The Reading Room dates back to 1912, when several corrugated buildings were put up to store furniture, paintings etc. brought by Lord Cottesloe and family from their family home at Swanbourne, Buckinghamshire, as they began to move into Wistow Hall, which Lord Cottesloe had inherited from Sir Henry Halford, the last of the Halford family, in 1897. I believe that another corrugated building just like the Reading Room now houses Sir Henry Halford's gun collection at Wistow. It was emptied of its stored contents in due course and was due for dismantling in about 1915 or so, but the War intervened and nothing was done.

In about 1920, Walter Tyrrell, Herbert Tilley and other men in the village asked Lord Cottesloe if the redundant building might be used as a Billiards Room and Reading Institute and Lord Cottesloe agreed. From then on it also served as the village meeting place alternative to the Village School or the Manor. It begins to be recorded on Parish Meeting records in the 1920's. (The Parish Meeting first met in 1894).

With thanks to Joe Goddard for this contribution.