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Abingdon is Britain's oldest continuously occupied town with evidence traceable back to the end of the Bronze age -- about 800 BC. Archeological digs at Barton Court farm revealed the presence of a settlement from this period.
Other finds around the town have indicated that both the Romans and the Saxons inhabited this location. However the status of the settlement and its name during Roman times remains a mystery.
Towards the end of the 7th century AD the Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary was founded and it was outside the gates of the Abbey that the town grew up.
The site was supposedly chosen by a hermit living on Wytham Hill, who had a vision to move to the settlement called Sevekesham near the river Thames and renamed Abbendune.
Around 871 the Danes who had a base at Reading visited Abingdon forcing the monks of the Abbey to flee and the town to enter a period of decline until about 960 when the Abbey was refounded by St. Ethelwold.
It was during the time of Ethelwold that a new church for the Abbey was built and the mill stream leading from the Thames was dug.
The town of Abingdon is not mentioned in the Doomsday book as it was a monastic manor although the reference to the Abbey mentions the presence of traders in front of its gates.
The right to a market in Abingdon was officially confirmed from Henry I (1100-1135) and since 1328 a market has been held here on Mondays. During the 12th century the Abbey reached the peak of its prosperity; however, as the town grew in size the townspeople came to resent the influence of the Abbey over their daily life. In 1327 this resentment precipitated a riot by the townspeople against the Abbey.
Considerable structural damage was inflicted, but the building repairs approved by Edward III actually resulted in the Abbey improving its defenses.
St. Helen's church, begun in the 13th century and dedicated to Saint Helen the mother of the Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, is the dominant church of the town.
Stones from the Saxon church that originally occupied this site were used in the building of the church. The 150 foot tower was added in the late 15th or early 16th century and rebuilt about 1662 and again in 1886.
The unusual proportions of the church, being wider than it is long, is due to additional aisles being built over time. As a consequence of the conflict between the Abbey and the town two powerful guilds became established with the ability to legally resist the Abbey. One of these, the Fraternity of the Holy Cross, was responsible for several important buildings, including the bridges over the Thames at Abingdon and Culham and the adjoining causeway, one aisle in St. Helen's church and the 1446 Almshouses near the church. As a result of the Act for the dissolution of charitable functions in 1548 this body was dissolved. However, there was a need for an organization to oversee the buildings and roads of the town. From an endowment of the original Fraternity's possessions Christ's Hospital was founded by royal charter in 1553 and this charity organization still has an important function in the life of the town.
On the 24th of November 1556 Abingdon became a borough and was the capital town of Berkshire.
In 1563 the Grammar School that had previously been associated with the Abbey was refounded by John Roysse. Abingdon's strategic importance during the Civil War was as a bridging point over the Thames.
King Charles I stayed in the town briefly after the Battle of Edgehill and again in April 1644. I n May 1644 Parliamentary forces entered the town, destroyed the medieval cross, and remained until after the end of the war.
During his attempt to take Oxford in 1645, Cromwell stayed in Abingdon stabling his horses in St. Nicholas's church. On the 9th June 1668 Samuel Pepys visited Abingdon and recorded in his diary that he stayed at the Antelope and visited the Almshouses near St. Helen's church where he left 2/6d for the poor. The Market House (now the County Hall) was built between 1678 and 1682 to replace an earlier market hall.
One of Sir Christopher Wren's masons at St. Paul's in London, Christopher Kempster, who owned a quarry near Burford, undertook the work but the architect is unknown.
In December 1668 William, Prince of Orange stayed in a house in East St. Helen's street on his way from Exeter to Oxford where he received information that King James had fled the throne.
Medieval Abingdon was an important cloth making centre. After the Civil War the spinning and weaving of hemp and flax gradually became the predominant occupations of the town.
Malting and brewing have been established industries in Abingdon since the times of the Abbey and continue to this day with the Morland Brewery. During the period of railway expansion of the 1800s, Abingdon Corporation rejected a proposal by the Great Western Railway for a main line station, only later allowing a spur line into the town. This discouraged industry from establishing a major presence in the town until the motor car was developed.
For almost 50 years the MG car company was the predominant source of employment in Abingdon until its closure in the 1980s. The presence of the nearby Royal Air Force station from 1930 until the Army took over the site in 1992 has been another factor in Abingdon's growth during the 20th century.
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