The ex Saxton Arms was being boarded up yesterday following a call out for the fire service (reported in The Abingdon Herald). I don’t think the building was badly damaged, but the new owner is securing the building, pending work to bring the building back into use. There was a recent planning application to turn the building into flats.
Another boarded up building in the paper was the ex Upper Reaches Hotel. It will get extra police patrols following reports that people are playing in the grounds, and causing minor damage.
Going that way??. Beales in Abingdon Closing down sale. Everything MUST Go…
I am utterly gutted. I have just heard that Beales Department Store in Abingdon is closing down. An assistant said it would probably be in January. It is the only place in Abingdon that sells good quality household linens. I also do a lot of baking and their kitchen equipment department is invaluable. The cafe is also very popular and I can vouch it does a good toasted sandwich. What is Abingdon coming to? It is all restaurants cafes and Turkish barbers.
Janet, it’s the internet that causes the demise of household goods stores.
When setting up home in Abingdon, I bought a lot of items in Beales.
Janet/Peter, yes it’s a real shame Beales is closing, it’s a good store, but it lost direction, when they took over the store they were ( apart from tesco ) the only place in town you could buy a telly, but they stopped selling them? so what did they have left to offer their customers? Pots & pans, bedding and linen all of which you can buy cheaper at Dunhelm or Lewis Baker? Yes it had a good cafe, but that won’t pay the rent. Retailing is hard and to succeed you have to be good and a tad unique, sadly they were neither.
I don’t know how many readers here have seen the latest planning applications submitted to the Vale? among them is an application from Fairacres to knock down Vineys, Tops Tiles, Homebase and AHF furniture store store and replace them with several new units along with a completely new layout? What ” Next” for Fairacres and what future our town centre ?
Not completely up to date but last I heard the Fairacres planning application is not about changing the mix of stores, but is linked to keeping homebase who need a different shaped unit (they use standard layouts across their stores)
Beales is really a national situation – they’re closing ten of their thirty stores.
Janet – Richard Coxeter does some nice and good quality household linens…
Homebase will ‘move’ to where AHF is.A friend of mine works there.
Beales used to be part of the Co-Operative. Used to purchase Television/DVD. Bedding/linen and electrical goods. They were high quality, and with added divvy, worth a visit. In the Abingdon store they stopped accepting Co-Op, to set up their own ‘loyalty Card’. Couldn’t compete with Argos for Electrical goods, so only sold very few. Televisions.