Feature Articles

You are here: / / Feature Articles

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

Abingdon 1805 engraved by Byrne after JMW Turner scan cropped jb T05944_10

Articles about particular aspects of Abingdon’s history

queen_iwm-1.jpg

Abingdon Airfield

RAF ABINGDON  For sixty years, from 1932 to 1992, Abingdon Airfield was an important RAF base. Often such installations…
Read more
Cross 140511_3.jpg

Abingdon at War, 1642-1646

In our time, political differences are centred on economics – the direction of growth, and who gets what. In the seventeenth…
Read more
morris_3.png

Abingdon Morris Dancing and the Mayor of Ock Street before 1914

Old traditional folk customs tend to die out and, perhaps, be replaced by new ones. But some don’t. Where they continue,…
Read more
Boundary1.jpg

Abingdon’s Boundaries

Land boundaries are of many types – each created for a different purpose, such as ownership, taxation, ecclesiastical control,…
Read more
gas engines 1 compressed jb19apr14 ed jb18july14.jpg

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…
Read more

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,…
Read more
The Abingdon Waterturnpike Murder

The Abingdon Waterturnpike Murder

  When the Oxfordshire Coroner, William Johnson, examined the body of David Charteris on 11 October 1787, he…
Read more
waterworks_location_map_1.jpg

Abingdon’s Waterworks

In this article the length, volume and pressure units used are the pre-metric units that were standard when the reservoir…
Read more
publication1.jpg

Abingdon’s Water Supply

To get a rough equivalent in today’s values of the costs mentioned in this article, use http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/#currency-result An…
Read more
Coin picture for upload v.5.jpg

The Archaeology of Abingdon

The Abingdon area was attractive to human settlers from the earliest times, and important remains of every period of…
Read more
large_bear_15.jpg

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,…
Read more
fig.1.jpg

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…
Read more
brewery_ca_1912_photoshopped_0.jpg(Photo courtesy of Stephen Skurray)

The Morland Brewery

This is an abridged version of the article by Bill Mellor first published in Aspects of Abingdon’s Past (St Nicolas…
Read more
IMG_9820.JPG

The River Stert culvert in Abingdon

The River Stert is a small stream that flows though Boxhill Wood, a narrow strip of woodland to the north of central Abingdon.…
Read more
russian_gun_sebastopol_cannon-1.jpg

The Russian Gun

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