“Shrove” is the past tense of “shrive” which the Collins Dictionary defines as “to confess one’s sins to a priest in order to obtain sacramental forgiveness”. When I searched for references to Shrove Tuesday in, and near, Abingdon I found no references to confession but did find the following…

1. Pancakes

Snick, snack, the pan’s hot,
We’re come a shroving
Strike while the iron’s hot –
Something’s better than nothing.
Flour’s cheap and lard’s dear
And that’s why we come a shroving here …
(Rhyme from Drayton near Abingdon quoted in May Day to Mummers)

2. Throwing Sticks at Cockerels

In Abingdon Museum there is the notice about Shrove Tuesday cockerel throwing – an old tradition abolished in 1805.

Samuel Pepys describes both these traditions in one short paragraph on Shrove Tuesday 1661. “Back to Mrs. Turner’s, where several friends … dined. Very merry and the best fritters that ever I eat in my life. After that looked out at window; saw the flinging at cocks.”

Pepy’s continues “I found my Valentine with my wife … Then I sat and talked with my Valentine and my wife a good while, and then saw her home.”

It is Valentine’s Day tomorrow, and Ash Wednesday.

Half term is here again, and Abingdon County Hall museum has a craft workshop on Tuesday for children to explore the world of monsters and myths; and create masks, silhouettes and clay ‘Green Man’ models.

The museum and Unicorn cinema will be good places to go if it is raining. The Unicorn is showing Coco, Early Man, and The Post.

This dinasaur was created at a previous workshop. Each of the scales is a child’s work of art.

The Friends of Abingdon Museum purchased a work of art, in 2017, for the museum showing ‘Early Spring near Abingdon’ by Davidson Knowles, a late Victorian artist. This detail from the fuller picture shows a River View and what could be Nags Head Island and Abingdon Bridge. There could have been some artistic license as I cannot see the Old Gaol.