Reading – Reading Museum (Boar’s Head)

The delightful Reading Museum, and this will be the start of a short series of posts about exhibits which I found quite intriguing.

I very much like that this has been saved, it’s the Boar’s Head from the pub of the same name which was a licensed premises from the late seventeenth century until it was demolished in 2003. Once attached to its own brewery, there are some photos of how it looked at http://www.closedpubs.co.uk/berkshire/reading_boarshead.html. English Heritage refused to list the structure in 2002 and looking at it, I can see why, it does appear to be much knocked about and lacking any obvious historical charm. And I can’t much complain about the building that replaced it, as it’s the Novotel and Ibis that I stayed at earlier on this week.

Back to the head though, it’s made from limestone and it’s unclear when it was made, but it has several layers of paint on it and it was gilded on at least three occasions. That it was made of limestone was a surprise, which suggests that it might be from the nineteenth century. It was removed in October 2003 and then sent for repair as it wasn’t in the best condition by the time of the building’s demolition, then brought to Reading Museum.