The New Year Christian Aid walk was on January 2nd this year, and started from the Peachcroft Christian Centre. The day was sunny, with ice about when it started at 10 a.m.
The sponsored 6.5 mile walk, went up to Boars Hill and returned via Bayworth, stopping at Bayworth Chapel for refreshments. The walk did not clash with the Boundary Walk, as so often happens, and so some people could do both walks.
It was a wet start to the year. Despite the weather a good number of citizens gathered at the Market Place to take part in walking the 1556 Borough Boundary following instructions given in the 1556 Borough Charter.
Watch on youtube as the walk leader, Penny Clover, reads parts of the aforesaid instructions, and the Town Crier congratulates those who finished the two hour walk. He also shows everybody one of the few remaining boundary stones that separate Abingdon from ‘foreign parts’ , and ends by crying ‘‘God save Abingdon on Thames! God save the Queen!‘ ‘
My Latin is not very good, but it looks like the monk on the roundabout, near Fairacres and Tesco, is wishing us all a Happy New Year in MMXVII.
Beales close their department store on the Fairacres Estate on January 8th 2017.
Beales, which has been trading since 1881, had 29 branches across the UK until they hit financial problems. As a result they are having to restructure and are closing ten of those stores including the one in Abingdon.
Beales in Abingdon sold clothing, beauty products, homewares, toys, electrical goods and gifts, and have a large cafe area upstairs. It has been a popular store, so will we missed by many people in Abingdon. It was Contact Electrical and Comfortmaker (owned by Anglia Retail Cooperative Society) before Beales took it over in 2011.