The Norman doorway fronting St Nicolas Church by Abingdon Market Place
has a new door. It will take some getting used to.
The Norman doorway fronting St Nicolas Church by Abingdon Market Place
has a new door. It will take some getting used to.
And how dreadful it looks too, surely they must have gotten approval for this ? and what happened to the original door? probably in some salvage yard for several thousand pounds? And while i’m here and on the subject of missing stuff, what happened to all the stone Urns and Pineapples that adorned the balustrades around Trendells garden behind the Old Abbey House? If my memory serves me correct they even featured in the publicity regarding the heritage lottery money that funded the renovations there not too long ago? they do feature on the information board just inside the entrance, Where are they now ??
It seems that someone is selling off all of Abingdon’s silver…? The Old Gaol, Old Abbey House, the old Police station, Greenbelt land,…has anyone spotted the For Sale board on the now refurbished County Hall yet? What about the river…how much could we get for that?
It is to enable the Team Vicar who has to use a wheelchair to have access to the church. So, yes; approval was sought and gained.
Guido, you forgot to mention the Tesco Freehold, the 150 year lease of the precinct, Tilsey Park athletics complex that’s just been GIVEN to Abingdon school, then one mustn’t forget the Nags Head island that a bunch of thespians want to turn into an Amphitheater?
Little wonder the Vale are migrating to Crowmarsh, soon they’ll be nothing left of our beautiful town to council.
I only hope that the centuries old door has been carefully put into storage and will be refitted one way or the other!
I’m sorry Steve King, you’re saying disabled access isn’t a good enough reason to change a door? i really hope this isn’t the case, are we sure the door is centuries old? or are people just assuming as they often do in this town.
What would we of liked the Town council to of done with the derelict police station and old gaol? what would you of liked them to spend millions of the towns money on?…..
The same with Old Abbey House, the town has had very little access to it for as long as i can remember (50 years give or take a few) at least if it becomes a Hotel we will ba able to use it.
And what is so terrible about a Amphitheatre? Do you speak for the whole town Steve? Have you been elected in some sort of vote i’ve missed? No? thats what I thought…… Maybe if people like yourself kept there misguided, ill-informed views private this town wouldn’t have such a bad reputation.
How do you think it looks when a potential buisness is looking at Abingdon as a place to come and they google the town, try it your self, the first thing that comes up after the council, CoC and other drivel is a bunch of comments from people belittling the town and saying how bad it is, no wonder people don’t want to invest money in the town, it would seem the people who live here have nothing more to do than sit around and slag it off.
Right, rant over, time to go for a walk around our lovely town before i get on with my day, I wonder when the new Vodafone store opens
ouch, that was venomous George ! I’m all for giving the disabled fair and proper access, but is the vicar the only disabled person to use the church? probably not, so why hasn’t the issue been addressed before? why not replace the side door instead of the main one?
The Amphitheater? quite right, I only speak for myself, so where is the public consultation on this project? when did it take place? what gives the steering group of this project the right to assume governance over a precious piece of un-spoilt Abingdon? what about the new owners of the £500k apartments in the Old Gaol who will have this just 50 meters from their balcony, have they been consulted? why not put it in the Abbey Meadow? you contradict yourself in refering to CoG as drivel, some of the protagonists of CoG are the same people driving the Isis project, make your mind up please?
A hotel in Old Abbey House? don’t count on it !
The new door is beautiful and practical, a great improvement and an asset to the town. There are very good reasons why it was not done sooner and why a side door was not used, as Steve King could have found out he taken the trouble to do so before damaging the image of our town in another of his rants of verbal vandalism. So, good for George, speaking up as he did. Abingdon is BRILLIANT, apart from the moaning minnies who just like to gripe and whinge to draw attention to themselves. And, by the way, the old doors are being well cared for as is appropriate.
As Peter Sellers put it, in Churchillian tones: “It is not everything I fear which has changed for the better.”
BTW – Does anyone know when & why the ‘h’ was dropped from the aeon’s-old spelling of the church’s name – St. Nicholas?
I think the new door looks awful , I’m amazed it got passed the Heritage lot. A Norman doorway should have a thick wooden door oak, not glass panels. Now it just looks like any other door, and we have lost some character.
Nags Head Island, boating, cafe , sit by the river, yes, but Amphitheatre, it’s the UK not Italy. It rains here and what’s wrong with putting it in Abbey Meadow if you really need one, which we don’t.
Unfortunately Steve after reading the comments you have left on this blog as well as the Oxford Mail and the Herald series, not to mention the emails you have sent to the ‘big’ names in this town (destroying any business that dares stand in your way or god forbid ask you to leave) I felt enough was enough and I had to speak my mind.
