Abingdon - An oldie but a goodie

It has only been part of Oxfordshire since 1974, after a change in boundaries took it out of the county of Berkshire, but Abingdon is one of the county’s greatest towns.

Abingdon proudly claims to be the oldest town in the country, as verified by popular factual TV programme QI.

The town has been lived in nonstop for 6,000 years and archaeological evidence says people have lived in the area since the early Iron Age.

Much of Abingdon life is focused around the River Thames, which runs along the eastern edge of the town.

Residents and visitors alike crowd the banks for picnics and boat trips. If rowing boats are not your idea of a good day out, a passenger boat leaves from the town towards Oxford every day between May and September. From June to September it runs three days a week between Abingdon and Wallingford. Because of the river, politicians recently renamed the town to Abingdon-on-Thames to attract tourists.

As well as being a source of pride, the river is helping the town’s future. Abingdon residents are among the first to embrace the power of the river. More than 250 people have invested a total of £500,000 in a hydroelectric power plant for the Thames at Abingdon.

Not-for-profit company Abingdon Hydro has said it will build the facility at Abingdon Weir. The project will see two Archimedes screws which would generate up to 100kW of electricity, enough for 120 homes.

Abingdon’s district council – Vale of White Horse – is also looking to the future. The council’s Local Plan has outlined 610 new homes in Abingdon and 1,730 in villages near the town.

But the council wants to increase the Dunmore Road estate, alongside the A34, from 610 to 1,000
properties. It comes after a study funded by Oxfordshire councils said housing targets in the district had to be almost doubled to 100,060 to meet demand by 2031.

This meant the Vale council had to boost numbers from 13,000 properties to 20,560 and the sites for the extra homes were announced in the summer.