Monthly Archives: September 2010

Bowyer Road , Northcourt By-Election, and Papal Visit begins

2 Replies

Bowyer Road is off Boxhill Road which is off the Oxford Road, and is part of the Northcourt Ward where there is a town council By-Election today. Polling is at All Saints Church off Appleford Drive. The election is to replace Patricia Hobby. The candidates are…
Peter Jones – Conservative
Bobbie Nichols – Labour
Helen Pighills – Lib-Dem

I was canvassing some of Bowyer Road in the rain yesterday and got very wet, but it ended with a rainbow.
Bowyer Road
One lady remarked on opening her front door ‘What a beautiful rainbow.’
Bowyer Road
Bowyer Road is not named because it sometimes has a rainbow. Bowyer Road was named after the Bowyer family of Radley Hall – now Radley College. Sir George Bowyer is perhaps best known in Abingdon. He helped set up St Edmund’s Church. He supported the Sisters of Mercy when they first came to Abingdon to educate the children of the poor. Their work then led to the setting up of Our Ladies Convent and St Edmund’s School in what was a Catholic corner of Abingdon. Very near that area is Bowyer Road.

Also today the papal visit begins. There are no plans to visit Abingdon, but he may look out from Shepherd 1 and see the River winding its way through our town.

Scouts seen packing bags in Tesco in return for small change

4 Replies

Thanks to the Mayor for this report …
Boundary Walk
“36 young people from Oxfordshire will be attending the 22nd World Jamboree in Sweden next summer. Jamboree’s are huge camps with Scouts attending from nearly every country on earth. Lord Baden Powell intended them to foster good relations between countries and promote peace. They’re great fun and they can change young peoples lives, I know, I attended one in Korea in 1991. Today they have been packing bags at tesco in return for small change. If you’d like to help you can also become a Jamboree mate. For a donation of £10 you will be informed of the contingent progress and even get a post card from Sweden.

Ahoy me hearties, boundary walk, fun in the parks , a bottle o’rum, and a dead man’s chest

Leave a reply

Boundary Walk
Martin Smith led the two hour walk round the Abingdon 1556 Boundaries starting at 11:30 this morning. Martin has been leading the boundary walk since 2006. The 1556 Abingdon boundary was written with no map and is described with very little punctuation, mentioning many features that are difficult to interpret. For example…

“… and from thence by and through another publick way a little turning towards the North untill you come to a certain Crooked little Ditch inclining towards the East, which said little Ditch together with the aforesaid publick way…”

so Martin does very well to find his way round every year.
Boundary Walk
Next on today was fun in the parks. As always Abingdon Operatic Society were dressed up to publicise their next production… The Pirates of Penzanze (Mon 25th to Sat 30th October).

But more to the point, shiver me timbers,  there are only a few days left to practise your pirate lingo as the International Talk like a Pirate Day is on September 19th, a chance to unleash you inner buccaneer me hearties.
Boundary Walk
This group were from Headington in Oxford, and the young lad was very excited to hear he would be appearing on the Abingdon Blog. He asked me to make sure it was on so he could watch it when he got home. Fame at last.
Boundary Walk
Fun in the parks ended with the traditional tug-a-war – children against the adults. At one stage it looked even stevens.

The compere then said ‘we need more children‘ and as in every other year the children won easily in the end.