For this week’s Reading Nostalgia, we are going back to spring of 1984 when an episode of Antiques Roadshow was recorded in the town.

In April of that year, thousands of people packed Reading’s Hexagon venue to see what items were on sale and if they were able to sell any potential relics.

One of the objects that were display was a plaque that showcased the town’s famous biscuit factory.

During the opening segment, presenter Hugh Scully held the item and explained how the production of biscuits were key to the town’s economic successes, before moving his attention to another feature of the object.

He explained that ‘many people’ often believed that the building in the background was part of the factory.

In fact, it was Reading Gaol, an iconic landmark within the town that his now defunct.

At the time of the recording in the mid 1980s, the prison had been open for an incredible 140 years with one its most famous occupants being the playwright and poet, Oscar Wilde.

Jailed for gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts in 1895, Wilde was jailed for two years but spent his time in incarceration being transferred.

He initially was jailed at Newgate Prison in London before being moved to Pentonville Prison in the capital.

Another move followed as he was transported to Wandsworth Prison before, in what was the lowest point of his life, he was again transferred, this time to Reading Gaol.

During his time in Berkshire, Wilde was addressed and identified as ‘C. 3. 3’ as he was based in the third cell on the third floor on Ward C within the prison.

It was during this period that he penned one of his best known pieces work with the 'Ballard of Reading Gaol'.

His was inspired to write the piece following the death of fellow inmate Charles Thomas Wooldridge, who executed following his conviction of murdering his wife.