Category Archives: art

Flags Waiting for Better Weather

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Flags Waiting
Thirty-nine flags line the lamp posts of Saxton Road and its side courts – mostly Union Jacks, with a few St George’s Crosses. Only one lamp post has been missed.
Flags Waiting
Today many of them are wet, clinging to their posts. I could wait for better weather to capture them as I saw them yesterday, when they made a fine display.
Flags Waiting
There are also the usual flag displays in back gardens, proudly shown along the road. So there are a lot more than thirty nine.

South Indian Hours

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Over twenty years ago, at Abingdon Museum, there was an exhibition of work by the Abingdon artist, poet and writer Oswald Couldrey, bringing together many of his paintings of Abingdon alongside work produced during the years he spent in India as a teacher and the principal of Rajamundry College of Art in Andra Pradesh.

A new exhibition opens on Saturday 10 January 2026, this time concentrating on Couldrey’s paintings from his years in South India from 1909-19. These are shown in the Sessions Gallery, and include scenes of everyday life, religion, buildings and landscapes observed during his time there. The painting are delightful for their composition, simplicity and light.

The exhibition also has background information about his life and time in India, examples of his writing, and pictures of him as a schoolboy at Roysse School (now Abingdon School).

Couldrey’s Abingdon paintings, from the 1930s, will be on display upstairs in the attic. These now familiar views have been reproduced as posters and postcards since the original exhibition.

The exhibition opens on 10 January and runs until 29 March.

The Abingdon Monk Finds a Woodland Home

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While exploring Abingdon’s green spaces, I also discovered where the Abingdon Monk has been retired. The wooden monk once stood on the roundabout near Fairacres and Tesco. After toppling over once, it was propped back up with a splint,

but when it fell again it was found to be too rotten to repair. There was a split running from head to side.

Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council has now given the monk a new purpose as a bug hotel, placed among the naturally decaying tree trunks at Boxhill Wood. The sculpture was originally created for a Britain in Bloom project, commissioned by Abingdon Town Council and sponsored by the Abbey Press. People used to dress it up for festive and other occasions.

There has been talk of a replacement. Other towns have their own wooden monks (including one in Cirencester), but for now there is no Abingdon monk.

A Gift Returns Home: St Helen’s Painting Presented to Abingdon Museum

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During the church twinning visit in June, our friends from Sint-Niklaas brought a special gift – a 19th-century painting of St Helen’s Church, Abingdon.

Today, the painting was formally presented to Abingdon Museum by members of the church twinning committee. The handover took place in the presence of the Mayor of Abingdon, Cllr Rawda Jehanli; Cllr Penny Clover, Chair of the Museum Sub-Committee; and Dan Sancisi, Museum Manager.

The artist, George Vicat Cole (1833–1893), was a landscape painter who often worked along the River Thames, travelling by steam launch in search of views. His painting captures the Thames at Abingdon, with the wharf and the spire of St Helen’s Church in the background – a scene easily recognisable today, though much of the detail has changed.