When most of the bus shelters in Abingdon got painted black, about six years ago, one bus shelter escaped. It can be found where Landseer Walk comes out on Preston Road. The shelter has not seen a lick of paint in decades, but is not completely forgotten. The 41 – South Abingdon Town Service – stops there.
Abingdon’s first pillar box was erected on Ock Street on August 6th 1857 (According to The Postal History of Abingdon by G H R Homer-Wooff).
There is still a pillar box on Ock Street, at the front of the Royal Mail sorting office, but the initials E.R. for Elizabeth Regina show that it was put there after 1953 – the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Back in 1894 the Abingdon Directory shows that there were half a dozen post boxes in Abingdon:
Two of those wall boxes from the reign of Queen Victoria have survived:
St Helen’s Wharf…
and Conduit Road.
The latest Abingdon post box can be found inside the West St. Helen Street Co-op. It is made from shiney molded plastic, and looks like an oversized toy.
The stretch of Wilsham Road between Margaret Brown Gardens and Saxton Road has 8 street lights out of order .
I was told that they had already been out of order for some weeks now, and there is the worry about school pupils going home these dark evenings. This has been communicated to the County Council and they will be mended from between 10 and 60 days.
The County Council have been putting in a load of new bollards to protect the pavements in West St Helen Street. The bollards appear to be designed to stop residents parking in front of their own houses.
Bollards already surround the Market Place and Old County Hall.