Thanks to Steven for sending me this link to a Concept Image of New Wetherspoon Pub” in Abingdon. Above is a property the estate agent is selling: 11 bedroom flat … Guide Price of £1,200,000.”

The flat is intended to be bought by a landlord and sublet as units.

The real Wetherspoon public house, The Narrows, has its own marketing signs. It offers ‘a bright future‘ to anybody wanting a job, ‘a world of choice‘ for drinkers, and ‘Time for food‘ for anybody wanting food as well. It “Opens 8th October 2013.

National pub chain J.D.Wetherspoon has a history of exploring a building’s past when it comes up with a name for a new pub. They did not use the previous use ‘Old Post Office’ when naming their new Abingdon pub. Instead the pub chain looked further back into bygone times and called it ‘The Narrows’.

Work began on July 18th and should be ready for opening by October, providing about 40 jobs.

Lorries, delivering building material, are requested not to park outside and make Abingdon’s High Street a new bottleneck. Gaffer taped maps show drivers all the way round the one way system …

to the site entrance in the Market Place Car Park.

The Crown and Thistle has closed for refurbishment work to commence, and work should have started by now.

But instead of that, the scaffolding has been taken down again because of a dispute.

The Crown and Thistle has a front entrance onto Bridge Street that is used by pedestrians. It would be dangerous, and cause congestion, receiving deliveries and letting customers’ vehicles in that way. And so the pub is dependent on the back entrance which uses a council owned, council maintained, road. It is rumored that the council (not sure whether that is County, District or Town) has decided to bump up the charge that the Crown and Thistle pay for use of that road from 3 to 10 breadsticks a year.

Negotiations are carrying on between the parties. The 10K may have been in the council’s money saving plan, but it was not in the pub’s redevelopment plan.

There are notices in the windows of the Broad Face to say that it will be opening tomorrow, 25th June 2013 – before a lot of people realised it had closed. The gastro pub has now had four Landlords in a year, but the new management, this time round, may not be entirely new- if rumour is to believed. They were the chefs working with Mr R while he was in charge, and now he has gone to pastures new, they have taken over the Broad Face.

People raved about the food when Mr R was in charge. A lot of that must also have been down to the new men in charge.