Near the end of Audlett Drive

you will find  Barrow Hills Recreation Area, a place that has not seen much council investment in the last few decades. It has a rundown BMX Track featured in 2006 , an area for football, and a very uneven car park. The area is mostly used by dog walkers who can set out in the direction of Thrupp Lane.

One route passes through an area of very regular woodland with the exception of one bent tree,

then across a field with some larger trees to the south, and then skirts an Old Coal Yard (in Radley Parish) just before Thrupp Lane. I am guessing that this was the local coal distribution centre run by the coal board.

I read in the History of Ock Street that T Enoch & Son, of 75 Ock Street, was the last coal merchant in Abingdon. They closed in the 1990s having operated for about 100 years. In the 1970s there were three coal merchants in Abingdon. Go back to the 1960s and most families would have a coal storage area, and took a regular delivery of coal.

Abingdon got a mention near the end of Episode 4 of the historic drama, Wolf Hall, currently being shown on the BBC. Thomas Cromwell dictates “Itinary for the King’s summer progress; depart Windsor, then to Reading, Missenden, Abingdon … then Wolf Hall!

Henry VIII stayed at Abingdon Abbey, on another occasion, at the start of April 1518 with wife Catherine of Aragon in the time of Cardinal Wolsey. There is an exchange of letters between Richard Pace, who is with the King, and Wolsey who is left to conduct government back in London.

The court were on the flight from the ‘sickness,’ and the chief chief issue concerning Abingdon is ‘There is very little accommodation in this small town’ and “Sufficient provision has been made at Abingdon of horse meat for the King. Cannot tell how ‘other poor men’ will do.”

The letters are available on the internet and Pace starts writing from Abingdon on 27th March 1518.

Champs Close (Peachcroft) This is an old field-name, possibly derived from the French ‘champs’ meaning ‘a field’.

Chandlers Close (Peachcroft) Named after a field-name on the Radley Parish Tithe Map.

Charney Close (Peachcroft) This is also called after an old field-name in Radley Parish.

Corn Avil Close (Peachcroft) This is an old field-name in the Parish of Radley.

Thanks to ‘The Origins of the Street Names of Abingdon’ by John McGowan 1988. It needs to be updated and brought back into print.

Fifty years ago or less, the speech of an Ab’ndonian would hardly have been understood by a person from the northern counties. and his dialect would sound strange to his grandson of today. He called a stone a “stwun”, a mole a “wunt”, – Wantage means the place of wunts – a pig a “peg”, and a sheep a “ship”.

“B’ist thee a-gwaen to Ab’ndon faar? If thee b’ist I’ll see ‘ee theaar.”

(a short extract from ‘The School History of Berkshire’ by E.A. Greening Lamborn published in 1908 and no longer on the school history curriculum)