Early History

Written by Manfred Brod

The history of Ock Street probably begins about the year 975, when it would have been the most direct route between Abingdon Abbey and its newly acquired estate at Marcham. The Ock Bridge existed quite early on and by 1100 we find travellers going to the abbey from the south-west crossing the river there and using Ock Street for the last part of their journey. This road junction seems to have been the boundary of the town, and there was a kind of suburb there, with a chapel.

By the mid-13th century, Ock Street had its name, at least in a Latin version, Vico de Ock. The district was used for markets and fairs, which would continue and ensure that for the most part the street would remain unusually wide and not restricted by building. Also, it was already an industrial area, with tanneries which were too smelly to be allowed in the town centre.

Thus, Ock Street was an approach road before it was part of the town. The real town centre started at a point about where the Conservative Club is now, a little over half way between the Ock Bridge crossroads and the abbey gates. This was marked by a structure called the Ruddle Cross, which was pulled down some time before the mid-seventeenth century and about which nothing except its location is now known.

By the 15th century, Ock Street was beginning to be built up. A lease of 1463 is for two houses which were already dilapidated and would have to be rebuilt, and mentions neighbouring properties on three sides. In 1554, Roger Amyce made his formal survey of Abingdon, part of the preparation for the issue of the town’s charter two years later. He listed a total of eighty-eight properties in Ock street, 44 on each side. Some of these had one or more houses on them, others were closes or vegetable gardens. Others again had agricultural or industrial buildings. Most of the dwelling houses were towards the eastern end, with a concentration of inns and high prestige homes near the point where Ock Street met with the present Bath Street and High Street, at what is now The Square. This was probably a livestock market - it later became the Sheepmarket. Amyce’s survey shows Ock Street as the biggest street in Abingdon, with some 20% of its total of properties.

Much of Ock Street had earlier been the property of Abingdon Abbey, of the charitable Fraternity of Holy Cross, and of other religious bodies, all of which had been dissolved as part of the Reformation. It was a time of frenetic property speculation.. At least fifteen freeholds in Ock Street were taken over by outside investors, and several residents had to take legal action to confirm their ownership. The Fraternity had been replaced by a new charity, Christ’s Hospital, which acquired twenty-two of its Ock Street properties. Twenty-seven properties that had belonged to the Abbey, and eight to other religious institutions, were awarded to the new borough of Abingdon in the 1556 charter. Christ’s Hospital and the Borough corporation would keep these properties for leasing out over several centuries to come.

Ock Street suffered in the Civil War of the 1640s, when Abingdon was in the front line for four long years. Leases issued in the years after the war indicate that some houses had been damaged and needed repair. The after-effects of the war coupled with high food prices caused a general impoverishment which hit Abingdon especially hard, and several Ock Street properties were sub-divided into smaller units. The 1650s saw the beginning of an enduring distinction between Ock Street and the rest of Abingdon. Ock Street came to be the preferred location for the extreme Protestant sects which were a feature of the time, and would later become the Non-conformists.

The process started spectacularly. The funeral in 1656 of the Abingdon Baptist leader, John Pendarves, took place at the new Baptist burial ground in Ock Street, and drew large numbers of mystics and extremists from all over the country. There were three days of religious rioting, which ended only with the arrival of a troop of cavalry which cleared the street and the town of non-residents.

Further developments were more peaceful, as the sects built their meeting houses: the more ‘respectable’ they were, the closer they built to the centre of town. The Presbyterian - later Congregational - chapel was just west of the Square, and the Baptist not far away, but the Quakers, hated by their fellow-nonconformists quite as much as by the orthodox, were at the extreme west end of the street, near the Ock Bridge. In the nineteenth century the Primitive Methodists would respect tradition by building their chapel also in Ock Street, on the south side and a few yards east of the Conduit Road corner.

Religion and politics went hand in hand, and, although detailed evidence is lacking, it may safely be assumed that in the late 17th and 18th centuries Ock Street became a centre of Whig political organisation opposed to the predominantly Tory principles of the Corporation. Poll books show that the voting behaviour of Ock Street in the nineteenth century was strongly at odds with that of the town in general.

By the end of the 18th century, Ock Street was fully built up. As always, there was a distinction between the eastern and western ends. East of where the Ruddle Cross had been there was a mixed neighbourhood, with inns, businesses, and mostly middle class housing both fronting on and behind the street. Further away from the town centre the population was largely working class, and working and living quarters were intermingled. Much of the housing was in courts and side streets, poverty was rife, and conditions were crowded and insanitary. In 1766, there were food riots in Abingdon with their centre in Ock Street. Two men were arrested as ringleaders, while a third escaped across the river. Attempts by the mob to rescue the prisoners were unavailing, and Daniel Ackling, an Ock Street weaver with a wife and six children, was hanged.

By the nineteenth century, Ock Street was home to about one-third of Abingdon’s population. This period saw the development of a unique working-class culture based on the pubs, with Morris Dancers vying for the Ock Street Horns and electing the Mayors of Ock Street, and with the annual Ock Street Fairs eagerly awaited and thoroughly enjoyed. These traditions persisted until the mid-twentieth century, when social changes and slum clearance programmes dispersed the community, of which now only memories remain. It is these memories which the Ock Street Heritage Group is endeavouring to keep alive.

A longer version of this account appears in http://groups.yahoo.com/ockstreet, for which membership is required, but is open to all.