Abington History Group
The group, founded in 2000, exists to research the history of the villages of Great and Little Abington and to share their findings with those who are interested. A database of parish and census records has been built up together with a large collection of images, mainly photographs both old and recent. We also have references to land and people from other historical sources and a collection of maps of the villages dating back to 1603.
The group has published village history trails for both villages as well as an award-winning book entitled World War 2 Memories of Abington and Abington People. In addition we have worked on the sale of the Abington Hall Estate; we conduct oral history interviews and research university and college archives seeking more information on early land ownership. Another completed project resulted in the publication of Memories of the Land Settlement in Abington 1936 to 1983. We have shown DVDs of 1980 Village Revues to audiences many of whom were in the original productions.
In 2014 we researched World War 1 connections to the Abingtons and put on a display, a lecture and a showing of films in the Abington Institute in October. The display dealt both with those from the Abingtons who served in WW1 and with ancestors of current villagers who served.
In 2015 we produced a second Aspects of Abington History (AAH2) – a miscellany of pieces about the history of the Abingtons and their people.
In 2017 we published an award-winning book looking at an interesting period in local history - Great and Little Abington 1900 to 1930 – A Time of Change (AAH3). This covers changes in the villages leading up to the First World War and the eventual sale of the Abington Hall Estate and properties. How these events affected the landowners, farms, housing, local people, the community and infrastructure are all described.
Abington History Group had previously published Abington Chronicles 2000 -2010 and in a year of ‘unprecedented’ events we have published and circulated The Abington Chronicle 2020 - see latest Chronicle 2020
In November 2022, Abington History Group published a booklet entitled Chronicling the history of the Abingtons during the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II. This links key occasions during the Queen’s life, significant ‘world events’ and what was happening in the Abingtons in the same period in the form of a timeline from 1926 – 19th September 2022.
We have recently moved the entire AHG archive and now have an extensive index of most of the materials.
We are working on our next publication that includes a timeline tracing the owners of Abington Hall, Abington people and places using data from the recently released 1921 census and papers on other aspects of Abington life.