Monday Market in Abingdon, Oxfordshire

oxoncarpenter
Aug 6
4 min read

From Abingdon on Thames Town Council website:

Isla Jane Bakery at Abingdons Monday market

“By Royal Charter, Monday is the town’s traditional market day with a wide variety of good quality produce and goods available weekly. This is one of the oldest markets in England and one of the busiest. This market takes place every Monday* from 8.00am to 3.00pm in the Market Place, whatever the weather.

* (The Market is not held on the days of the Michaelmas and Runaway Fairs or on bank holidays).”

Abingdon is a market town in Oxfordshire, south of Oxford itself, it is one of the oldest continually inhabited towns in Britain dating back some 6000 years and having claims to go back as far as the Stone Age.

I served some of my carpentry apprenticeship working on the listed houses and shops in the centre of the town.

In the 20^th century the major employers were the brewers Morland and the MG car company, sadly now both sites are housing estates with the Thames Valley Police station thrown in.

It is claimed that MG cars were made at Abingdon, which is nearly true, they were assembled and painted there with latterly the car bodies coming from Pressed Steel in Cowley and other components coming from across the UK, the MGB is still the largest selling sports car in the world. If you are a beer drinker, you may know of the bitter “Old Speckled Hen” brewed by Morland’s and named after the first MG sports car. Incidentally if you don’t know what MG stands for it’s a rather boring “Morris Garages”.

As you already know Abingdon has a market on a Monday, this is in the market square opposite the 17^th century town hall and the towns museum which has the last MGB to be built on display. I have never worked on the town hall, it is worth a visit if just for the amazing oak staircase and the views over Abingdon and the river Thames from the roof. Interestingly the windows on the viewing area are UPVC (plastic), I wonder how that got approval on a Grade I listed building?

I decided to take a look around the market on the first Monday in August 2025. If you are using the towns West Saint Helen Street carpark the parking is free for the first hour, but you still need to type your car registration number into the machine. Oddly this is now ticketless and only gives receipts if you ask for them so if there is a glitch in the system you could end up with a fine! The parking control lady was very helpful and showed me that my car was on their system.

Sadly, the centre of Abingdon is down at heal at the moment, it is mostly coffee shops, estate agents, charity shops and Turkish barbers. It is not just Abingdon that is in this predicament, lots of market towns are suffering from it, I suppose that’s what out of town shopping and the Internet give you.

The market itself was made up of 13 stalls, I have listed them below. The fruit and veg

stall offered a wide variety of what looked fresh fare, and the stall holder was friendly and vocal, the women’s clothes stall was interesting with stock that you would not normally see on the High Street. I can never understand how someone can make a living selling Hi-Viz workwear on a market but the workwear trader is there every week so I can only assume that he does.

Understandably the cliental on a Monday morning were mostly retired, and business did not seem brisk to me so I thought that I would ask around.

I spoke to the man with the meat lorry, he had driven down from Wolverhampton, he told me that Abingdon was one of the best markets he did but it was slow on that day due to school summer holidays. Surprisingly he also told me that the days pitch rent was £30.00 a tenth of what he pays at other markets. Other traders told be basically the same.

How wrong I was with my first impressions, the traders told me it was a buoyant market, and this was just a quiet day, lets face it, if the market did not pay its way for the stallholders they would not return week after week.

Fruit and veg stall at the Monday market in Abingdon

Would I recommend this market? Yes, I would and if you are holidaying on the river Thames it may be a good idea to get to Abingdon before 2.00pm on a Monday. If you are driving watch that ticket system in the carpark though.

I would love to see your comments on the market.

Stalls on Abingdon’s Monday market. August 2025 (in no order)

Fruit and veg

Workwear

Men’s clothes

Women’s clothes

Olives

Meat

Prints

Fish

Watch’s

Bread