Pete Skuse says ‘It only seems like yesterday that I sent you details of the 10th anniversary of the health walks. Today we had a walk followed by a picnic at the Abbey Sailing Club to celebrate 20 years of the Abingdon Health walks. The walks have been coordinated by Viv Boorman for all this time. The health walks are now called the Abingdon Community Walks and have four start venues in the town.

Our short walk before the festivities followed parts of the newly created South Abingdon Nature Trails.

For more details of the Abingdon Community walks please go to: Community Walks | GO Active (getoxfordshireactive.org)’

The Friends of Abingdon organised a series of Bank Holiday walks today, all departing from the Market Place. In the morning there were four walks on offer, and all places were filled. Penny Clover led a walk exploring the historic boundaries of Abingdon. John Killick guided participants on a nature walk through the Abbey Meadows, showcasing the area’s biodiversity. There was an “Edible Abingdon” walk.

And for the historians, there was a walk around the historic pubs of Abingdon.

The town crier helped lead the boundary walk.

In the afternoon, I led a walk highlighting Abingdon’s public artworks. The surprise hit was the Octagon sculpture near the Old Gaol. Many participants were surprised to learn this land is freely accessible.

The other afternoon walks were: Abingdon’s Oppidum, Rivers of Abingdon, and a nature walk with David Guyoncourt.

This morning, around 90 enthusiastic Abingdonians (and several dogs) set off on a special New Year’s Day tradition: walking the ancient boundary of our borough. This centuries-old walk follows the line laid out in the 1556 charter, back when it was the official duty of the Mayor and Council. After a break, the tradition was revived in 2000, and it’s been going strong ever since!

The charter gives a detailed description of the boundary, and it’s close to the red line drawn in 1831 for the Abingdon Parliamentary boundary (see above). Today, the Ock Valley Walk mud forced us to detour along Caldecott Road. But otherwise, we stuck fairly close to the boundary.

Our guide for the day was the silver-tongued Helen Pighills, with our very own Town Crier keeping things lively with his hangover-hurting bell and loud voice and entertaining announcements. He even gave a plug to the Abingdon Drama Club’s upcoming production of Peter Pan (he’s playing Captain Hook, by the way!). The young lady playing Peter Pan was also on the walk. Catch the show if you can – tickets are available at https://www.abingdon-drama-club.com/.

Despite the threat of rain, the weather held out, and around 60 folks made it all the way to Abingdon Lock, the final stop on our boundary journey.

Helen even pointed out one of the ancient boundary stones near the lock. It was a great way to start the new year, and if you missed it, and were stuck indoor watching repeats of Richard Osman’s House of Games, don’t worry, there is next year, but it might be raining then.