Abingdon Apartments - Abingdon

Abingdon

Abingdon is a market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Vale of White Horse district. Abingdon is one of several places that claim to be Britain's oldest continuously occupied town, with people having lived there for at least 6,000 years. It is 5.5 miles (8.9 km) south of Oxford and 5 miles (8.0 km) north of Didcot.

A long-standing tradition of the town has local dignitaries throwing buns from the roof of the Abingdon County Hall Museum for crowds assembled in the market square on specific days of celebration (such as royal marriages, coronations and jubilees). The museum has a collection of the buns, dried and varnished, dating back to bun throwing of the 19th century. Since 2000, there have been bun-throwing ceremonies to commemorate the Millennium, the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 2002, 450th anniversary of the town's being granted a Royal Charter in 2006, and the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton on the 29th April 2011.

Abingdon has a very old and still active Morris Dancing tradition, passed on by word of mouth since before the folk dance and song revivals of the 1800s. Every year a Mayor of Ock Street is elected by the inhabitants of Ock Street; he then parades through the town preceded by the famous Horns of Ock St, a symbol of Abingdon's Morris Dance troupe.