There are five trees on the market place. They have been there since the 1970s, but have had limbs cut off, and generally pruned. In the first picture are shown from left to right: a beech, ash, and a sycamore(it is leaning).

The two trees on the second picture, are what appears to be another sycamore (although quite different from the first). In front of St Nicholas Church is a silver birch.

Here is a final picture of the two sycamores (maples?), looking towards the County Hall. The different species of tree are all woodland trees.

They soften the look of the Market Place, particularly the beech which looks the most healthy of the trees. Each tree has a woodern seat round the base.

Dark granite sets path much of the market place. It has become a feature of the town and the Town Crier said that it will be kept when the Market Place is redesigned. Similar sets are used elsewhere in Abingdon on the pavements down Abbey Close.

This fine memorial in St Helens Church, might be easy for scholars of Abingdon School to translate.

I guess the general sense is that John Roysse founded Abingdon School in 1563. So, the question for me, is why are they celebrating their 750th year?

The school website says:
In 1563, the sixty-three year old John Roysse gave £50 to the Corporation of Abingdon and specified that it should be used to build a schoolroom that was to be sixty-three feet long for sixty-three free scholars.

John Roysse was helping to refound a grammer school already mentioned in earlier documents. The first mention was the endowment by Abbot John de Blosneville for the support of thirteen poor scholars in 1256.

Abingdon School moved from the Roysse room near the Guildhall to the present site in 1870. It is built in the style of the surrounding houses on Park Crescent (one is pictured). This style is well known from the large victorian houses in North Oxford.

Looking around the school, what is interesting to see is how much green grass they have available for sports activities. This particular stretch of grass has been marked out as a running track. Trinity Church is on the far boundary.

St Ethelwold’s House, off East St Helen Street, was open as part of the Oxfordshire Artweeks 2006. St Ethelwold’s is a Georgian house with gardens stretching to the River Thames.

The house and garden are open usually for meditation, prayer, discussion, and worshops. The workshops have names such as:

• An intro to Neuro Linguistic Programming
• Poetry Group
• The Enneagram; linking personality to spirit
• A day of Stillness, Sound & Silence

The art was the work of the East Saint Helen Street Group. There were paintings, ceramics, and sculpture. All was displayed in the quiet rooms of the house. This room looks out to the garden.

Glasswork by Solidea Guerra: blue glass with dark filaments, encased in clear glass, are mounted on this windowsill. “In spite of the power of fire to change clay to glass – the darkness yet remains”

All the churches in Abingdon have put together a floral display in St Nicolas Church as part of the charter celebrations. The display outside was the one display not done by a church but by the shop Fabulous Flowers .

This red and yellow flaming posey was to remember the fire that caused such damage to St Nicolas church in the 1950s.