The obelisk is near to where the sheep market was held – and now the site of the war memorial. On the right is the Congregational Church erected in 1862 to replace an earlier Congregational Church building. It now houses Ask – a restaurant.
Inside the restaurant is a large reproduction of the ‘View West along Ock Street c 1875′ where you can pose for a 2011 digital photograph.
The Town Crier was outside the Guildhall to welcome teachers and Year 7 students from John Mason School. Every year Year 7 comes to the Guildhall to learn about some of Abingdon’s important buildings and some of their history.
The Mayor, Duncan Brown welcomed everybody, then the students split into 9 different groups, and were taken on a tour of 9 different locations in the Guildhall itself, the Abbey Buildings, St Helen’s Church and the almshouses.
The Mayor held court in the Guildhall’s Council Chamber, an oak panelled room rebuilt in 1733, where he entertained the students with a talk that began with the picture of Mad King George III who lost the American colonies … looked at many other seemingly uninteresting pictures in a fun way … discovered a statue outside riddled with civil war musket fire … and ended with a picture of the town council in 1878. The students had to say what might have changed between 1878 to 2010. For a start the council in 1878 were all male, looked elderly, sported a lot of facial hair, and did not smile.
I have a copy of the leaflet and questionnaire the pupils carried round during the morning. It says at the start “Have fun and be a credit to John Mason“.
It was. They were.
There are visitors from Abingdon’s twin town Argentan over for the weekend. The party includes two of the priests from Argentan’s parish church. They will be taking part in the Remembrance Day service.
As part of the cultural exchange they were told a little bit about Trinity Church, its history, and the history of the Methodist movement. A short extract was read from the diary of John Wesley – the founder of Methodism – and his impressions when he visited Abingdon on 22nd July 1741 …
Then the Argentan visitors went over to the church hall where a festive fair was in full swing and they could buy quince jam, marmalade and home made festive decorations, and have a go on the Tombola. After that bangers and mash was served up from the kitchen servery.
In Spring Road Cemetery (also sometimes known as the Old Cemetery) are the memorials of a number of interesting people and I thought I’d start an occasional series to point some of them out. If anybody has any more details or corrections I would be interested to get my facts right.
Arthur Preston, historian, Abingdon Mayor and Freeman has a headstone near the lower chapel of rest.
One of the largest stones has been erected for John Creemer Clarke, Member of Parliament, clothing manufacturer, and the benefactor who helped fund the building of Trinity church and the cottage hospital.
At the top end of the cemetery is a memorial to J E Steven of the Royal Navy Air Service who died in 1917 during WWI.
Not far away, two other persons buried in the cemetery during World War I were from China. I am told they were part of a labour camp at Milton. For many years their graves were surrounded by iron railings since it was the custom to leave money scattered on Chinese graves. Their names : Ar Fook and Muk Sheung.