Beautiful unchanged Abingdon

Another one of those days when the sun only came out properly once I got home early evening. It was trying its best though; this was the view from St Helen's Wharf at around 3pm.

Of course, Abingdon is changing all the time - and not always for the better. They are doing something terrible to the early 19th century old county gaol but I'll save that for another day.

However, this view is not much different to that of centuries ago. The church, with its high-in-the-sky weathercock, has been there since the early 1200s, although the steeple wasn't added to the top of the tower until around 1450.

To the left of (and lower down) the church tower you can see another weathervane. This sits atop a fine cupola, bang in the centre of Long Alley Almshouse - built in 1446. Long Alley building is very, very long: several of its tall chimneys can be seen at the southern extremity (to the right of the pub, in the middle of the picture).

If you look very carefully to the left of Long Alley weathervane, and even lower down, you will see a third weathervane. This one adorns (Mr) Twitty's Almshouse, a mere stripling of a building built in 1709.

In the foreground, to the left of the Old Anchor is Wharf Almshouse - the newest of them all, built in the 1880s.

and the pub? That dates from 1819.

Finally, there's the old cast iron Wilts and Berks canal bridge in the far left . Well you'll have to look in large to see when that was built as I'm running out of steam!

Here's an 1885 photo of Abingdon - see what you think.

Note
Elderly people still live in these almshouses (and three other ones in town) which are all owned and run by Christ's Hospital, an old Oxfordshire charity