The side of the River Thames opposite Wilsham Road, in Abingdon, has had a dredging boat in position for a couple of weeks. The plan must be to make the Thames through Abingdon more easy to navigate. A number of pleasure boats have run aground here over recent months, despite a warning buoy.
A new exhibition has opened at St Nics Church called “What Does Love Require of Us? – Quakers in a Time of War” from Monday 15th – Thursday 18th September – 10am – 4pm.
The Society of Friends, or Quakers, meet at the Health and Well Being Centre, off Audlett Drive, each Sunday at 10:15 am. Their form of worship is to sit in silence unless inspired to say something. On occasions 2 or 3 people may share something fairly short during the hour. On other occasions the hour passes in silence.
Since the Peace Declaration of 1661 an important part of Quaker Faith has been the ‘denial of all outward wars and strife’.
The exhibition has a display showing one Abingdon Friend who was a Conscientious Objector in WW1, and tells of the Friends Ambulance Service and the Friends Relief Service, set up to give Concientous Objectors an alternative to Military Service. Quakers were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 recognising their long standing commitment to reconciliation, and their relief work during and after the second world war.
The Sunday of Heritage Open Weekend has been much quieter since Fun in The Parks got moved to June.
After yesterday’s excitement there followed 3 walks and half a dozen open properties on Sunday.
Patrick swapped roles from Town Crier to leading the Boundary Walk this year, leaving at 11am.
There were 2 other walks at 2pm.
Both were a little over subscribed and an attempt was made to split them between a main walk leader and a smaller group following behind with another leader…
Thanks again to Peter who sent more pictures after yesterday’s blog post. He visited Ruby’s Retro Fair. They had a good day so we hope to see them back in a few months.
Peter also visited the ex Probation Office at 1-3 Ock Street.
Kemp & Kemp, the new owners, gave a very interesting talk, and tour showing how they had transformed the property.
Also thanks to Rachel from the Camera Club who sent me some good pictures. I will try to put the pictures together into a better online album soon.
David has already put together a youtube compilation of pictures.
Thanks to Steve for the first two pictures at today’s Heritage WWI Event on the Market Place. The first shows the recruiting Sergeant filling in the papers for another young Abingdon recruit going to serve King and Country.
The second shows Mr Punch and The Kaiser having a ding dong in front of the children.
Mr Punch has lost none of his punch with these kids after 100 years.
Thanks to Peter, also from Abingdon Camera Club, for this picture of the recruitment desk and the two pictures that follow.
Some lads from Abingdon about to join up for King and Country.
who then go through some initial training, getting it wrong and get an earful.
The Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers, and Mr Hemmings Traditional Abingdon Morris Dancers, joined forces in memory of colleagues from 100 years ago.
Councillor Angela Lawrence, The Mayor of Abingdon, opened the Heritage Open Day activities at 10am, and is seen here in East St Helen Street.
Window displays showed the history of buildings, and a record of those who went to serve in WWI. There were 16 Properties opened for Heritage Open Day, and there were many windows on the past.
The Community Shop stayed open for an extra day – showing an exhibition of Abingdon people who served in WWI. All the pictures they collected will become part of the local history collection in the library. They used a 1914 way of counting Saturday’s visitors.
Finally, unless I get sent more pictures, the earlier recruits returned in modern day uniform to show they really could keep step and march in time in front of their visiting Brigadier, and MP Nicola Blackwood.