diff --git a/lucene/CHANGES.txt b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
index cf52ebc0460..dd9038892ed 100644
--- a/lucene/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
@@ -175,6 +175,9 @@ New Features
 * LUCENE-4897: Added TaxonomyReader.getChildren for traversing a category's 
   children. (Shai Erera)
 
+* LUCENE-4902: Added FilterDirectoryReader to allow easy filtering of a
+  DirectoryReader's subreaders. (Alan Woodward, Adrien Grand, Uwe Schindler)
+
 Optimizations
 
 * LUCENE-4839: SorterTemplate.merge can now be overridden in order to replace
diff --git a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/FilterDirectoryReader.java b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/FilterDirectoryReader.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..3cf0d603b47
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/FilterDirectoryReader.java
@@ -0,0 +1,151 @@
+package org.apache.lucene.index;
+
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.util.List;
+
+/**
+ * A FilterDirectoryReader wraps another DirectoryReader, allowing implementations
+ * to transform or extend it.
+ *
+ * Subclasses should implement doWrapDirectoryReader to return an instance of the
+ * subclass.
+ *
+ * If the subclass wants to wrap the DirectoryReader's subreaders, it should also
+ * implement a SubReaderWrapper subclass, and pass an instance to its super
+ * constructor.
+ */
+public abstract class FilterDirectoryReader extends DirectoryReader {
+
+  /**
+   * Factory class passed to FilterDirectoryReader constructor that allows
+   * subclasses to wrap the filtered DirectoryReader's subreaders.  You
+   * can use this to, e.g., wrap the subreaders with specialised
+   * FilterAtomicReader implementations.
+   */
+  public static abstract class SubReaderWrapper {
+
+    private AtomicReader[] wrap(List<? extends AtomicReader> readers) {
+      AtomicReader[] wrapped = new AtomicReader[readers.size()];
+      for (int i = 0; i < readers.size(); i++) {
+        wrapped[i] = wrap(readers.get(i));
+      }
+      return wrapped;
+    }
+
+    /** Constructor */
+    public SubReaderWrapper() {}
+
+    /**
+     * Wrap one of the parent DirectoryReader's subreaders
+     * @param reader the subreader to wrap
+     * @return a wrapped/filtered AtomicReader
+     */
+    public abstract AtomicReader wrap(AtomicReader reader);
+
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * A no-op SubReaderWrapper that simply returns the parent
+   * DirectoryReader's original subreaders.
+   */
+  public static class StandardReaderWrapper extends SubReaderWrapper {
+
+    /** Constructor */
+    public StandardReaderWrapper() {}
+
+    @Override
+    public AtomicReader wrap(AtomicReader reader) {
+      return reader;
+    }
+  }
+
+  /** The filtered DirectoryReader */
+  protected final DirectoryReader in;
+
+  /**
+   * Create a new FilterDirectoryReader that filters a passed in DirectoryReader.
+   * @param in the DirectoryReader to filter
+   */
+  public FilterDirectoryReader(DirectoryReader in) {
+    this(in, new StandardReaderWrapper());
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Create a new FilterDirectoryReader that filters a passed in DirectoryReader,
+   * using the supplied SubReaderWrapper to wrap its subreader.
+   * @param in the DirectoryReader to filter
+   * @param wrapper the SubReaderWrapper to use to wrap subreaders
+   */
+  public FilterDirectoryReader(DirectoryReader in, SubReaderWrapper wrapper) {
+    super(in.directory(), wrapper.wrap(in.getSequentialSubReaders()));
+    this.in = in;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Called by the doOpenIfChanged() methods to return a new wrapped DirectoryReader.
+   *
+   * Implementations should just return an instantiation of themselves, wrapping the
+   * passed in DirectoryReader.
+   *
+   * @param in the DirectoryReader to wrap
+   * @return the wrapped DirectoryReader
+   */
+  protected abstract DirectoryReader doWrapDirectoryReader(DirectoryReader in);
+
+  private final DirectoryReader wrapDirectoryReader(DirectoryReader in) {
+    return in == null ? null : doWrapDirectoryReader(in);
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  protected final DirectoryReader doOpenIfChanged() throws IOException {
+    return wrapDirectoryReader(in.doOpenIfChanged());
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  protected final DirectoryReader doOpenIfChanged(IndexCommit commit) throws IOException {
+    return wrapDirectoryReader(in.doOpenIfChanged(commit));
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  protected final DirectoryReader doOpenIfChanged(IndexWriter writer, boolean applyAllDeletes) throws IOException {
+    return wrapDirectoryReader(in.doOpenIfChanged(writer, applyAllDeletes));
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  public long getVersion() {
+    return in.getVersion();
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  public boolean isCurrent() throws IOException {
+    return in.isCurrent();
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  public IndexCommit getIndexCommit() throws IOException {
+    return in.getIndexCommit();
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  protected void doClose() throws IOException {
+    in.doClose();
+  }
+
+}
diff --git a/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/AssertingDirectoryReader.java b/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/AssertingDirectoryReader.java
index 1453cbeb86f..84931da55bb 100644
--- a/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/AssertingDirectoryReader.java
+++ b/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/AssertingDirectoryReader.java
@@ -17,67 +17,28 @@ package org.apache.lucene.index;
  * limitations under the License.
  */
 
