I went out for a walk round Albert Park. The light from the setting sun caught Prince Albert above it all. There were people out for walks, and families playing.
One of Abingdon’s greatest monuments is of a German Prince, admired and taken to heart by Victorian Abingdonians. They shared with Queen Victoria’s grief and created a civic memorial.
Prince Albert died at the age of 42. He had become known as a reformer in causes such as educational reform and the abolition of slavery worldwide. He was instrumental in the the Great Exhibition of 1851. The statue was finished in 1865.
Facing Prince Albert is the Church of St Michael and All Angels Church – finished in 1867.
Trinity Church, nearby, was finished in 1875.
In Victorian days smoke rose from chimneys. The chimneys in Park Road are memorials to the age of coal.
Beautiful pictures as ever
On frosty mornings on my way to school, there’d be the brittle sharpness of cold and the wonderful sharp tang of anthracite in the air. That and the smell of the maltings and wet stinging nettles take me straight back to my childhood. Oh, and the smell of the tannery as you walked down Spring Road. I didn’t know it was the tannery … I thought it had something to do with the long term residents of the cemetery and walked past very quickly!