The town of Reading is believed to have been founded in the
Saxon period, and originally centred on the site of the current
St Mary's Church, to the south of the western end of Broad Street. After 1121, the foundation of
Reading Abbey, to the north of the eastern end of Broad Street, provided a stimulus for the rapid expansion of the town. Broad Street, and the parallel
Friar Street, were laid out by the Abbey at this time, to connect the newer
Norman part of town to the older Saxon centre. 's map of
Reading, published in 1611 (named
Brode Stret) The early street layout of Reading can be seen in
John Speed's atlas, published in 1611 (named
Brode Stret). Broad Street commenced at the junction with St Mary's Butts (then known as
Old Street) and Oxford Road (Pangbourne Lane), and ran eastwards. Only two side streets are shown, with Chain Street running south and Cross Street to the north. Between the Cross Street and Minster Street, what is now the eastern end of Broad Street was occupied by two narrow and roughly parallel streets, Fisher Row and Butcher Row, with a middle row of buildings between them.
William Laud, the
Archbishop of Canterbury executed for
treason during the
Civil War, was born in 1573 at a house where the junction of Broad Street and
Queen Victoria Street now lies. During the
Siege of Reading in that war,
Francis Walsingham's
town house, on the corner of Broad Street and Minster Street, was used by
Robert Devereux, the 3rd
Earl of Essex, as his headquarters. The house had previously been used to entertain
Elizabeth I. Broad Street was central to the
second Battle of Reading, also known as the Battle of Broad Street, in 1688. In this skirmish, the only significant military action of the
Glorious Revolution, the
Royalist army of
James II was defeated by the
Protestant troops of
Prince William of Orange. Two days after the defeat of his troops in Reading, James quit London and fled to France. William assumed
the British crown in 1689 as William III. In 1903,
Reading Corporation Tramways'
electric trams replaced the horse-drawn tramcars along Broad Street. The following year, the last major change to the street plan of Broad Street occurred when Queen Victoria Street was opened, cutting through various old properties between Broad Street and Friar Street. Queen Victoria Street at last provided a direct link from Broad Street to
Reading station, opened in 1840. The last tram services in Reading continued to operate along Broad Street until 1939, when they were replaced by
trolleybuses. These in turn were retired in 1968, when diesel buses took over. In 1970, Broad Street was closed to all traffic except buses and for access, with through traffic diverted onto a one-way system and the first phase of the town's
Inner Distribution Road. Broad Street was further pedestrianised in 1995, and the bus services that previously used it were diverted onto the loop route around the town's central area, using St Mary's Butts, Friar Street, Market Place and Minster Street. The street was subsequently remodelled with a red-brick surface extending across the whole width of the street, and with the inclusion of street trees, sculpture and licensed street traders. == Retail ==