Antique

The Reading Prison was immortalized in Oscar Wilde's 1897 poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." Built in the mid 1800s, it remained operational until 2013.

Beneath Gothic arches and metal walkways, a place of torment has been reclaimed as a place of creative ferment. In 1895, celebrated writer Oscar Wilde — author of The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray — was convicted of homosexual activity and sentenced to two years in the infamous Reading Gaol.

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