John Kendrick
When Kendrick died on 30 December 1624, he left £12,500 to Reading and Newbury to provide employment and education for the poor. The Oracle Workhouse was erected in Minster Street, Reading with some of this money. This name was revived for the Oracle Shopping Mall, where my daughter had her first taste of independence and adventure at the age of eleven.
The £4,000 which Kendrick left to Newbury was a vast amount of money in Tudor times. But the area badly needed it, for the cloth trade was heading for recession, due to several factors including competition from Continental Europe and poor harvests. Thus, Kendrick stipulated in his will that this fortune must be used to build a 'cloth manufactory' where unemployed clothworkers could be used as labour until the trade in the town recovered. It was a last desperate attempt to revive the situation. Sadly, this never happened; the trade never recovered. Unemployment, hunger and crime had all become serious problems in the town prior to the Kendrick bequest which was a real but temporary boost, however restrictive it's mandate. We tend to think that the Welfare State is something modern. In fact, the Tudor governments required local authorities to provide relief and employment for the 'deserving and impotent poor' and to punish 'idleness and vagrancy'. However, in contrast to recent times, this state regulated welfare depended on donations such as the Kendrick legacy to a greater extent than government funds. A Big Society for sure, to which some politicians wish us to return.
Kendrick had specified that the £4000 be used to buy a house with a garden in the town to provide the cloth manufactury. Newbury Corporation bought land on the south bank of the River Kennet in the centre of the town from John Chamberlain of Donnington Castle. In July 1626, Richard Emes, a carpenter from Speenhamland was contracted to do the building work, which was to take over a year. In fact, a building already existed on the site and faced the market place. So two wings were added to this. It seems that local buisness men were also given funds as interest free loans to meet the salaries and other investment expenses. The Cloth Hall was operational by December,1628.
This drawing was made in 1956 from an original.
The Cloth Hall seems to have prospered from 1630 to 1636. However, at this point unsold cloth is recorded in the stock taking. In 1637 cloth production declined further and employers were struggling to repay debts when Civil War broke out. Thereafter records are patchy but we can assume the Civil War was the final nail in the coffin of the Newbury cloth trade. There is some evidence that the work house functioned as a school for poor children during the interregnum. The term hospital was used to describe it in the late 17th century but this probably meant nothing more than accomodation for the poor.
From 1706 to 1722 part of the building was adapted for use as a Blue Coat School. ( However, by 1722 this had moved to the site of the Temprance Hall in Northcroft Lane ) During this period Parliament allowed for the upper Kennet to be made navigable and the construction of the Kennet & Avon Canal. The hospital mead or garden became the Wharf as we know it today. This in turn became a prosperous area for incoming trade from Reading and London. Stores were soon needed so it appears that the Cloth Hall building now became a general storage area, part of which was demolished and rebuilt as The Granary to make room for Wharf Street.
The Granary or Corn Store was completed in 1723, and connected to the Cloth Hall in 1934. Both buildings are now with part of the West Berkshire Museum. Formed of red brick, it is long, narrow and of single depth range with eight rooms, each of which has two bays and functions as an independent unit with a single door. A timber cantilevered gallery constitutes the first floor.
The Granary.
By 1829 two wings of the Cloth Hall complex had been demolished, leaving only the Cloth Hall itself.
In 1880 it was proposed that The Cloth Hall become the fire station. However the Protection of Ancient Buildings Society had just been founded and began to exert pressure to use the building as a museum. This idea was also being promoted by Walter Money, a local historian. Meanwhile the building fell into disrepair. Fortunately it was bought in 1897 by the council and refurbished as the museum, in honour of Queen Victoria in 1902-4. Mayor John Rankin, who has a local primary school named after him, made funds and public subscriptions available for the restoration. The governors of the Grammar School were the owners and agreed a sale price of £400.00.
The internal staircase at the Market Place end of the building was added at this time, along with oak panelling and a black and white marble floor. This section is no longer in use because of concerns about fire risk. Some felt the changes were too modern and not in keeping with the original.
In 1909, Harold Peake, an emminent archeologist, became vollunteer Curator in1909 and held the post for 37 years.
Following the arrival of the railway the canal and Wharf fell into decline. Fortunately the Granary survived the gutting of the area and became, believe it or not, the Bus Station. It has since been an Art Gallery, Newsagents, cafe and tourist office.
The museum reopened having taken over the entire building complex and undergone a four year reburbishment in August 2014. It has eleven galleries, all of which are temporary and change every 3-12 months.
West Berkshire Museum. The Corn Stores are on the left and the Cloth Hall on the right.
http://info.westberks.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=29598
Opening hours are Monday (bank holidays only 10am -4pm), and Wednesday to Sunday 10am - 4pm.
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