View of Abingdon in about 1805 — engraving by W Byrne after a watercolour by J M W Turner

Articles about particular aspects of Abingdon’s history

Historic Ironwork
This article is concerned with ironwork in the public domain that can reliably be assigned to a date before 1900; it is also…

The Abingdon Morris Tradition 1918 to 2018
In the previous article the story was told of how the Abingdon traditions of morris dancing and electing a Mayor of Ock Street,…

The Russian Gun
The Russian Cannon in Albert Park in about 1900 with Trinity Church in the background.
© From a privately owned Valentine’s…

Abingdon Morris Dancing and the Mayor of Ock Street before 1914
Summary
Abingdon is one of the few towns in the south of England that has an ongoing tradition of morris dancing dating…

Abingdon Airfield
RAF ABINGDON
For sixty years, from 1932 to 1992, Abingdon Airfield was an important RAF base. Often such installations…

Abingdon’s Water Supply
Summary
Abingdon managed with very local water supplies until 1880, utilising its springs, wells and streams and the rivers…

Abingdon’s Waterworks
Introduction
Abingdon’s water supply in the 1870s was becoming increasingly inadequate as the town’s requirements…

The Bear Club of Abingdon
In the eighteenth century, a number of prominent people in Abingdon decided to create a club with the object of enjoyment,…

The Morland Brewery
This is an abridged version of the article by Bill Mellor first published in Aspects of Abingdon’s Past (St Nicolas…

Abingdon’s Boundaries
Land boundaries are of many types – each created for a different purpose, such as ownership, taxation, ecclesiastical control,…

The River Stert culvert in Abingdon
Summary
The River Stert runs under Abingdon through a culvert – a multi-phase structure in stone and brick, with some…

Abingdon’s gas engines
For most of the first half of the twentieth century, Abingdon’s water supply relied on two gas engines and a pump situated…

The Archaeology of Abingdon
Coin image © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Abingdon area was attractive to human settlers from the earliest…

The Abingdon Waterturnpike Murder
Photo by Mark Johnstone Davies, used by courtesy of the Enviromment Agency
Summary
In 1787 an elderly man, walking…

Abingdon at War, 1642-1646
Summary
The Civil War was the great British calamity of the seventeenth century. Between 1642 and 1651, a greater proportion…