At 6.00pm on 11th October the official opening will take place for the latest addition to Abingdon town centre. 13 flats for couples and single people have been built by the Vale Housing Association and Paramount Housing on a site off Ock Street. The new development will be called Fichetts Yard, after a local scrap metal merchant who once owned the site.
The building has given Abingdon schoolchildren a chance to speak to future generations, by leaving a record of their lives in the front wall of one of the flats. The Vale Housing Association has teamed up with Carswell School to include a time capsule in the wall of their new flats. The stone capsule contains letters and pictures from the ten and eleven-year-olds, talking about their life today and their hopes for the future.
The children hope that what they have written will provide people in a hundred years time with a glimpse of what life was like for children in 2000. Mrs Fiona Thomson, acting head teacher of Carswell School, said, "All the children worked hard to write these letters. They should be a fascinating read for anyone who finds them in the future".
Many of the children wrote that they hoped the world would be a better place in a hundred years. They wanted peace in all countries, a cleaner environment and cures for diseases like cancer. Others hoped that Abingdon would continue to preserve its historic character. In the next 100 years I hope that our town still has this school because it has a lot of History and I hope it still has our letters
, wrote one pupil.
The flats are a landmark for the Vale Housing Association as they are the first development in Abingdon to be finished in the new millennium. John Martin, the Head of Design at the Vale HA, said, "I'm very proud of this project. We've transformed an old car park into good quality housing, and improved the appearance of Ock Street, which thousands of people pass on their way into the town. The flats will house local people for generations to come. That's why it's great to be able to include the time capsule as a legacy for people in the future. Hopefully in a hundred years someone will find it".
The press are welcome to attend the event on 6.00 on 11th October. Please find to follow a map showing the location of the site.