A Hole Opens Up under St Nicolas Churchyard

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St Nicolas Churchyard
St Nicolas churchyard is currently having some long awaited work to make the path wheelchair accessible.
St Nicolas Churchyard
But the project was suddenly made more complicated by a large hole opening up under the digger. The workman was lucky to get out without injury. You might have expected the River Stert Culvert, or a burial chamber to be the cause of such a hole.

The hole was actually an old coal cellar right next to the old chimney.
St Nicolas Churchyard
By the way, I recently found this picture in Waite’s Guide Book of Abingdon, from the early 1900s. It shows Waite’s Printing Works, at 1 Stert Street, neighbouring St Nicolas Churchyard,
St Nicolas Churchyard
-where the TSB now stands.

David Mitchell Thinking Out Loud in Abingdon

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Mark Thornton from Mostly Books was interviewing David Mitchell at the Amey Theatre in Abingdon this evening.

David, a very well known actor, comedian, and writer, has put together the best of his writings from his Observer column into a book called “Thinking about it only makes it worse, and other lessons from modern life.” It covers the last 6 years from the banking crisis when Labour was in power through the resulting Con-Dem coalition years.
  
David attended Abingdon School, where he enjoyed debating and theatrical productions, and was very good academically. He spoke with honesty and humour on lots of topics including Private Education and its Charitable Status, The Internet, and Madame Tussauds.

He signed a lot of books.

The queue stretched at one stage  from the stage out  through the foyer.

I agreed totally with what he had to say about Private Schools but not about Madame Tussauds. It is more than just an antiquated wax works,

The New Sign above the The Cross Keys Pub

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Plannning
From the new sign above the The Cross Keys pub it can be seen that the company that bought the pub from Greene King are looking for a developer to take it off their hands . They have planning permission for conversion to 6 flats.
Plannning
There was another meeting of the Vale of White Horse planning committee this evening at Wantage. The plans to demolish The Abbey Court Offices in Stert Street, and replace them with flats were back for further discussion because of amendments received from the architect on 30 October 2014 … “to reduce the depth of the third storey to reduce the impact of the proposal on the properties in Vintner Road and to create a more harmonious relationship between the buildings. The sizes of the units have also been reduced so the proposal no longer incorporates any three bedroom units.”

I don’t know the outcome yet.

Announcing the 20p Christmas Card Postal Service

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20p Christmas Post
5 Scout Groups and 2 Guide Companies from the Abingdon area run the 20p Christmas Post in Abingdon, Northcourt, Radley and Shippon.20p Christmas Post
Last year they collected, sorted and delivered about 6400 cards.

They have been running the service for 20 years.

They have 2 ‘sort’ evenings, the first about a week before the closing date and the other on the closing day.   Around 30-50 people help with the sorting.  They don’t deliver any cards until after the second sort.

Each group is allocated an area of Abingdon, Northcourt, Shippon or Radley to deliver. They then split their cards into rounds of about 50-100 cards. This means that about 100 youngsters, many accompanied by parents, deliver the cards before Christmas.