Following ‘extensive bidding’ Reading Jail (or Reading Gaol), where beloved Irish writer Oscar Wilde was once an inmate, has officially been sold. The legendary jail is set to be transformed into a public exhibition space.
After ten years of sitting empty, it was bought from the Ministry of Justice by the Ziran Educational Foundation, an education charity.
Most famously, Reading Jail was where Oscar Wilde spent two years locked up for ‘gross indecency’ following a scandalous affair with aristocrat Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas. It later became the setting for one of his most famous and powerful poems, ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’.
The prison has played a big part in the UK’s cultural history and since it shut in 2014, many have been campaigning for it to be turned into an arts and community centre. The campaign has even been supported by household names like Dame Judi Dench, Kate Winslet and Stephen Fry.
Street artist Banksy also demonstrated his support after he created a mural on one of the walls depicting a prisoner escaping on a robe made of bedsheets tied to a typewriter.
He later sold the stencil for the art, promising to donate to the campaign and help it meet the £10m asking price. In a statement, he said: ‘Converting the place that destroyed [Wilde] into a refuge for art feels so perfect we have to do it.’
The Ziran Educational Foundation has proposed initial plans to turn the jail into an ‘educational centre providing services to the local community, including a museum outlining the history of the prison and an exhibition space accessible to the public’.
Any plans will need to get approval from Reading Borough Council before they’re confirmed, so watch this space for updates.
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