Opening at Night

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When I did my report on Abingdon Museum ‘Opening at Night’ back in May, there were complaints that people did not know. There is another one happening this Friday. Be Warned!
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It looks like we are at full moon again. Not a blue moon or super moon this time – more of a haloed moon with Halloween so near.
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Down by the River the Abingdon Chamber of Commerce Twitter Feed shows a sign saying ‘Riverside Cafe Opening Spring 2016 (corrected)’. The centre building will become the cafe, and the  boat chandlery will move to the smaller building on the right. Picnic tables will be added to the right of that.

26 thoughts on “Opening at Night

  1. Elsie

    Will try to go to the museum on Friday – thanks! Also looking forward to a riverside café opening next Spring – perfect timing.

    Just to add that I went to the craft fair in the Abbey last week and quite a few families were turning around when they saw the admission price. It cost my husband and I £9 just to look round – it does seem cost prohibitive to quite a lot of people. Perhaps lower the price to entice more people in to spend their money …

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  2. Hester

    Elsie – there have been a few other comments on the cost of the Craft Fair. Just for clarity can I point out that the Craft Fair is not run by anyone in Abingdon – it is a commercial operation run by a company who do other Craft Fairs around the country. However the rent they pay for using the Abbey Buildings is very valuable to fund the buildings’ care and maintenance.

    As well as hiring the buildings, the organisers have to pay for marquees, security (24-hour protection for all those goods), insurance, staff etc and their two sources of income are entrance fees and the rents they charge stallholders – it must be quite hard to get the balance right between those.

    Before writing this I did a quick internet check of a few other similar-scale Craft Fairs – £4.50 actually seems to be at the lower end of the range!

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  3. Elsie

    Thanks for the info Hester. I do enjoy the fair but had never seen people turning away because of the admission price. Agree with your point about being hard to get the balance right.

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  4. Astronaut

    I think not charging for children would help. I remember going to the craft fair as a child and we loved it. I can’t imagine the costs can have been that high then as we probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it, but I am talking 30 odd years ago.

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  5. Captainkaos2

    I understand that Salters AKA Abingdon Boats are asking for tenders to run the cafe, they told me they no intention of running it themselves, good opportunity for someone !

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  6. Captainkaos2

    Indeed Simon, could be a little goldmine for someone, btw, I see the Thai restaurant above the closed Frozen shop has applied for planning to make it, the frozen shop, into a Thai cafe thing!

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  7. G

    The frozen yoghurt might have made a go of it if the prices were reasonable; my 12 year old refused to go as he said it was far too expensive!

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  8. Captainkaos2

    Just been on the county hall web site to find more about Friday’s event the poster on here relates too, am I missing a trick or something because I’ve combed it to the best of my non tecky ability but can no reference at all to it, how do they expect people to attend if they don’t even feature it ?

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  9. Captainkaos2

    Sorry to be a pain everyone but just noticed a planning application by Superdrug to install signage on the empty, new unit next to New Look! I also here that staff at Poundland have been given notice? Does that
    Mean finally we may be seeing some development in that area?

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  10. Captainkaos2

    Hester I’m confused ! Again I’ve just typed in Abingdon museum and my engine comes up with a dot org web site, click on the events page and it goes no further than August ! On another link to the “county hall”
    it listed numerous autumn events, but not tomorrow’s ? Surely there should be only one link to one site and that site should be accurate ? If not how is anyone meant to
    Make head or tail of it?

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  11. Cassandra

    The event is listed on the Abingdon town website. It is on the calendar which lists events. Also the museum has been featuring it in their programmer boomket for many months now.

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  12. Hester

    Hi Steve – I have just tried doing what you did, using Google. The top result was the correct one – taking you straight to the current Museum site; then there were a few others, English Heritage, Wikipedia etc – the 5th entry was the .org one which I recognise as the old site from before the “portal”, so no wonder it is out of date!
    I will ask the TC/Museum people if they can take it down so search engines don’t pick it up any more.
    In the meantime I suggest you just bookmark the pages mentioned above.

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  13. John Watson

    The MG Car Club has organised a display of MG cars for the evening in the Market Place. Come and see the cars that were made in Abingdon.

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  14. Kelly Simpson

    Have to agree over the entrance price to the craft fair. It wouldn’t be so bad, but if you want to go twice, as most of the exhibitors change in the middle, then you have to pay the full price again. Surely, if you keep your ticket, then should be able to go in again at a nominal fee. I just don’t go any more. so, whatever their costs, they don’t get my money. And I know others who feel the same and don’t go.

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  15. Captainkaos2

    Getting back to the feature I remember my old teacher Mrs Nicholson, (whose husband Ernest was town clerk in the 60’s) living in part of old Abbey house and often when she was in the kitchen (that’s the single storey bit you can see in the photo) she would see the ghost of a man walk past the window !

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  16. Hester

    Ooh – glad you didn’t tell me that when I was working in there for CAB, Steve. Mind you, the lay cemetery for the Abbey was just a few feet away from there – and there were lots of skeletons found when they were excavating for “New” Abbey House, so who knows!

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  17. Captainkaos2

    Another well known haunted place there Hester was the old Church hall, it stood pretty much where the road is now between the
    New and old Abbey house’s (the gate post fittings are still attached to the back wall of St Nicks church) I remember when the dances were held there non of us wanted to be the last to leave, it was s real creepy place !

    Reply

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