We had a meeting today to plan this year’s Heritage Open Day (which is on September 10th). It will be 600 years since Abingdon Bridge was built in 1416. There will be talks, and exhibitions about Abingdon Bridge, and the museum are creating a large medieval event on the Market Place.
At Abingdon Bridge this evening one of the Salter Steamer boats was dressed up in unusual livery with the message ‘Your IKEA is Coming’.
IKEA will be downstream at Reading.
Shopping at Ikea ? With the encroaching gridlock around Abingdon, riding a Salters’ barge to Reading may actually be quicker before much longer !
600 years of Abingdon Bridge – I bet Loose Canon brewery are looking forward to that.
Backstreeter, I think the old Culham bridge also celebrates a birthday this year too? I know there’s a plaque on it commemorating a civil war skirmish that took place on it?
Captainchaos is correct, The Blue Plaque says:
BRIDGE BUILT
1416
SITE OF
CIVIL WAR SKIRMISH
1645
I have sent a picture of it to Alastair.
Given the radius that IKEA are advertising their new store, avoiding it and the area around Junction 12 of the M4 for a couple of weeks when it opens next month might be the best plan, if their previous store openings are anything to go by far more people than the site can hold turn up and IKEA gain a load of free media advertising by gridlocking the area.
Thinking of Abingdon Bridge maybe as part of the celebrations we could convince OCC Highways to fix the potholes and drainage so that when it’s raining pedestrians can use the footpath at the road edge without getting drenched by passing traffic.
Maybe they could even widen the bridge, like they did with the bridge over the Ock at the top of Drayton Road back in the 1970s …
If you look under the piece closest to the Gaol it has already been widened once, you can see the join.