Wilder's Folly has long been associated with the story of the Rev. Henry Wilder and his wife Joan Thoyts. The red-bricked structure towers over the fields of the Sulham Estate on Nunhide Lane, a short walk from either Tilehurst or Calcot in Berkshire. But who were they? Their stories have been lost to time, but I've managed to find scraps of their lives in old newspapers, nineteenth-century pedigrees and monuments. 

Henry Wilder was born in 1744 to John Wilder and his wife Beaufoy Boyle (b.1714). It's believed that his birth took place in Shiplake, at the family home. The earliest Wilders came to the area in the fifteenth century, and had based themselves at the village since then, meaning that it had been the family's ancestral home for centuries. John Wilder was a local government official, serving as a Captain of the Militia and Magistrate. He and Beaufoy had married in 1735, the Newcastle Courant of that year reporting that she was 'an agreeable young lady of £10,000 fortune', over £1.1 million in today's value. Beaufoy also had royal blood, according to nineteenth-century genealogist Bernard Burke. He traced Beaufoy's descent through the dukes of Norfolk in the sixteenth century, back to Edward I and Eleanor of Castile of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. John had relatives that had settled in the American colonies, the first of those travelling as pilgrims in the 1630s.

The couple lived in Shiplake, but also had property in Nunhide Lane, Sulham. John succeeded to his family estates in 1765, settling into an active role locally and into family life with his son Henry and daughters Harriet, Mary Ann and Amy. 

When Henry was around twenty-three years old he married Joan Thoyts, daughter of William Thoyts, a landowner at nearby Sulhamstead. She was a few years younger than Henry, born in 1748, and was around nineteen years old at their wedding. It is at this point that the local legend surrounding Wilder's Folly is believed to have emerged. The tale is that Henry, in love with his future wife, had the folly built in 1769 so that they could both see the structure from their respective homes, reminding them of one another just before their marriage. The tower is said to have later been used as a dovecote. There's limited actual physical evidence for Henry's intention behind the building of the tower, and I have been unable to find proof that it was actually built in 1769 but it does appear as a 'pigeon tower' on a map of 1830, just a decade or two after Henry's death. It's possible the building was always intended as a dovecote, as if it was constructed in 1769, as local legend states, it wouldn't have made sense for the couple to to be gazing out longingly at the tower while they were already married. If so, it doesn't cancel out the romantic legend associated with it. Wealthy families bred pigeons for fertiliser, messaging or as a status symbol or hobby, and so the building may still have meant something to the couple in their early years. 

Wilder's Folly, Nunhide Lane

After their marriage, Henry and Joan had a number of children - eleven in total. Genealogies track only eight of them, but this was because three children died young and are often ignored in family trees that focus on tracing descent. Their children were John (born in 1769), George Lodovick, William (baptised 1773) Francis Boyle Shannon (born in December 1775), Mary Ann (baptised May 1775), Harriett (born 1778), Lucy (baptised 1779)and Charlotte Beaufoy (died in 1870). A son named Henry died at the age of eight, baptised on 7 December 1771 and buried on 18 January 1780. Another, Richard, lived until the age of five, his baptism taking place on 20 September 1776 and his burial on 15 December 1781. A daughter, Joan, was baptised on 25 October 1770 and was buried a few weeks later, on 10 November of the same year.

Henry pursued a career in the church, and received his degree at St John's College in Oxford, where he became a Fellow, later serving as rector of Sulham church. The year 1772 brought the death of Henry's father John, and his succession to the family estates. In 1777 Henry sold the family home at Shiplake and purchased Purley Hall, just off Long Lane in Purley. It was said to have been a brick and stone structure with carved heraldry, grounds, stables, a library and courtyards. He would be known in future correspondence as 'the Rev. Henry Wilder of Purley Hall' although the family were also based at Sulham House, which could be seen from the folly on Nunhide Lane.

Sulham Church

We see Henry appear often in newspaper reports and in papers of the House of Lords. In 1776 he was presented the rectory of Edgecut in Buckinghamshire, and served on the Reading Commission for George III in 1799. In 1783 he was responsible for committing sentenced locals to gaol, and attended judgements in the local courts. In various documents he was permitted by the king to appoint a gamekeeper at Sulham Manor, whose name, in 1795, was Thomas Lovegrove. While Henry was dealing with official and church business, his wife Joan was tending to their growing family, with evidence that she was appointing a governess for the children to ensure their education. In 1777 the couple were both involved in a petition for a Bill at the House of Lords regarding the sale of some of the Thoyts' family estates in Kent. 

