Abingdon on Ebay and Etsy Today

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There are many Abingdon artifacts on the online auction sites Ebay and Etsy. To buy them would bring them back to Abingdon where they started out. Here are just a small sample of what was on offer.
Cut Trees
This postcard was posted in 1910 and is from a picture by Warland Andrew. The Mayor and Council are on a raised platform on Abingdon Market Place. Before them are three men in uniform with pith helmets. Some people have umbrellas. I don’t know the event.
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A stoneware ginger beer bottle from W Barnett Junior.
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A tailors clothing brush from around 1920 with Advertising for E.H. Beesley Tailor, Hatter & Outfitter.
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The photograph of an assured lady taken at the studio of James Brewerton, 17 High Street.

Chinese workers in Abingdon Cemetery from the First World War

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During the First World War there was a need for labour as part of the war effort, and many Chinese Mariners served on UK vessels. Some of these became stranded in the UK and found other work. Two such men have been buried together at the bottom of the Spring Road Cemetery in Abingdon. Anne sent me an email asking whether, in these days of pandemic, they had been victims of the influenza pandemic.

An article in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch Vol. 60 (2020), titled The Chinese mariners of the First World War, says that there were 67 Influenza fatalities recorded among Chinese Mariners, serving on UK vessels, all but one after July 1918.

Muk Cheung, of Bao’an, an area of the city of Shenzhen, worked at the stores depot at Milton Barracks, and died in Abingdon Cottage Hospital of pneumonia on February 10th 1918, aged 31 years.

Ah Fook, possibly of Hong Kong, worked at the stores depot at Milton Barracks, and died in Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, of an aneurysm on April 13th 1918, aged 33 years.

More on the cut trees and destruction of wildlife habitats

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After yesterday’s walk we visited the other bank of the River Thames to look closer at the large area of trees that had been cut down last month. The map above gives an idea of their location.
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The area beyond the tumbledown picnic benches used to be trees.
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This picture gives another view, with the piles of stacked tree trunks in the distance.

Tuckwells were granted permission to extract minerals in 1971 from a number of areas on Thrupp Farm, including the field called Nyatt [Area 5]. They excavated minerals from all the other areas but not Area 5. More recently they have been extracting minerals from Sutton Wick, south of Abingdon.

During an enquiry in 2019 their spokesperson said they still intended to extract minerals from Area 5 in future. The record of the discussion is at https://mycouncil.oxfordshire.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=20620. Local people wanted the area left undisturbed.
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The area not only includes meadows and trees but also a small lake, all of which had become a habitat for wildlife.

Walk by Rye Farm to Swift Ditch and back by the River Thames

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This walk took us down the small road to Rye Farm and then along a muddy pathway and across a large field to Swift Ditch and beyond, then back to Abingdon by the Thames path.
Walk to Swift Ditch and back
As we set out there were a few people – like us – out on their allowed lockdown exercise walk.
Walk to Swift Ditch and back
The view from the Rye Farm track is across ploughed fields with crows, towards a green rise where there are sheep and trees.
Walk to Swift Ditch and back
On the other side is a hedge that has been cut back, and a few buildings including Kingfisher barn which people can book to stay.
Walk to Swift Ditch and back
There were fewer people beyond Swift Ditch.
Walk to Swift Ditch and back
I have blogged about Swift Ditch a few times before. In 2007, the police had found the body of a lady, suffering from dementia, who went missing. She was found in one of the pools between the faster streams of water.
Walk to Swift Ditch and back
This time there was nothing quite as tragic but it might be sad. Over the other side of the River Thames there were long piles of cut down trees. Somebody asked me last month why they were cutting down so many trees down that way. Could it be for gravel extraction? The area is adjacent to the former gravel pits of Radley Lakes. I didn’t know.
Walk to Swift Ditch and back
There are a lot of boats moored by the Thames Path. My wife likened them to the Gyptian boats in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, recently on BBC 1.
Walk to Swift Ditch and back
One boat was sunk in the middle of the river. Bundles of dry vegetation came floating downstream. Somebody was cutting a new clearing on the river bank. Possibly to help rescue the sunken boat.

At Abingdon Weir we had to wait a few minutes as people kept coming the other way. The new convention is that you wait until you have a clear path before going across. Sometimes it pays to wait. I did see the blue flash of a Kingfisher.