Known locally as the ’church next to the prison’, St James was built between 1837-1840 on the site of the north transept of Reading Abbey. The architect was A.W. Pugin (1812-52), considered one of the foremost of the 19th Century who, following conversion, sought to express his Catholic faith through his buildings. The church features a bell-turret instead of a tower and is at the heart of a complex that includes a priest house and a school (now Forbury Gardens Day Nursery), also with its own bell-turret.