After a bright frosty start it has turned into a lovely sunny day. Thanks to Father Christmas and Matt for helping to feed the Reindeer on the Market Place. The reindeer and Father Christmas will be there until about 4. Also Christmas Trees and wreathes on sale. Free Parking for 2 hours. And at St Ethelwolds, crafts and cakes from those nice German ladies …
Helen saw this deer as she came out of her house earlier in the week in the Northcourt area of Abingdon.
A little way behind the fence and ivy is the Boundary House Public House. The deer was startled and ran. Deer and modern traffic don’t mix well so I hope it got home OK.
Deer were better suited to the lower speed days of the stagecoach. Elizabeth sent me this picture of a stagecoach passing down East St Helen Street earlier in the week (on the 11th during the Abingdon Street Fair detour).
Two horse-drawn stagecoaches set out on a 113-mile journey from Windsor Castle to Warwick this week and are currently at Kineton. They stayed at Henley, Dorchester-on-Thames, Stanton Harcourt, Hook Norton and Kineton on the way. Not many Public Houses can cater for a stagecoach and four these days, but I dare say the old coach houses of the Kings Head and Bell and the Crown and Thistle, in Abingdon, would have give them a good place to rest over.
The stagecoaches were raising money for Help for Heroes and The Household Cavalry Operational Casualties Fund.
The Hook Norton shire horses entered Abingdon over Abingdon Bridge.
The shire horses deliver locally within 5 miles of the brewery, at Hook Norton, but attend many public functions.
They came to Abingdon to open the Beer Festival at the Kings Head and Bell – free beer was on offer from the back of the dray.
The Beer Festival is on over the bank holiday weekend and has 5 special ciders and 20 ales – these include 6 from Hook Norton … Hooky Dark, Hooky Gold, Old Hooky, Hooky Double Stout, Hooky Haymaker, and Hooky Flagship.
I followed these two horses up West St Helen Street, along Lombard Street, up East St Helen Street (contra flow like a lot of push bikes seem to do), and then down Bridge Street to the show ground on Rye Farm. Most horses came from further afield and needed transport but it is good to see local horses riding through town.
The annual Abingdon Horse Show went on throughout the day. There was a cool start to the day, when I looked in, but by afternoon it was getting quite hot. A loudspeaker commentates on the jumping which usually seems to end in 4 faults, but from time to time they will announce that a xxxxxxx coloured horse next to a van with registration number xxxx xxx is acting a little agitated. Can the owner please return and tend to it!
The owners do devote such a lot of attention to their animals and quite rightly. They are wonderful animals. I’m just glad to see them all come to visit Abingdon once a year.