Built in 1844, HM Prison Reading (also known as Reading Gaol and famous through Oscar Wilde‘s poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol) was decommissioned in 2013. Since September 2016 the prison has opened its doors to the public for the rather splendid Artangel project ‘Inside: Artists and Writers in Reading Prison‘ (running until December 2016).

The Artangel exhibition features many striking pieces of artwork and installation. But more than that still, I was struck by art on display that had not been commissioned – and art that has not received much attention as of yet: the creatively destructive art (partly verbal, partly visual) left behind by the inmates of the prison.

Please note: if you are easily offended by gratuitous strong language, obscenity, and nudity, please stop reading now.

As a scholar who has studied ancient Roman graffiti and inscribed poetry, I cannot help but feel the urge to document some of the particularly remarkable pieces here. So, without further ado, here is a short, selective gallery of Lesser Known Ballads of Reading Gaol – as well as some other forms of verbal and non-verbal installations.

Poems

As I sit here broken hearted

need to shit but only farted.

After

30 y(ea)rs of prison

why be free

so dey took away

life and gave us IPP.

I woz ere and

now im not

your ere now

pissed or wot?

One Artist to a whole team

and hopefully a whole

city full of our art

soon intill then

Love da ART

Respect the INK

and keep breaking the rules.

Fuck this and fuck that if

the world waz a bitch I’d

fuck it from the

back.

They can lock

the locks, but

they can’t stop

the

clocks.

It ain’t

long

till this

lock

pops.

Cell 2

is a snich

don’t

trust the

cunt

the best

ting he

can do is

suck hes

dirty mum. More money comes

more money goes

invest more money

more money shows.

They can lock

the locks but

they can’t stop

the clocks.

Drawings

Witticisms

The other side

By the doors of some cells, check lists for graffiti and vandalism are still on display:

But, rather unsurprisingly, the inmates were not the only ones with too much time on their hands and a desire to leave their mark. Here are just a couple of scribblings from the inside (!) of wooden boxes for guards overseeing prison tracts:

A final comment

On 27th of May I wrote to Rob Wilson, MP for Reading East, requesting permission to document the graffiti of Reading Prison and to collect them (potentially) for a small publication.

On 1st of June, Rob Wilson’s office confirmed receipt and stated:

‘You will be pleased to know that I have raised your request with Andrew Selous MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Prisons, Probation and Rehabilitation) at the Ministry of Justice.

‘I will contact you again as soon as I receive a substantive response.’

As I had not received a substantive (or, in fact, any) response after a month, I followed up on this (on 8th of July) and was eventually told (on 12th of July), if in somewhat kinder words, not to bother any further.

Of course, what do I know about the inscriptions of Reading (Latin and otherwise) . . .