Abbey Meadow Lacemakers 25th Anniversary

Litter Pick – Reynolds Way and Gainsborough Green

Litter and art
Helen has organised a litter pick at the weekend at Reynolds Way and Gainsborough Green.

This is what a Gainsborough picture looks like when spoiled with litter.

Here is one by Joshua Reynolds.

Five walks in the rain

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Five Walks in the rain
There were five Heritage Walks setting of from Abingdon Market Place at 11 am on Sunday.
* Abingdon’s Boundary Walk
* The Rivers of Abingdon
* Heritage Art about Abingdon
* Abingdon’s Industrial Past
* Abingdon’s Blue Plaques

The rain began at 11 am at the same time as the walks. The rain was sometimes heavy and lasted for about two hours. But despite that about sixty people took part.

This was the first time for the blue plaques walk which covered four blue plaques:
Arthur Preston (historian and politician at Park Cresent),
John Alder (generous lottery winner at Stert Street),
Cecil Kimber (MG manager at The Boundary House),
and Daniel Turner (Baptist Minister and hymn writer at 35 Ock Street).
Five Walks in the rain
In the British Heart Foundation charity shop all the umbrellas in the store-area were brought down to sell to anybody who needed one.

At the temporary community shop the exhibition had over 600 visitors on Saturday. We all love studying the aerial photographs from 100 years ago to see what has changed and get into discussion with strangers.
Five Walks in the rain
Sunday was quieter with about 100 visitors. At the end the railway club put their banner in the window to attract people to their upcoming exhibition at Abingdon College.

Abingdon 1919 Homecoming film, 2019 re-enactment, and 2019 Heritage Open Properties

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Homecoming Parade
At 11 am today there was a showing of the 1919 Abingdon Homecoming film to a packed house at the Abbey Cinema.

The film was accompanied by a pianist and showed the huge reception local people gave to the troops returning from WWI. There followed a short documentary made by the Friends of Abingdon. The documentary will be added too and include scenes from today’s re-enactment events.
Homecoming Parade
There was a re-enactment parade at noon that included some young ladies in white dresses carrying flowers.

The 2019 Mayor of Ock Street was there, leading the Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers.

The 2019 Mayor of Abingdon-on-Thames was in the parade. The 1919 Mayor and Council were shown in the film. In the documentary after the film, the 2019 Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council were compared with the older, all male, 1919 Abingdon Borough Council.
Homecoming Parade
Some musicians helped lead the parade.

The rest of the Abbey Brass Band followed and gave a real woomph to the sound, as did the Morris Dancers who sang along to a couple of WWI favourites.

The event was organised by Heather Brown, and the Friends of Abingdon,

and a team of volunteers.
Homecoming Parade
A short speech was made by the Mayor, and then the young ladies laid flowers at the makeshift memorial, followed by the older ladies.

A stall allowed people to sample food from the Great War Cook Book. Some of the carrot marmalade can be seen here.

As it was Heritage Open Day there were open properties to look round including Christ Hospital Hall where the archivist had put together an interesting exhibition.
Homecoming Parade
1-3 Ock Street has not changed a lot externally in one hundred years. This is now the premises of a Family Law firm called BH&O LLP and it was interesting to see the sympathetic restoration inside.

I spent the afternoon at Trinity giving tours. We had our own historic film playing – Songs of Praise recorded in Trinity in 1980 and shown in 1981. The Mayor of Ock Street from 1980 was interviewed and chose the hymn – Lord of the Dance.