-import java.io.IOException;
-import java.util.List;
-
 /**
  * A {@link DirectoryReader} that wraps all its subreaders with
  * {@link AssertingAtomicReader}
  */
-public class AssertingDirectoryReader extends DirectoryReader {
-  protected DirectoryReader in;
+public class AssertingDirectoryReader extends FilterDirectoryReader {
+
+  static class AssertingSubReaderWrapper extends SubReaderWrapper {
+    @Override
+    public AtomicReader wrap(AtomicReader reader) {
+      return new AssertingAtomicReader(reader);
+    }
+  }
 
   public AssertingDirectoryReader(DirectoryReader in) {
-    super(in.directory(), wrap(in.getSequentialSubReaders()));
-    this.in = in;
-  }
-  
-  private static AtomicReader[] wrap(List<? extends AtomicReader> readers) {
-    AtomicReader[] wrapped = new AtomicReader[readers.size()];
-    for (int i = 0; i < readers.size(); i++) {
-      wrapped[i] = new AssertingAtomicReader(readers.get(i));
-    }
-    return wrapped;
+    super(in, new AssertingSubReaderWrapper());
   }
 
   @Override
-  protected DirectoryReader doOpenIfChanged() throws IOException {
-    DirectoryReader d = in.doOpenIfChanged();
-    return d == null ? null : new AssertingDirectoryReader(d);
+  protected DirectoryReader doWrapDirectoryReader(DirectoryReader in) {
+    return new AssertingDirectoryReader(in);
   }
 
-  @Override
-  protected DirectoryReader doOpenIfChanged(IndexCommit commit) throws IOException {
-    DirectoryReader d = in.doOpenIfChanged(commit);
-    return d == null ? null : new AssertingDirectoryReader(d);
-  }
-
-  @Override
-  protected DirectoryReader doOpenIfChanged(IndexWriter writer, boolean applyAllDeletes) throws IOException {
-    DirectoryReader d = in.doOpenIfChanged(writer, applyAllDeletes);
-    return d == null ? null : new AssertingDirectoryReader(d);
-  }
-
-  @Override
-  public long getVersion() {
-    return in.getVersion();
-  }
-
-  @Override
-  public boolean isCurrent() throws IOException {
-    return in.isCurrent();
-  }
-
-  @Override
-  public IndexCommit getIndexCommit() throws IOException {
-    return in.getIndexCommit();
-  }
-
-  @Override
-  protected void doClose() throws IOException {
-    in.doClose();
-  }
-  
   @Override
   public Object getCoreCacheKey() {
     return in.getCoreCacheKey();
@@ -87,4 +48,5 @@ public class AssertingDirectoryReader extends DirectoryReader {
   public Object getCombinedCoreAndDeletesKey() {
     return in.getCombinedCoreAndDeletesKey();
   }
+
 }