hotspot) there are some amazingly nice places w/i a reasonable commute. All of south Oxfordshire, all the riverside towns/villages, most of Berkshire, etc.

So don't let reviews of the town itself put you off. It is in a lovely part of the country

Well, it's only half an hour by train from London.

Do you take the Reading Railroad into London?

For better luck googling (it is a tough one!) try &quot;reading uk&quot; and &quot;reading berkshire&quot;. Don't forget to check &quot;Images&quot; tab as well, and you might go to Flickr and see what kind of photos you can see there -- you can learn a lot about a place from pictures of it (something I wish travel sites would grasp).

Hi BKP,

Reading is a big corporate town and may not be the most wonderful place in the world, but it is in a good location!

1) It's surrounded by some lovely countryside. Have you thought of looking for a place in a nearby village? Henley-on-Thames is close by.

2) It's not far from Oxford.

3) It's on the M4 motorway which gives you rapid access to the Cotswolds and the West Country. In other words, in Reading you're an hour closer to the beautiful southwest of England than the other 15 million Londoners, which will come in handy when you want to get away on weekends.

5) London is just a short rail journey away, about 20 minutes on the fast train.

Couple of links you may have already found for yourself:
http://www.reading-forum.co.uk
http://wikitravel.org/en/Reading_(Berkshire)

Good luck!

DW

---

See England in a day with
http://www.englishcountrywalks.com

I used to spend a lot of time there as my company had an R&amp;D center located in the Winnersh Triangle which is adjacent. Reading is just west of Windsor and has good train connections to London. It is also very close Oxford, Henley on Thames and other interesting towns. Reading is a fairly good sized town, it has a football team that is fairly successful, and the area around it has lots of industrial/business parks (Winneresh Triangle being one example). If your husband is working there you could choose from a variety of places to live other than Reading since he could commute to work fairly easily.

Since you are coming from Seattle would it be with MicroSoft? They have a very large facility in Winnersh Triangle.

Best of luck. Once you get settled in and if you like Chinese food, visit Chef Peking in Henley (if they are still open) for some excellent grub!

I was at Reading University when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
It's just a fairly ordinary town like many other English towns
There are nice walks along the river and as others have said, it is handy for London.
Another website is http://tinyurl.com/yrhpv5

MissP, you left a full stop on the URL!

Here's the local BBC radio station:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/local_radio/

And here's the local messageboard on the BBC website - you might get some opinions there too:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/england/TSP?phrase=Berkshire

Pretty much everything has been said about the place. But there are lovely villages around Reading, Wargrave is one I know quite well as we had friends there. WOnderful countryside just a stones throw away, and great connections to the west country and London. It is an expensive area to live though so you should look into how much it will cost you to live around that area. I don't recommend living in Reading itself. Maybe your husbands Reading colleagues can help you.

Sorry
that should be http://tinyurl.com/2pd9fa

&quot;Sumer is icumen in&quot; may have been composed in Reading Abbey

Also famous for Oscar Wilde's 'Ballad of Reading Gaol', from his experience of being incarcerated there for his sexuality.

The French Horn in Sonning has expensive (on my dear VERY expensive) but good French dining and nice hotel rooms.

Frankly yeuch! I grew up in Hampshire just south, and had the misfortune to visit Reading on several unfortunate occassions.

Seriously look to live in an outlying village of which there are many, and the countryside is sincerely beautiful.

Would someone care to comment on the pronunciation of the town's name?

It's pronounced REDDING

As in Otis.

We are also Pacific NWesters who live in Berkshire, in our case Maidenhead, about 15 minutes from Reading by train.

Reading is the main shopping town in the area...it has a large mall (the Oracle) in its center, near the train station are several big box stores like Staples. Caversham is a popular suburb (once the home of William the Marshal, although his estate was pulled down and there is a large Victorian manor home on the grounds now). Bars in the Reading's center can get pretty rowdy on week-end nights.

Although Henley is a nice town, property prices are quite high there and it's very touristy, esp, during the regatta. We prefer Marlow, which is similar to Henley (but much nicer, IMO) and has better restaurants (do a search here for Marlow). However, both towns are very congested during morning and afternoon rush hours due to the limited number of access roads (the line of cars waiting to get in and out of Marlow during rush hours is shocking, Lord help them if there were an emergency).
Reading has fast train service to London and is a central train hub, easy for getting to Bath in the west or York, etc. up north.
As a city, it's not that attractive a place to live. Twyford, one stop below Reading, seems more pleasant, other nice little towns/villages include Cookham, Bray, Shiplake, Bourne End. You could also consider towns between Reading and Oxford...a lot depending on how much you plan to use a car v. mass transit.
Swan around property web sites like www.rightmove.co.uk for general ideas of housing availability and prices.

BKP,

Everyone seems to have missed one important point, especially as you are planning to relocate.
Reading is where most of our top electronics companies hang out, a bit like Silicon Valley. As a result Reading has the most expensive house prices in the UK, (if you are thinking of buying that is), outside of the central London.
There is an argument going on in the media about Reading. The local people who service the community, bus drivers, local officals etc, can not afford to live in Reading and are being forced away and being replaced by high paid workers.
It does have good access to London and the rest of the country by motorways, but if you are planning to live there,.........I hope your husband is being well paid.

Regards.