'Some do it with a bitter look/Some with a flattering word': the Ministry of Justice has finally rid itself of Reading Gaol by selling it to an educational charity.

The sale is long overdue, Obiter would argue. The Victorian prison formally closed in January 2014 and has been empty ever since. It has been up for sale since 2015.

Now Ziran Education Foundation, a non-profit organisation that works with colleges to develop primary and secondary school curriculums and education services, has bought the huge site. Initial proposals include plans for an education centre, a museum outlining the prison’s history and a public exhibition space.

Though an arts and heritage centre were proposed and dismissed by the council some years ago, ownership by an education-centric organisation does feel fitting. The site is where, immortalised in his Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde 'trod the fools' parade' after being convicted of gross indecency in 1895 (he was posthumously pardoned in 2017). 

In 2021, street artist Banksy used one of the Grade II listed building’s walls as his canvas, painting a prisoner escaping on a rope made of bedsheets tied to a typewriter.

Though initial proposals have been made, development plans need to be approved by Reading Borough Council. In its announcement, the MoJ said proceeds from the sale would be ‘reinvested in the wider prison estate to help reduce reoffending and protect the public’.

Wilde had his own opinions on the topic: 'The vilest deeds like poison weeds/Bloom well in prison-air'.

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