THIS photograph grabbed my attention as soon as I saw it, back in the summer.

It was a scene that was very familiar, but something was wrong. For several years, I lived in The Mount, off Christchurch Road, and saw Christ Church from the top of Kendrick Road twice, most days.

It took a second or two before I realised what I was looking at – the same scene, between 1861 when the church was built, and 1875, when the tower and spire were added.

The picture arrived at my house courtesy of one of the Friends Of Caversham Court, who thought I might like to look through an album of Victorian photographs, mostly of the Reading area.

The owner had kindly given permission for any pictures the Central Library might like to put on its website to be scanned and made available.

I quickly realised this was something of a treasure trove, and borrowed the album for a week, during which I did a lot of comparing and researching and scanning, on behalf of the Library, before returning it.

Of the 300 or so photographs in the album, there were around 100 good ones which were not already in the library’s collection, mostly taken by the professional photographers, Francis Frith and Henry W. Taunt.

They have now been added to the library’s online catalogue and the pictures will be available to view in due course.

As a search of the library catalogue on the website (www.readinglibraries.org.uk) will show, this church was a favourite with photographers, local and national.

They show that it was built before most of the surrounding houses, and one of them depicts it with a field of cabbages in front. But today’s photograph seems to be the only one of the church without its tower and spire.

The reason for the two phases of building was, of course, the need to raise the money. Various wealthy families contributed – Benyon, Blandy and Simonds among them.

The architect was Henry Woodyer, who is also behind St. Paul’s Church at Wokingham, and the result is splendid outside and sumptuous inside.

I’m tempted to think that there must never have been quite enough money to complete the job: those massive blank crockets you can see round the arch over the porch look as though they were intended to be carved.

Reading is still a good place for church spires – down near the valley bottom, the spires of Wesley Church, St. Giles’s Church, and the Polish Catholic Church (formerly St. John’s) are impressive enough. Christ Church, standing on the top of the hill, is even more impressive, and can be seen from many directions for several miles.

Christ Church without the spire would be unthinkable!

DAVID CLIFFE