Rev. Henry Wilder's Memorial Tablet in Sulham Church

Henry died on 22 June 1814 at Purley Hall, and was buried at Sulham. His monument lists others that are buried with him, including five children who had died young. In a document of 1830 his widow Joan was mentioned as the administrator of Henry's estate, showing that he trusted her to carry out his wishes after his death. It also hints that there was some legal trouble following Henry's death, with Joan asserting her role sixteen years after he died. A newspaper report in the Morning Post of 11 April 1837 shared Joan's death, at the age of 89 in Westminster in London, at Langham Place. She was carried to Sulham to be buried alongside her husband and some of their children. 

Henry and Joan are the subject of a local romantic legend, but that is not where their relationship ended. Married for 45 years, they were figures of local power, justice and spiritual support. They adopted their own roles, Henry in local government and as rector, and Joan as rector's wife and carer of their growing children. They left a trace in legal records, putting both their names to a petition to ensure the sale of Thoyts lands, and seem to have had a happy and long marriage, having to endure the early deaths of five of their infant children. Henry made Joan his administrator after his death, and she asserted her rights as this long after she had lived as his widow. Joan outlived Henry by some years, and would have coped with the loss of some of their adult children. Their eldest, John, died in February 1834. Every time we look up at the towering red-bricked folly in the centre of the Sulham countryside we should remember Henry and Joan, but this was not their only legacy. They were three-dimensional figures who lived through their own grief and challenges. They changed lives, and their descendants went on to serve too, in the church, local government and community.

Liked this? You might also like my other posts about the history of Reading and surrounding villages and towns here. 

You can hear me talking to BBC Radio Berkshire about Wilder's Folly and the history behind it here. 

The church of St Laurence in Reading's town centre is not generally open to the public. No longer in service as a traditional church as such, it is used today as a space for young people to collaborate and meet. Thought to have been established at the same time as Reading Abbey, the church is believed to date from the twelfth century and has seen royalty, town celebrations and the brutal administration of Tudor justice. It even sustained bomb damage in the Second World War, still visible today on the left side of its tower. But back in the medieval and early Tudor periods, before the religious divisions of the 1530s and onwards, St Laurence's church would have looked very different inside. Today's white-washed walls were once brightly coloured, and flanked with statues and images of saints. As worshippers filed into the church their eyes would have flickered over wall paintings intricately-worked to help inspire parishioners' spiritual imaginations.

In 1503-1504 the churchwardens paid out eight shillings and fourpence to a painter called Mylys [Miles] 'for painting of Saint Christopher'. Another payment of sixpence was paid 'for new plastering of the wall where St Christopher is painted'. Another payment in 1521 specified a painting of St Leonard, painted by a painter named John. 

A larger work was commissioned in 1526, described as 'the transfiguration over the high altar' and paid for by parishioners. It was decorated with gold, the account paying 'diverse persons towards the gilding and painting of the transfiguration'. Bosses in the ceiling - knots of wood created to hide joins - were also made and covered with gold in 1524. In 1547, after mid-Tudor religious changes and Henry VIII's break with Rome, church accounts show payments to workmen for whitewashing and adding lime to the walls to cover up the medieval and early Tudor paintings. They were replaced with lines from scriptures, which were then whitewashed over in 1556. Finally, the medieval stained glass was removed in 1549, and replaced with clear panes of glass.

The paintings lurked for centuries under whitewashed walls, but in 1848, there was a chance discovery. A wooden screen dating from the early eighteenth century was removed from the east wall of the chancel, and some layers of whitewash carefully removed. Observers noticed five different paintings, all created on top of one another. They recorded them as 'portions of the Creed and Ten Commandments', with a layer of scripture. Some of these phrases of text were decorated with a border of blue paint and finished with leaves and sprigs. Underneath this layer of paint was the remains of a fresco depicting the Annunciation with a full-sized figure believed to have been an angel, likely to have been Archangel Gabriel. It was a stunning work, with the angel's wings painted in red, with rainbow colours and traces of a building in the background. A figure of the Virgin Mary was also seen kneeling, with a pot of white lilies placed next to her. The Victorian spectators also noted traces of red and blue with gilded decorations on the internal columns of the church's windows. The Transfiguration referred to in the churchwardens' accounts in the early 1500s was also peeled back and recorded. It was 'a large painting of seven figures, nearly the size of life, the subject being the Transfiguration on the Mount.' Christ was depicted in the centre with his right hand lifted, a gilded halo around his head. Moses stood at His right, holding the Tables of the Ten Commandments in his hands. Elias and the Disciples were also pictured, their faces all 'exquisitely painted'. This painting was said to have covered the whole of the chancel wall to each edge and so would have been imposing to medieval and early Tudor spectators.

