From Saturday 6th July to Sunday 29th September, Abingdon County Hall Museum will take you back to the Iron Age!

Before the Romans, from around 50 BC to 50 AD, where the centre of Abingdon is now, there was a protected settlement called an ‘Oppidum‘ (Latin for Town). Iron Age Oppidum towns could be surrounded by ditches for fortification. When people were excavating near the old station and near West St Helen Street, they found what they thought were Oppidum-style ditches.

Before developing the Ashville Trading Estate in Abingdon, archaeologists discovered an even older Iron Age settlement that pre-dated the Oppidum.

At the exhibitions are information boards to explain:
* Iron Age
* Iron Age Abingdon before the Oppidum
* Abingdon’s ‘Oppidum’
* Iron Age Coins
* Weapons and a sword found in the Thames
* Jewellery, skin decoration, and clothes
* Pottery
* Food
* Rituals and burials

There’s also a video about recent discoveries near Wittenham Clumps where iron slag and iron offcuts could be evidence of an Iron Age blacksmith.