If you stand in Rose Street, looking towards All Saints Church, it seems as if someone has built a house in the road. Rose Street is an example of an enclosed medieval street. The Broad Street end was similarly narrow until the 1960s when it was widened for traffic access. It is probably the town’s oldest street.
The street’s original name ‘le Rothes’ meant ‘clearing in the woods’. This description paints a picture of an Anglo-Saxon settlement, on the edge of Windsor Forest with a small church or chapel.
In 1219, Wokingham received a charter to hold a weekly market. These early markets were likely held in Rose Street before moving to Market Place several centuries later.
Rose Street has thirty-two listed buildings; the oldest is probably number 16-18, the WADE charity shop, which dates from the early fifteenth century. This was the time of the Black Death, the Battle of Crecy, Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ and Edward III as King.
Number 31 once housed the Maiden School. The school was established in 1795 following a charitable donation from Martha Palmer’s will. A few doors along at number 21 was the home of the National School. National Schools were founded in 1825 by the Church of England to provide rudimentary education to the poor. The two schools were amalgamated into one a few years later.
Alongside the schools, Rose Street has also been home to numerous pubs. Today there is the Fifty-six which was previously the Metropolitan. But earlier there were others including the Eagle at number 9, and the curiously named the Poor Man’s Friend.
Rose Street was home to Isaiah Gadd’s Removals and Repository business in the 1890s. Isaiah was a successful businessman with interests around the town. He was a strong supporter of the Wesleyan church and today, opposite the Methodist Chapel, are the houses that he built and named to honour the founders of the church.
Rose Street was the home of James’ Sooty’ Seaward, believed to be the inspiration for Tom the chimney sweep in Charles Kingsley’s book The Water Babies. Lucia Webb mother of Archbishop Laud lived in Rose Street; she was the sister of Sir William Webb who was the Lord Mayor of London in 1597.
When writing Wokingham: A Potted History I wanted to tell the story of the town and its inhabitants. How did they live, what work did they do? How did they spend their ‘spare time’? How has the town changed in the last 1000, 100 or 50 years?
Wokingham: A Potted History is available from local bookstores as well as Amazon.com. The cover image shows Rose Street around 1890.
Richard Gibbs