There are no traces of these paintings today. Once the architects at the church in 1848 had peeled back layers of whitewash, lime and paint to get to St Laurence's earliest works the walls seem to have been washed back over. It is uncertain what damage they may have done through their curiosity, and their reports suggest they did not gently peel a small amount of paint and plaster back but set out to unravel, at some speed, the walls of the rest of the church. They described large paintings spanning from wall to wall, with large groups of people and detailed scenes, and I can't help but think they might have stood a better chance of survival if had been stumbled on today, with our modern conservation and recording techniques. But then, without a chance removal of a wooden screen in the mid 1800s we might still know nothing of St Laurence's lost wall paintings. It's possible though, that they might still one day emerge. I for one would love to see them. 

Liked this? You might also like: Walk in the Footsteps of the Tudors in Reading, Medieval Residents of Reading: Thomas and Elizabeth Clerk and my other posts on the history of Reading.

Sources:

Charles Kerry. A History of the Municipal Church of St Lawrence, Reading. Derby, 1883. 

Visit to St Laurence's Church, Reading. July 2025.

 In 1823 in the town of Taunton in Somerset, three women stood accused of assault against a woman suspected of witchcraft. Elizabeth Bryant, a 50-year old mother, stood with Elizabeth her 22-year old daughter and Jane, her 15-year old daughter, all accused of a violent assault on an older woman. Elizabeth had another daughter who was not involved in the case, as well as her husband. The family lived in Wiveliscombe in Somerset. 

The Bryant family became affected by a relatively common condition that appears in court records of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: fits. Many of these fits were similar to what we understand today as epilepsy, or shaking fits where the person might become temporarily unable to speak or hear others. On this occasion though, Elizabeth Bryant said that her daughter jumped up and sang, dancing and acting as if she was playing a fiddle. She would become afraid, talking anxiously of a witch. The mother sought advice from someone in the community who said they knew about magic, called Baker. This Baker told Elizabeth that her daughter was affected by an evil spirit, and to break its hold, she needed to carry out a spell, swallow a pill and say a prayer. To finish the ceremony, it was then necessary to draw the blood of a witch. Elizabeth Bryant became convinced that the witch that had caused her daughter to become ill was Ann Burgess, a 68-year old woman living in their community. 

Elizabeth quickly spread word that Ann was a witch, and Ann understandably confronted her in person about the rumours swirling in their close-knit village. But instead of defending themselves, Elizabeth and her two daughters quickly grabbed Ann, dragging her to the floor. Fetching a sharp iron nail, Jane pulled out the woman’s arm while the other two women held her down. A bystander came in, hearing the cries and commotion and managed to drag the women away from Ann. In the trial, it was said that other people who had also gathered at the doorway were afraid to intervene, believing that Ann was indeed a witch, as the local gossip stated, and might cast a spell on them in turn. Ann told the jury at court that the attack on her arm lasted an agonising 10 minutes, an excruciatingly long time to have been held down and scratched with the point of a nail. 

Wiveliscombe today, Derek Harper / 5-7 The Square Wiveliscombe /  CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Mr Justice Burrough, listening to the case, found Elizabeth and her daughters guilty of assault, with a passing sneer to the ‘wizard’ named Baker. ‘Tell him’, said Burrough, ‘that if he does not leave off conjuring, he will be caught and charmed in a manner that he will not like’. All three women received a sentence of four months’ imprisonment in the county jail. 

This is a rare example of an accused witch not being punished and her attackers instead being found guilty of a crime. It also demonstrates that while we often consider the ‘witchcraft craze’ as something that happened in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, sorcery was believed in and action was taken on it as late as the early nineteenth century too. 

You might also like The Witchcraft Case of Amy Duny, Bury St Edmunds in 1662, The Witches of Reading, Berkshire and Elspeth M'Ewan, the 'Witch' of Balmaclellan, Scotland.

Source: George Borrow, Celebrated Trials, and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence, from the earliest records to the year 1825. Knight, London. 1825. via archive.org.

