The Abingdon Blog: 15/02/09

Public Meeting on Draft Area Plan

Leaflets were being delivered to houses in South Abingdon, telling of a Public Meeting. There is the possiblity of 1500 additional houses being dropped on South Abingdon in the new area plan for the period up to the year 2026. The consultation ends on 27th February. Either Abingdon or Wantage could be chosen to accommodate these extra houses.

The brown squiggly area on the map above, is where the proposed houses would go if Abingdon was chosen.

Within Abingdon the preferred area is A, west of the Drayton Road. Area B between Virginia Way and Oday Hill is another option.

This is Area A as it looked today, looking towards Masefield Crescent from the bridlepath connecting Mill Lane and Drayton

This is Area B with Virginia Way on the right and Drayton Road beyond the trees.

Still Missing

The first notices appeared over a month ago all around South Abingdon.

They have faded.

New notices have appeared. The number to contact is on the first picture.

Walk near the Water Treatment Works

These houses at the Abingdon Marina can be seen on the far side of a former gravel pit, as night fell. There was a little drizzle of rain.

Close by, these settlement ponds were only added recently to the Water Treatment Works.

The Abingdon drainage system and sewage works south of Abingdon were originally planned and laid out in the 1870s. In Victorian Abingdon the sewage works would have been some way out of town, but Abingdon has grown.

On the other side of the treatment works are the Drayton Road Allotments - just beyond that barbed wired gate. The allotments were moved from near Drayton Road, when Preston Road was completed, and the name stuck although no longer geographically correct.

Unintended Sculptures

The GHQ Line (General Headquarters Line) is a 300 mile anti-tank defence built during World War II to contain the expected German invasion.

It used natural defences like the River Thames and the River Ock. But where there were no natural defences a trench was dug.

Every half mile there is Pillbox fort, like the one above overlooking the River Ock near the Ladygrove Estate - decorated with grafitti outside and in.

On the other side of the Ock a ditch was dug across the fields...

The ditch could not connect right up to the Ock or it would have changed the flow. And so there are about fifteen of these Concrete Dragons Teeth packed together as a defence between River and ditch. Only a few are visible through the reeds in recent years.

The area of the dragon's teeth - within a curve of the River Ock - is just left to itself and the trees do their own thing,

creating strange sculptures out of themselves.

Prudence and Courage are missing

About half the Marina Park was underwater.

...

Not prudent to go down in a low car. The AA van has been out to one such stranded vehicle.

The swan flees from the fast boat at the Marina.

"Try that again if you dare! Hisss!"

Prudence and Courage are the virtues missing in the Trinity window yesterday (I think!). A picture of these missing virtues can be seen at Picasa by Sandy and a small copy here...

should the link break.

Town Centre Chaplaincy

This morning at Trinity the service was taken by an army chaplain. A chaplain is a minister who does not serve in a church but in a workplace, hospital, or even town centre.

The idea of a Town Centre Chaplaincy is being explored by these two men (Colin Pattenden from Ock Street Baptist Church and Richard Bittleston from Trinity), and some willing volunteers.

The window behind them is a very well known feature at Trinity Church. It is based on a window of the seven virtues at New College in Oxford. At Trinity there are only five virtues: Mercy, Faith, Charity, Hope, Justice. Below it says 'To the Glory of God, and in loving memory of their parents - This window is dedicated by the children of John Creemer and Elizabeth Clarke - 1906.