When you cut through from Audlett Drive, there are many Cudlesacs. The looping branching roads lead nowhere for road traffic. But on foot it is a different matter. You can avoid the culdesacs and go via The Abbey Fish Ponds.

The Abbey Fish Ponds nature reserve is looked after by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT). The sign says that the earthworks were built to contain the fishponds in 1320 and should be treated with care, and that dogs should be kept on a short lead because of the grazing wildlife. As you can tell by the weaved fence it is a green area where conservation volunteers work. The nature reserve helps to conserve the fishpond banks.

This small steam may have supplied some of the water for the ponds. It runs the length of the nature reserve, from the Radley Road to Audlett Drive. The fishponds have been left as a rather boggy oasis among all the houses that surround.

At some places the dry reeds from last year surround areas of water, but none of them deep enough to host the carp that the monks kept to supply the Abbey with food.

You would have thought from this picture taken from the bank of the fishponds that you were in the countryside, but you are surrounded by recent housing estates in the town of Abingdon. So thanks to some old fishponds there are green areas to walk, where wildlife can thrive.

Before the local government reorganisation in 1974, Abingdon was a borough – which meant one local Council – not three. More local power, and less local confusion.

This garden in Saxton Road has a trophy from those days.

This drain cover says “Borough of Abingdon.”

Behind this wysteria you may just about be able to SPY Borough of Abingdon on Thames. It’s a very faded Broad Street sign.

Nice-to-have-trophies. But those times have gone.

The Hanson Way is a cycle route connecting Didcot, Abingdon, and Oxford, and is part of a larger national route. It is made up of stretches of specially built paths, made by Sustrans. It was financed by money generated by the landfill tax, as a millenium project.

This sign guides the cycle path through the Abbey grounds. The path makes up part of the National Cycle Network route 5. There are 6 main routes in England, which follow a convention like road naming. Route 5 runs from Reading up through Birmingham to Chester and then along the North Wales coast to Holyhead.

The path follows the mill stream, then a blue sign says “Cyclists Dismount” to cross over the bridge.

There were more people out walking their dogs than cyclists, but here are a couple of not too serious cyclists on their way back into town.

Fresh vegetation surrounds the path. Stinging nettles and cow parsley grow up behind a seat made from interlocking railway sleepers.

The cycle path continues with the Barton fields nature reserve on one side, and the Science park the other, then parallel to Thrupp Lane and past Radley Lakes.

I do understand how football can be more important than everything else from past experience. Here is Jim Smith, the new Oxford United manager, near the end of yesterday’s 3-2 defeat by Leyton Orient. Orient celebrated their promotion to League division 1, and Oxford were relegated to the conference league. ‘Gutted!’ is the word I think Jim is portraying here.

As to the Abingdon teams: Abingdon United finished in third place in the Hellenic League Premier division, and Abingdon Town were near the bottom of the same league, but having had a reasonable last few games to get them out of danger of relegation.