The ugliest building in Abingdon?

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Old Abbey Timbers
In 1975 when the telephone exchange was relocated from the top floor of the old post office (bottom left) to the new building (middle centre), automatic switching equipment took over from the ladies who used to put you through. Pictures from the last day at the manual exchange, the last to operate in England, can be viewed along with other memorabilia at the Strowger Appreciation Site.

The new building has changed with the times.  As circuitry got smaller so the space on the upper storeys became redundant and has been given over to flats. It could well be the ugliest building in Abingdon, unless you know better.

How old are the timbers of the Remaining Abbey Buildings?

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Old Abbey Timbers
Samples have been taken from the timbers of the Long Gallery and the Lower Hall of the remaining domestic buildings of Abingdon Abbey. Following permission from English Heritage the work was carried out by Dr Martin Bridge and Dr Dan Miles of the Oxford Dendrochronology Lab.
Old Abbey Timbers
Thanks to Michael Harrison for this picture of one of a number of pencil like cores taken from the timbers. Together the samples will be analysed for tree rings which can represent a unique climatic pattern before the timbers were felled.

(Thanks to Elizabeth for the information. She says there may well be a competition to guess the age of the buildings.)

A lot of meetings this week …

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River Thames in Abingdon
The AGM of Abingdon-on-Thames Chamber of Commerce took place tonight and I believe Paul Townsend from E & R Goff will be chairman for a third year. Congratulations to Paul who has made lots of things happen.

Also tonight there was a meeting of South Abingdon Residents Plan to go through the final draft questionnaire that should soon be dropping through doors in that part of town. Volunteers to help drop off and collect questionnaires are still needed. Contact sarp@sarp.org.uk or neil@neilboston.co.uk .
River Thames in Abingdon
There will be questions on the questionnaire about future housing in the area, but possibly before all the results are collated the future of the 160 homes in a field will need to be decided by an outside planning inspector. There is another public meeting this Saturday at the Guildhall at 10am to keep people informed. I believe comments can be left for the Inspector at this link.

And tomorrow the Abingdon Hydro are doing a presentation about their project. They have withdrawn their planning application in order to do more studies to minimise disturbance during the construction of the turbines near the weir. Somebody did ask whether they had put black bags round trees to stop birds nesting near the site and if so whether they can be withdrawn.

New Abbey Court

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New Abbey Court
Seen here between The Harp and Al-Zaib is a modern purpose built office building within an attractive courtyard setting. The New Abbey Court offices benefit from a lift and car parking. But times have moved on and there are plans afoot to replace them with even newer housing.
New Abbey Court
The architects says “Due to its close proximity to Oxford town centre, Abingdon has seen an influx of young professionals in recent years.”