When the new shopping centre and Guildhall were being developed Abingdon-on-Thames was billed as “The Town with Tomorrow.”

A display about that era was put up along with older historical displays in the old Abingdon People and Places picture display at the Community Shop. That exhibition will run until Heritage Weekend – 14th – 15th September.

Last week, there was a dry run of the Heritage Boat Trips. There are still some tickets available at the Town Council Information Centre. A smaller number will be available on the day (14th September). Learn about Abingdon’s history from the River Thames on an Edwardian launch.

The reason for the boat trips are that the latest part of the Abingdon Heritage Trail will soon be on show with new information boards around the St Helens Church area. Mock ups will be there for people to look at over Heritage Weekend. The Mayor of Ock Street will do a ‘Mock Opening’.

Almost everything else that is happening during heritage weekend is in the Heritage leaflet. Paper copies can be found at the Community Shop or Town Council Information Centre.

The same day there is a free food festival at Our Ladies Abingdon – which has the chapel open for Heritage Day for the first time. Stride and Ride round the Oxfordshire Churches is also that day, next weekend. And Dragon Boat racing is tomorrow.

Preliminary archaeological excavations are underway in the field in North Abingdon, belonging to Radley College, for which planning permission is being sought.

A number of  trial trenches have been dug, guided by the findings of geophysical surveys, and as always in Abingdon there are the prospects that there will be the remains of some old structures down there. I believe the last time the field had any excavations it was part of a study by students at Radley College in the 1970s. If anybody can remember the year or has any pictures that would be interesting to know.

Today (Friday) is likely to be the final day of power generation from the Didcot A coal fired Power Station. The picture of the cooling towers was taken at the weekend from the fields above the Tithe Farm estate in Abingdon. When we first moved to Abingdon we were warned that soot from Didcot would dirty our washing but can’t remember it ever being a problem.

Such cooling towers became common in the UK from the 1950s, and are rapidly disappearing from the landscape as one set after another are demolished.

There are also a couple of close up pictures on the Not Abingdon Blog.