Ye Olde Red Lion
Staying in Newbury? Ye Olde Red Lion offers dependable 4-star quality and puts Basildon Park and central Reading within easy reach.
From here, Reading’s main attractions — including Basildon Park — are an easy walk or short ride away, so you spend less time in transit and more time exploring.
Rates shift with the season and with demand, so the live price on the booking page is always the one to trust — tap through for tonight’s or your dates' real availability.
Key facts
Around Newbury
What Reading hotels actually cost
Budget (£55-85) covers the Premier Inn Caversham Road, Ibis Reading Centre and Travelodge Central — clean, small rooms, breakfast extra, no parking included in the centre. Mid-range (£90-140) is the bulk of the market: Novotel, Holiday Inn, Pentahotel, Crowne Plaza Reading and Voco at Green Park all sit here, with parking included at the out-of-town ones. Top-end (£160-260) means Malmaison in the old station building, the Roseate on the Forbury, or country-house style at Sonning’s French Horn and Henley’s Hotel du Vin.
Rates spike hardest for three fixed dates: the Reading Festival weekend (late August bank holiday, expect £280-450 for a mid-range room), Henley Royal Regatta week (first week of July, £250+ within 10 miles), and Royal Ascot week in June if you are staying anywhere between Bracknell and Windsor. Corporate demand from Green Park, Thames Valley Park and Microsoft’s Thames Valley Park campus keeps Tuesday and Wednesday nights 20-30% above weekend rates the rest of the year.
The Reading Festival trap and other things worth knowing
The single thing catching visitors out is the Reading Festival’s footprint. Richfield Avenue is a 15-minute walk from the town centre, which means every hotel from RG1 to RG4 — including Caversham and Emmer Green — treats the late-August bank holiday as peak. If you are visiting for anything else that weekend, either book six months out or pick Wokingham, Bracknell or Newbury and take the train in.
The other trap is assuming Reading is a commuter dormitory not worth staying in. Caversham has genuine Thames-side pubs (the Baron Cadogan, the Griffin), Reading Abbey Ruins reopened in 2018 after a long restoration and now has the free Abbey Quarter walking trail, and the Blade building’s rooftop bar gives you the Chilterns on a clear day. Skip Whitley and Southcote as bases unless price is the only factor — the connections into town from Caversham or Earley are better for the same money.
Where to stay in Reading: which area suits which visitor
Reading Town Centre (RG1) around Friar Street, Broad Street and the station is the default choice for a first visit: you are walking distance from the Oracle, the Abbey Ruins and Forbury Gardens, and trains to Paddington take 22-27 minutes. Expect the highest nightly rates here, especially midweek when the town fills with business travellers heading to Thames Valley Park and Green Park. Caversham, just over Caversham Bridge, is quieter, sits on the Thames, and usually costs £20-40 less per night for a similar standard.
For business trips, the hotels clustered around Green Park (south of the M4 J11) and Winnersh Triangle suit anyone driving in — Voco and Crowne Plaza sit on the doorstep of the offices, and parking is free or cheap. Earley, Lower Earley and Woodley are residential and best if you have a car and want value; Tilehurst and Southcote are cheaper still but poorly connected without one. For day trips, Henley-on-Thames, Sonning, Pangbourne and Marlow are prettier bases if you have hired a car; Windsor and Oxford are 25-40 minutes by train and worth a night each if the itinerary allows.