With the disappearance of the Abbey, the town of Abingdon grew, and continued to prosper by clothing and by agriculture until the opening of the railway era. When the Great Western Railway was originally planned, in 1833, it was intended to take it through Abingdon, instead of six miles south, as at present, and to make this, instead of Didcot, the junction for Oxford. But Abingdon was strongly opposed to the project, and procured the diversion of the line, and so it remains to this day an exceedingly awkward place to reach or to leave, by a small branch railway. It has thus lost, commercially, to an incalculable degree, but in other ways—in the preservation of beauty and antiquity—has gained, equally beyond compute. [Illustration: CHRIST’S HOSPITAL, ABINGDON.] An architect might find some stimulating ideas communicated to him by the quaint and refined detail observable in many of the old houses. There is, among other curious houses near the Market House, the “King’s Head and Bell,” in an odd classic convention. Of the great Abbey church nothing is left. The townsfolk had such long-standing and bitter grievances against the Abbey that they must have rejoiced exceedingly when the fat and lazy monks were at last cast out upon the world; and they seem to have revelled in destruction. The Abbey precincts are now largely built over; but, such as they are to-day, they may be found by proceeding out of the Market Place, past St. Nicholas’ church, and through the Abbey gateway, now used as part of the Town Hall, and restored, but once serving as a debtors’ prison. Here a mutilated and greatly time-worn Early English building will be found, with a vaulted crypt, and two rooms above. To this has been given the (probably erroneous) name of the “Prior’s House.” Its curiously stout Early English chimney, with lancet-headed openings, under queer little gables, is a landmark not easily missed. The successor of the original Abbey Mill is itself very picturesque. Adjoining is the long, two-storeyed building often styled the “Infirmary,” and sometimes the “Guest House”; perhaps having partaken of both uses. It can only have been used for humble guests, or patients, for it is merely a rough-and-ready wooden building, rather barn-like, divided into dormitories. [Illustration: THE TOWN HALL, ABINGDON.] The charming little Norman and Perpendicular church of St. Nicholas has been very severely dealt with by “restoring” hands, but its quaintness and charm appear indestructible. An especially peculiar feature of the altogether unconventional West front is seen in the curious little flat-headed window under a gable roof to the north side of the tower, giving a curiously semi-domestic appearance to the church. The windows light a staircase turret, which is perhaps the remaining part of some priest’s residence formerly attached to the church. [Illustration: ST. NICHOLAS, ABINGDON.]