Speeding past on the A34, people who have no knowledge or interest in Abingdon may catch a few glimpses of the town. The floodlights and all weather pitches of Tilsey Park may cause the odd remark.

The newly refurbished Recycling Centre, at Drayton, just outside Abingdon, is also visible from the A34 – as the first picture shows. The cost of the refit was £500,000 and was completed a month ago. The original site opened ten years ago.

Last year if you went there, there were skips either side of the car ramp, and so you’d throw your green stuff into the green waste, then cross across with you cardboard in front of oncoming cars. Other people who only had a bag or two would park outside, and walk up the ramp by foot to save a few minutes.

Now all the bays are on the same side, and there is no walking up the ramp, and it looks more efficient so there should be fewer queues, and less chance of accidents.

It is called rather grandly “Recycling Centre” but to your average Joe Abingdonian it is The Dump.

The Dump is now open Monday to Sunday – 8am to 5pm; Thursday is late night opening until 8pm, from 1 April to 30 September.

What you can recycle:

• cans
• car batteries
• cardboard
• computer monitors
• fluorescent tubes
• foil
• fridges and freezers
• glass
• green waste
• household batteries
• light bulbs
• metals
• motor oil
• paper
• plastics
• rubble
• shredded paper
• soil
• telephone directories
• televisions
• textiles
• timber

This evening Abingdon Town Council elected a new Mayor. The gallery of previous mayors are in Old Abbey House. The ceremony to install the Mayor took place before an audience collected at the Guildhall at 7 PM.

This year Peter Green (pictured) became the Mayor. Peter is a retired RAF man who settled in Abingdon twenty years ago. He already devotes a lot of time to Abingdon. His wife Hilary Green was the Mayor three years ago. Peter said he is green by name and green by nature (environmentally).

When you cut through from Audlett Drive, there are many Cudlesacs. The looping branching roads lead nowhere for road traffic. But on foot it is a different matter. You can avoid the culdesacs and go via The Abbey Fish Ponds.

The Abbey Fish Ponds nature reserve is looked after by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT). The sign says that the earthworks were built to contain the fishponds in 1320 and should be treated with care, and that dogs should be kept on a short lead because of the grazing wildlife. As you can tell by the weaved fence it is a green area where conservation volunteers work. The nature reserve helps to conserve the fishpond banks.

This small steam may have supplied some of the water for the ponds. It runs the length of the nature reserve, from the Radley Road to Audlett Drive. The fishponds have been left as a rather boggy oasis among all the houses that surround.

At some places the dry reeds from last year surround areas of water, but none of them deep enough to host the carp that the monks kept to supply the Abbey with food.

You would have thought from this picture taken from the bank of the fishponds that you were in the countryside, but you are surrounded by recent housing estates in the town of Abingdon. So thanks to some old fishponds there are green areas to walk, where wildlife can thrive.

Before the local government reorganisation in 1974, Abingdon was a borough – which meant one local Council – not three. More local power, and less local confusion.

This garden in Saxton Road has a trophy from those days.

This drain cover says “Borough of Abingdon.”

Behind this wysteria you may just about be able to SPY Borough of Abingdon on Thames. It’s a very faded Broad Street sign.

Nice-to-have-trophies. But those times have gone.