At the recent open day at the Abbey Buildings some visitors bought along this postcard. I am not sure it can tell us a lot about Abingdon but they very much wanted to return the postcard to the place where it originated, to help tell a story.
It was posted in Abingdon on November 4th 1908 at 9. PM. The postcard was to Miss A Thorpe living at 253 Banbury Road in Oxford. The writer Gert, and her sister Emily, signed the postcard. Gert said they had just arrived safely in Abingdon at 8:25 and would write a letter later.
Michael Harrison has a Bibliography of Abingdon on the internet. It lists a huge number of books and articles about Abingdon. The list can be found at www.stertstream.net/bib2.htm. It contains the standard works on Abingdon that you might find in the local studies section at Abingon Library. It also contains many wonderful pieces you would be very lucky to find anywhere, such as ‘The claret ran out’ and ‘Dogs stolen. Stolen out of a yard belonging to Mr. Benjamin Tomkins, in the Ock-Street, in Abingdon Berks, on Friday night the 15th of this instant, two large pointing dogs, … Topper: … and … Pompey. Tomkins, B. (1768).’
Michael also wrote a booklet to be found in the library that tells the history of his own house right back to the time of Abingdon Abbey. It is one of the oldest houses in Abingdon, and only just survived demolition on a couple of occasions. You can also read about the ups an downs of the house at www.stertstream.net/hist.htm
Two ground crew stationed at RAF Abingdon were charged, 60 years ago this week, in connection with the crash of the RAF Beverley at Sutton Wick, just outside Abingdon, on March 15th 1957. The accident resulted from a valve incorrectly fitted to the fuel system, and killed 15 RAF men on board, and two civilians on the ground. The accident occurred soon after the plane took off from RAF Abingdon, heading for the Middle East.
At Trinity Church there was a good gathering to watch excerpts from The Messiah on Palm Sunday. Easter was even later in 1957 than 2017.
People were reminded not to forget to get their chest X-Rayed as part of a mass national campaign to catch Tuberculosis early. Everyone X-Rayed received a badge as they queued up in Abingdon Market Place. Back then the badge was a prize worth having.
Anybody celebrating their Diamond Jubilee could have got their wedding gifts from Beadles in Ock Street. Has anybody still got any such gifts from Beadles?
And you could have gone to the Cinema and watched ‘Three Men in a Boat’ and tried to see if there were any views of Abingdon. It can still be watched on Youtube.
In Jerome K Jerome’s original book ‘THREE MEN IN A BOAT (to say nothing of the dog)’ it says …
“Windsor and Abingdon are the only towns between London and Oxford that you can really see anything of from the stream. All the others hide round corners, and merely peep at the river down one street: my thanks to them for being so considerate, and leaving the river-banks to woods and fields and water-works.”
…
“At Abingdon, the river passes by the streets. Abingdon is a typical country town of the smaller order—quiet, eminently respectable, clean, and desperately dull. It prides itself on being old, but whether it can compare in this respect with Wallingford and Dorchester seems doubtful. A famous abbey stood here once, and within what is left of its sanctified walls they brew bitter ale nowadays.”
Thanks to the Herald microfiche from the library for the old adverts, and the BBC for a still from a news real of the crash.)
Also to mention that I finished by sixty sixties blog this Bank Holiday morning.
At the narrow entry to Turnagain Lane circus posters can be seen on the Cottage Imperial Blackboard. This is the first time that Circus Wonderland have been to Abingdon and they have made quite a splash with their colourful adverts.
Turnagain lane was once a cul-de-sac containing small stone cottages, crammed together round a small yard. When you reached the yard you had to ‘turn again’ and go back the way you came.
These days the lane ends in a view onto the white front of the Old Gaol flats.
