The scaffolding was taken down from the roof of the County Hall but still remained in place awaiting the new balustrades – which have been added over the last two days. Scaffolding has also gone back up round the copula as something got knocked, possibly when the scaffolding was removed, and needs straightening up.
Meanwhile my most recent picture of the lift was taken a week ago and shows the hole when it was 4 metres deep. It could be 5 or even 6 metres by now.
Things have been very quiet on St Helen’s Wharf …
as the road is closed for 2 days for resurfacing work over the other side of the iron bridge.
A new shop is Coming Soon to Stert Street – well in time for Christmas. It is underneath the Utopia Beauty Salon and will sell some of the beauty products used upstairs as well as new lines.
Stert Street was once the ugly duckling on the Abingdon retail scene – it was the street of empty shop fronts. It was the street where a child in a buggy had to breathe in traffic fumes. But times have changed, and Stert Street has been transformed.
Stert Street got good wide pavements out of Abits (Abingdon Integrated Transport Strategy) and better air quality. Other streets did less well. The High Street pavements are still waiting to be rectified two years after they were laid.
A second and much larger remembrance ceremony (compared with the Armistice Day ceremony) took part at the war memorial today. A lot of the people who take part, both service people past and present, and dignitaries, attend a church service at St Helen’s Church beforehand.
The ceremony was again very well attended and very moving. But as a member of the public, to get a place, you now have to get there quite early. People were standing back along the High Street able to hear the music and see the parade but missing out on the quieter prayers and poems.
During the ceremony wreathes are laid by dignitaries and clubs and societies, and after the ceremony many people choose to place their poppy or a small cross next to the memorial. If you did miss the cermony I have more images and some of the words and music on a short video. Music was played by Abingdon Town Band, and the Last Post and Reveille was sounded by Alison Rich, their principal cornet player …