Why is Cheeselogs called Cheeselogs? And what is a Cheeselog?

Reading in Berkshire is a wonderful place, and has its own quirks. One of which is what we call a certain crustacean.

More on that in a moment.

The town is known for its three Bs, beer, bulbs and biscuits (and once even had a café known by the same name).

Once upon a time, the town’s prosperity relied on all three industries: Simmonds for beer, Suttons Seeds for the bulbs, and Huntley and Palmers for the biscuits.

They provided thousands of jobs, not just in those industries but also associated trades such as the famous tins that Huntley and Palmers used to house their tasty treats.

And Newtown in east Reading was built to accommodate some of the many workers.

Those weren’t the only industries.

Reading was home for years to book printing firm Cox & Ryman, and is now the head office for Primark, among many, many other venues.

When decided what to call this blog, the three Bs were an initial thought: Reading Bulb, Reading Beer were a little too niche, while Reading Biscuit had the possibility of clashing with the marvellous Reading Biscuit Factory cinema and arts centre in the Broad St. Mall.

What else is uniquely Reading?

Well, lots of things.

For the name of this blog, we could have explored the scallop shells, the Forbury, the Maiwand Lion (try spelling that after a night on the razzle), the Butts Centre, Heelas, Smelly Alley, Yeah Lovely Hot Doughnuts Nie and Fresh, Cocks Sauce …
But in the end, we settled on Cheeselogs.

One word, memorable and well… very Reading.

And that is what this blog aims to be. Uniquely Reading. Very Reading. The real Reading.

A celebration of what makes us special.

Cheeselogs is a Reading term for a woodlouse, the creepy crawly that has an amazing variety of names across the world.

In Scotland, they are Slaters, Chucky Pigs in the south west of England, and roly-poly bugs in North America.

Other regional variations include cheesehog, cheezog, and chizzlepig.

Oh, and Granny Greys, Crunchy Bats, Pishamares, Monkey Peas, Chooky-pegs, Flumps, and Billy Buttons.

Back in 2017, BBC Radio Berkshire celebrated the Cheeselog with a creative creation by Hollie McNish.

We hope you enjoy the blog.