Abingdon Parkrun – Good Turnout

Leave a reply


There was a good turnout at the Abingdon 5K Parkrun this morning, with 502 finishers — the fourth-highest total since the event began in 2011. Notably, three of the top four have taken place in 2025.

Cool, dry conditions made for good running weather, and a large team of volunteers helped ensure the event ran smoothly.

While many participants were unaffiliated fun runners or walkers, the field also included members of a wide range of clubs – from local teams such as Abbey Running Club, Abingdon AC, Harwell Harriers, and White Horse Harriers, to visitors from further afield, including North Shields Polytechnic AC from the North East and Canterbury Harriers from the South East.

With the Abingdon Marathon taking place tomorrow, some runners treated the Parkrun as a gentle warm-up.

The two-lap course followed its familiar route past Abingdon Lock and Kingfisher Barn. By the second lap, the lead runners were well spaced.

After crossing the finish line, and checking their times, many participants made their way to Abingdon Market Place, where coffee and conversation have become a Saturday morning tradition.

New wall is being built

8 Replies


For over a year, the corner building on West St Helen Street has been supported by scaffolding and surrounded by sandbags after its side wall became unstable. This September, the old unsafe wall was finally demolished.

This October, work began to rebuild it. A new structure is taking shape — breeze blocks for the inside wall and a brick frontage to match the rest of the building.


It’s good to see such steady progress after such a long wait. Over the years, quite a few long-standing issues in central Abingdon, highlighted here and elsewhere, have now been tackled. One exception is the Upper Reaches Hotel.

The Cat and Squirrel

1 Reply


This cat chased a squirrel past the tree towards the Brew House apartments on Coopers Lane. Finding no escape that way, the squirrel ran back. The cat managed to get a paw on it’s back, but not enough to hold it, and the squirrel ran up the tree.

The leaves were thick enough to hide it from my view and I could not see any way of escape. The cat waited. A leaf fell. The cat waited. Another leaf fell.

Abingdon in 1945: Don’t put that light out!

1 Reply


There’s an exhibition at the County Hall Museum called Abingdon 1945.

It begins with displays tracing the progress of the Second World War from 1939 to 1945, and shows how everyday life in Abingdon was affected by the conflict, with exhibits on gas masks, air raid shelters, evacuees, blackouts, rationing, Dig for Victory gardens, and women taking on manual work at the MG factory and on local farms.

The exhibition then looks at the celebrations that followed the end of the war, with displays on VE Day and VJ Day in 1945. Street parties broke out spontaneously on May 8th, with dancing under the County Hall, and one airman climbed up to kiss Queen Victoria’s statue in the Market Place. In the weeks that followed, street parties were organised across the town. Abingdon was decorated for a grand Victory Parade on 7th August, which included a Fleet Air Arm and RAF fly-past. There were more street parties after VJ Day on 15th August. (The photo above shows residents of Winsmore Lane at their VJ party, as reported in the North Berks Herald.)

After the war, freedoms returned: you could switch on all the lights in the house and leave the curtains open, have a radio in your car, release a racing pigeon without police permission, buy a large-scale map, or sleep in an uncamouflaged tent.

But recovery took time. Rationing continued for several years. Housing was in short supply, and Abingdon saw experimental steel prefabricated homes made — with seven-foot-low ceilings. Many women gave up the jobs they had taken on during the war, returning to domestic or clerical work, while men were gradually demobbed or returned from prisoner-of-war camps and found new employment.

The County Hall Museum is run by Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council.