Walking around Abingdon, it is easy to pass the town’s front doors without paying them any mind. But some doors are on a show, like this one at Lock House. On most front doors the wood is painted over but here you can still see the wood.

Here is a much older door where the wood is visible. It has a stone surround and archway.

This doorway has a fanlight, columns and simple decoration typical of the Georgian period.

Some Georgian houses went further. This doorway, with its surround, columns and triangular pediment looks very grand.

Another triangular pediment. Brick this time. By the Victorian period, brick became an important part of doorway decoration.

The doorway has brickwork and a white decorative surround.

This door has less decoration, but the colour and simple appearance are attractive.

I have probably walked past all these doors many times without really noticing them. But today I decided to photograph doors after hearing that the Abingdon Artists went out drawing and painting pictures of doors at their last ‘Quick on the Draw’ session.

Follow the double yellow line down Bath Street past The Lounge Cafe

and the Clockwork Dragon

Here are five of the gables,

and three more gables after a driveway. That is eight old-style Abingdon gables in a row.

Looked at from the driveway there is a view of dormer windows

There are eleven, possibly twelve.

The Window Tax was a tax on the value of a property. The tax could be assessed without intruding on the house owner’s privacy by going inside.

As a consequence of the tax, people blocked up windows, and built houses with fewer windows. It was repealed in 1851. (Fewer windows were a health and safety problem.)

The blocked up Abingdon windows, pictured here, were probably not blocked up to avoid the Window Tax, unless you know better.

It could be that internal alterations made the windows no longer necessary.

It could be that the space inside is being used for storage or that privacy is needed.

They could be an architectural feature – for classical symmetry

If you know buildings, in Abingdon, where windows are blocked up to avoid the Window Tax then I will do a part 2.

This is Hobbs Close in Abingdon.

And here is the view looking down Hobbs Close towards Audlett Drive with the trees that shield Abingdon Science Park behind.

The adjoining road is called Kempster Close. What connects ‘Hobbs’ and ‘Kempster’ apart from the path between the two closes?