Reading's Industrial Heritage Route: Biscuits, Beer and the Kennet & Avon Canal
Old Huntley and Palmers biscuit factory building in Reading
A themed walking day covering the three Bs — biscuits, beer, bulbs — that built the Victorian town, in seven stops over five miles.
The three Bs and why they matter
Victorian Reading was built on three industries known locally as the three Bs: biscuits (Huntley & Palmers), beer (Simonds Brewery) and bulbs (Sutton Seeds). By 1900, Huntley & Palmers was the largest biscuit manufacturer in the world, employing 5,000 people in a factory that occupied 24 acres east of the town centre. Simonds beer was drunk across the British Empire. Sutton Seeds supplied gardeners globally from a headquarters on Market Place. Reading was, briefly, one of the most important small industrial towns in England.
Almost all of it is gone. The Huntley & Palmers factory closed in 1976, Simonds was absorbed by Courage and left town in the 1980s, and Sutton Seeds moved to Torquay in 1976 and no longer exists in its original form. But the traces are still readable if you know where to look, and this route walks them in a five-mile loop from Reading station. It is a genuinely different way to see the town.
Stop 1 — Reading station and the arrival of the railway
Start at Reading station. The current 2014 rebuild is impressive but the older station building (now the Malmaison hotel) is the one that matters industrially — the Great Western Railway arrived in Reading in 1840 and it is the single event that made the three Bs possible. Biscuits, beer and seeds could suddenly reach London in ninety minutes and the whole industrial history of the town flows from that platform.
Look at the Malmaison building from the forecourt: the 1840 station facade is preserved as the hotel entrance, and you can walk into the lobby to see the original waiting rooms. Even if you’re not staying, the ground-floor bar is open to non-guests and it is the correct place to have a coffee before you start walking. Give the station ten minutes, then head east along Forbury Road.
Stop 2 — Huntley & Palmers factory site
Walk east on Forbury Road toward Kings Meadow. The Huntley & Palmers factory occupied the land between the railway and the Kennet, and the surviving buildings are on King's Road and Gasworks Road. The most visible is the 1866 factory office block on King's Road — red brick, three storeys, now offices. The chimney base is preserved on the same site. This is the closest you can get to the factory itself; most of it was demolished in 1985.
Detour to the Reading Museum in Blagrave Street (fifteen-minute walk back into town) if you want the collection — they hold the Huntley & Palmers archive, including the tins that were exported to Antarctica with Shackleton. The museum has a permanent gallery on the factory and it is free. This is the essential context for the whole route and you should give it forty-five minutes before continuing.
Stop 3 — Blake's Lock and the Kennet & Avon Canal
From the museum, walk down to Kenavon Drive and Blake's Lock. This is the point where the Kennet & Avon Canal (built 1794-1810) meets the Thames, and it is the reason Reading became an industrial town — the canal linked the Thames to the Severn at Bristol, and Reading was the transhipment point. The lock itself is still working and you’ll usually see narrowboats using it. There's a small museum in the old pumping station buildings (free, weekend opening).
The path east along the Kennet passes the sites of Simonds Brewery (demolished, now the Riverside site with new apartments) and the old gasworks (also gone). Give the walk twenty minutes to Kennet Mouth, where the Kennet joins the Thames. This is where barges of biscuits were loaded for London before the railway made the canal obsolete.
Stop 4 — The Thames Path and the biscuit town
Walk west along the Thames Path toward Caversham Bridge. On your left as you walk, the sites of the biscuit factory sidings are still visible in the street pattern — the odd curved boundary of the Kings Meadow car park follows the old rail spur into the factory. Reading's whole eastern quarter was reorganised around the factory in the 1870s and you can still read it in the map. It's a twenty-five-minute walk to Caversham Bridge.
Cross Caversham Bridge for the view back — the Blade tower and the Thames Tower are the modern skyline, but between them you can see the surviving Huntley & Palmers chimney. Lunch stop: the Fisherman's Cottage on Kennet Side (proper pub, £14-£20 mains, riverside garden) or the George Hotel bar on King Street (historic coaching inn, £14-£20). Either takes an hour.
Stop 5 — Simonds Brewery and the surviving pubs
After lunch, walk to Bridge Street. Simonds Brewery occupied the site now covered by the Bridge Street car park and the Blade tower — nothing survives of the physical brewery. But the pubs Simonds owned still exist across the town and are the actual living heritage. The Sun Inn on Castle Street, the Nag's Head on Russell Street, the Retreat on St John's Street — all were Simonds tied houses and all still serve beer.
Walk a triangle: Sun Inn, Nag's Head, Retreat. Have a half at the Nag's Head (Loddon Brewery Hoppit, £3.25 for a half) and read the pub sign — the branding is post-Simonds but the building is Victorian. This is the closest you can get to the industrial beer town in 2026. Give the pub triangle an hour, and don’t feel obliged to drink at all three; the Nag's Head is the essential one.
Stop 6 — Sutton Seeds and Market Place
Walk to Market Place. Sutton Seeds occupied the block between Market Place and King Street from 1837 to 1962. The original headquarters building at 5 Market Place still stands and is now a Boots pharmacy on the ground floor — look up above the shop front and the Sutton lettering is still visible on the pediment. This is the ghost of the third B and it is easy to miss.
Give Market Place fifteen minutes. The Corn Exchange building on the north side is 1854 and originally traded seeds and grain. The whole square was the commercial heart of the industrial town and the street pattern hasn’t changed. Reading Minster (St Mary's) at the west end is older than the industry (twelfth century) and is worth a look. From here it is a five-minute walk back to your hotel or the station.
Stop 7 — Ending at the Roseate on Forbury Square
The final stop is a drink or dinner at the Roseate Reading on the Forbury. The building is a converted 1899 red-brick block that housed the offices of a Reading legal firm — the exterior is essential industrial-era architecture and the bar preserves original panelling. Cocktails £14, wines by the glass £8-£14, and the view onto the Forbury and the abbey ruins closes the loop.
Sleep at the Roseate itself (£180-£260) or the Malmaison at the station (£140-£200) — both are converted industrial-era buildings and both fit the theme of the day. Third choice: Great Expectations Hotel on London Street (£110-£150), a Victorian pub-with-rooms in a Simonds-era building. Total walking today: about five miles across the town centre, with a lunch break and a pub triangle.
Before you book
What people ask before booking Caversham.
About 20% of the physical fabric survives — the biscuit factory office block, the canal lock system, several Simonds pubs, the Sutton Seeds headquarters facade, and the Great Western Railway station building. The Reading Museum collection fills in the rest with archives, tins, machinery and photographs. It's a route about traces and interpretation, not intact factories.
Reading Museum runs occasional industrial heritage walking tours during Heritage Open Days each September (free, book ahead) and the Berkshire Family History Society sometimes runs longer research days. Outside those, self-guided is the honest answer — the museum's downloadable trail map is the best free resource and covers roughly the same route.
Yes — from Blake's Lock you can walk the towpath west as far as County Lock and Fobney Meadow within Reading itself (about two miles round trip), or take the train to Newbury (30 minutes, £9 return) for a longer canal walk. The Newbury-to-Hungerford stretch is the most picturesque and adds a genuine industrial-heritage element with locks, pumping stations and toll cottages.
