Retro: By George, there have been some changes!

David Cliffe • Published 9 Sep 2009 08:00 0 Comments

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EVERY now and then I come across a photograph that stops me in my tracks.

This is one of them - the buildings are so familiar, but somehow different.

Like me, you may have imagined that the King Street frontage of the George Hotel has looked the same for a century or two.

Yes, the half-timbering looks fake, and the scrawly lettering, Ye George MDVI, looks even more suspect, and the awning over the entrance to the courtyard must be even more modern, but basically you would expect the buildings to look the same.

This photograph, barely a century old, shows that this is not the case at all.

It shows No 13 King Street as a separate building, occupied by R Eggleton, hairdresser.

To the right comes the archway, leading to the cobbled inn yard, and next come Nos 10 and 12, the hotel itself, with a gable since removed.

At some stage, Nos 10-13 have been re-fronted to look like a single, timber-framed building. The state of the building at the corner of Minster Street, one of Reading's 'rounded' corners, comes as even more of a shock.

What is now a well-

proportioned building in the classical style had been grotesquely disfigured by inappropriate shop-fronts, and painted advertising. The main culprit is The London and New York Teeth Parlour. With the help of a magnifying glass I can read: "Teeth extracted, painless system, single tooth from 2/-, a complete set from £1, high class teeth at lowest possible cost."

The guidebook from which the picture comes, In and Around Reading by Camera and Pen, mentions the chair in which Charles Dickens sat when he stayed at The George, which I have seen, and the barn at the back, where John Bunyan is said to have preached, which is presumably no longer standing.

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