Thanks to Hester and Andy for noticing this …

There was an article in the Herald not long ago with Reg from the Gainsborough Green shop concerned that a Tesco or similar shop would be taking over the Saxton Arms.

Those plans, for a shop at the Saxton Arms, have now been withdrawn, and new plans submitted for 4 x one bed and 1 x two bed apartments with associated car parking.

That means that both the pubs taken over by Hawthorn Leisure Ltd from Greene King in 2014 – the Saxton Arms and the Cross Keys, could now be used as housing. Hawthorn Leisure Ltd did try running them both as pubs for a few months before closing them for a more profitable use

After the demise of the Saxton Arms, there remains one pub that carries on doing well in South Abingdon.

Lord Stokes, the chairman of British Leyland, opened this pub. in December 1974 at a time when MGs were still made in Abingdon,

After a competition run by the Morland brewery and pub chain, the pub was originally named after a world famous Racing Car, designed and built in Abingdon in the 1930s – the MG EX 127, otherwise known as the Magic Midget.

Greene King took over over the Abingdon based Morland brewery and pubs in 2000, and have since become the largest pub chain in the UK.

The pub was redesigned in 2002. Different bar areas were integrated to make one large bar and dining area, and it was renamed as The Midget.

The Midget has been run by the same family for over seventeen years, and is a popular local pub.

The Saxton Arms sign now just says Saxton A, and there is a hole in the wall where the Morlands plaque used to be. The former pub was given planning permission back in June 2015 to become a shop. There is now a further planning application detailing how the proposed shop could look with: the addition of a cash machine, larger central shop door, external stairs, and additional storage at the back. The planning applications does not indicate who could run the shop.

There is a petition in the shops in Reynolds Way, close by, that local people loyal to the existing shops have been signing, objecting to the new shop as not needed.