Today, St Laurence's Church stands in Reading town centre where the market place and Friar Street join together, at the swerve of the road where the statue of Queen Victoria now stands. It's one of the town's best-known landmarks. But what is it's history? 

The nineteenth-century historian Charles Kerry believed that St Laurence's was built on or near to the site of a much smaller Anglo-Saxon church that served the early Reading community. Exploring the site of the earlier structure, he speculates that it may have stood either where the church stands today or within today's abbey ruins. The theory is that when Henry I founded Reading Abbey in 1121 he had the old church demolished and St Laurence's built on the other side of the Forbury, once abbey-owned land. 

The abbey soon became the spiritual and political centre of the town and Reading's population swiftly increased after the abbey's consecration by Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett, in 1164. St Laurence was enlarged and altered to cope with this change. Now, there were not only Reading's residents in the church's parish that wished to attend services but visitors to the town too. In 1196 the south doorway of the nave, the piscina in the south wall and windows were added, the builders incorporating existing Norman fragments found in the existing structure. 

By the Tudor period Reading was known as a regular location of parliament. Medieval kings had held parliaments at Reading Abbey since its foundation and even after its dissolution, remained a centre of royal business. All Tudor monarchs visited Reading, holding parliament within the abbey, or later, using it as a royal stopover while travelling throughout the south east. At the beginning of the reign of Henry VII a 'Robin Hood' May Day celebration was held at the Forbury, with the church playing a central part in the festivities. In 1498 a new bell, 'Harry', was added into the tower. The font was put in place in 1503-1504, and an organ existed in the church by 1505 but was replaced with a larger one in 1510. Church records from 1518-1521, during the reign of his son Henry VIII, show another set of works being undertaken with payments made to 'Myller the Joynor' for work within the church, as well as Harry Horthorne 'for timbre workmanshypp'. Other payments were made in 1520-1521 for masonry, fabrics and 'glass for the new windows'. New arches were constructed in 1522, and the roof of the north aisle was repaired in 1524-1525.

It's believed too that medieval and Tudor visitors to St Laurence would have seen statues of St Laurence and St Vincent on either side of the tower doorway as they shuffled through its wooden door for services. In 1883 Kerry saw the figures in the Vicarage garden, with St Laurence having 'the remains of a fringed purse on the left side, but the sustaining hand and arm are broken off.' The statue also showed decorations of a grape and vineleaf pattern 'with an undulating stem'. The statue of St. Vincent was more badly worn, said Kerry,  and both statues' heads were destroyed.

Just next to the church was the market place, where traders would barter for the sale of their goods, including shoes, leather and clothwork. Further along, towards today's Broad Street, butchers and cheesemongers sold fresh produce from their shops. To cater for a growing population Reading also had a number of taverns and inns that provided food, drink and rest for courtiers, merchants and traders. The pillory, where criminal activity was punished, was placed between the church and the market place, its central location a guarantee that people would see offenders as they were going about their daily business, a deterrent to anyone considering committing similar offences. A churchwarden of St Laurence had his ears cut off after a day on the pillory for spreading rumours about the death of Edward VI.

St Laurence's Church would have been quite a sight to its visitors and parishioners in the medieval and Tudor age. Churchwardens' accounts show that it was decorated with images of saints, colourful cloths and hangings and was lit with candles, the flames glinting off the gold, including the crucifix that was placed on the altar. They also mention a series of wall paintings inside the church which were white-washed over during the Reformation of the mid-1500s, and a number of altars set up to worship different saints throughout the year. Henry VII, Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII and Edward VI all visited Reading and would have seen St Laurence's as they entered the abbey grounds. Philip of Spain and Mary I visited soon after their wedding, and made their way, guided by the mayor, to the abbey. Elizabeth I was known to worship inside St Laurence's, with accounts showing that parishioners decorated the inside with foliage and flowers before her visit. In later years St Laurence continued to be maintained and kept, and in 1881-1882 received restoration work, involving the pinnacles of the tower, windows, doorways and stonework at a cost of £2,000. 

Since I've lived in Reading, St Laurence has been one of my favourite buildings, and I think it's one of the most evocative of the town. Visited by royalty, medieval entertainers, parishioners and travellers to the town, it is a key part of Reading's history. 

Liked this? You might also like Walk in the Footsteps of the Tudors in Reading, and Medieval Treason: The Case of Thomas Kerver in 1444.

Source: 

A History of the Municipal Church of St Laurence, Reading. Charles Kerry. Derby, 1883. via archive.org