London Street’s heyday was in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of its buildings are Georgian or early Victorian with well preserved frontages and detailing. Tomkins’ map of 1802 shows many of the buildings which are still here already in existence.

The dominant building is the one which houses Great Expectations and this was the Literary. Scientific and Mechanics Institute, afterwards the Primitive Methodist Chapel, then the Everyman Theatre and later still the offices of the Reading Standard.

Prior to redevelopment of the site in the early 1840s the occupants of the houses on the site were coopers. The brewery trade in Reading first expanded during the 18th century. There were malthouses and granaries on the land behind the houses, some paying rent to William Blackall Simmonds at his Seven Bridges Brewery.

The foundation stone of the Institute was laid by Mary Russell Mitford in 1842 and it opened in 1843.The Institute hosted appearances by Charles Dickens who performed a solo reading of A Christmas Carol in 1854 and he appeared again in 1858 reading from Pickwick Papers and Dombey and Son.