I think if you read my comment again you will find I wasn’t referring to the CoC as drivel I was using it as a term to describe the list of results that appear on Google.
I think you will find that one of the bidders for old Abbey House is a ‘Pub & Restaurant’ company, if you do your research I think you will see that oakman inns that own the Crown & Thistle have opened a Anex hotel next to most of their other hotels. It could just be a coincidence but I doubt it.
There has always been a improvised disabled access to the church from the side door, but why should the disabled not be able to use the main entrance like everyone else. I wonder if there would anyone would of cared if it had been in a darker wood.
I’m not really sure what your issue is with the outdoor theatre, it will provide the people with another public venue to host events in the summer, it could even be used as a outdoor cinema (the one on the roof of Oxford castle has been so successful they’ve quadrupled the number of showings this year) it can’t look any worse that the old 70’s boat centre.
This town has missed out in the passed because people are afraid of change and we’ve lost out to the surrounding towns.
If there is this much backlash over a door can you really blame people for not.investing in the town
“BTW – Does anyone know when & why the ‘h’ was dropped from the aeon’s-old spelling of the church’s name – St. Nicholas?”
I think i am right in saying that the church on the market place in Abingdon has always been spelled without the “h”. it’s not a modern thing.
Traffic lights at wootton road opened today!!!!!
I like it, looks even nicer in person, Just because something is old doesn’t mean it has to stay…… I’m going to assume everyone who’s against it has coal fires, oil lamps and single glazing
davidofLuton says St. Nicholas “has always been spelled without the “h”. it’s not a modern thing.”
Not so; for instance, we have A.E. Preston’s seminal work on the church’s history “St. Nicholas, Abingdon & other papers” published in 1929. James Townsend’s “A History of Abingdon”, published in 1910, also spelled the church’s name with an ‘h’. There are many earlier examples in county directories, etc., so my query remains – when was the spelling changed – and why?
Nikolaos is a Greek name. Its transliteration into English means that sometimes it appears as Nicolas and sometimes as Nicholas.
Similar variations occur with Beijing/Peking or Mumbai/Bombay; the “correct” spelling is nearly always an approximation.
Perhaps we should call the church St Nikolas – or perhaps not;-}
Personally, I am glad that ‘Steve’, and a growing number of others, are prepared to stick their head above the parrapet. I may nott always agree with what these people say but i am glad that they try to let us know what is going on. Often, it’s an education. At worst it enables me to consider my opinions.
So much happens in this town that we don’t know about…and if we did…we’d baulk. I welcome people who are more tenacious than me who don’t just sit back and swallow what we are fed.
An employer has to provide access to the place of employment for their employees and the door is just the start of the church taking that responsibility seriously.
Change does take a bit of getting used to but things can’t stay the same forever. At which point in time should Abingdon have been preserved and change have been halted? Does anyone really want to go back to the days when the A34 ran down Bath Street?
I look forward to reading Steve King’s views as I always agree with what he says. In my opinion he should be employed by the council as he seems to talk sense and knows the town extremely well.
I think that changes seem to be dealt with sneakily in Abingdon and there is an apparent disregard for what the people want. Let’s be honest, The Old Gaol development has been a bit of a farce. And I think that deep down, a lot of people knew it would be. Where are the restuarants etc. that were promised? It shouldn’t be taking this long to sort out.
Someone somewhere gained a lot from the sale of The Old Gaol and it certainly wasn’t the people of the town.
I have lived here all my life and I welcome positive change.
I don’t like slagging off Abingdon, I defend it when outsiders say the shops etc. are rubbish but most of the critism is justified. When New Look opened up in bigger premises I assumed they would open up the next floor and do the range of clothes for teens etc. as they do in Didcot. The building is huge and only one floor has been utilised. I asked an assistant why they had missed such an opportunity to bring a wider range to Abingdon and she shrugged her shoulders.
I don’t want to shop in Didcot, Oxford and Witney. I want to shop here and maybe go the the cinema afterwards.
Keep giving your views Steve and hopefully someone will sit up and take into account what we want.
Ampitheatre? Don’t make me laugh.
Hi Sasha and thanks for that, no-one loves this town more than I do, it wasn’t too long ago that i put £11k of my own money up to have an independent report carried out on Abingdon’s disastrous traffic system, and it resulted in no less than 12 modifications carried out to the layout, granted I got my money back from businesses in Abingdon, but I doubt many of our elected representatives would be prepared to commit like that,
It really isn’t rocket science, all council needs to do is provide a safe, pleasant and efficient environment and infrastructure and business will take care of the rest !
You see Steve why can’t all your posts be like the last one, it makes sense, it appears to all be factual and you’re not bad mouthing the town! Hurrah!