CARFAX CONDUIT, NUNEHAM COURTNEY.
I will not be so gross as to attempt a description of the loveliness of the natural beauties of Nuneham, or of the views from it: only let it be said that the view from the grassy knoll on which stands the old Carfax conduit, brought from Oxford, is exquisite, commanding, as it does, distant peeps of Oxford in one direction, and of Abingdon in another, with lovely stretches of meadowlands, woods, and water, in between. There is, it may well be supposed, no more beautiful fountain in England than this old conduit from the four cross-roads in the centre of Oxford; but the expansion of population and the increase of traffic have ever banished the beautiful, and thus this fine Renascence building, given to the city of Oxford by Otho Nicholson in 1610, was, so early as 1787, removed as an inscription upon it states, “to enlarge the High Street.” The University, the inscription goes on to state, then presented it to George Simon, Earl Harcourt. If it were worth accepting, it certainly was also worth keeping, and that the University could thus give it away reflects no credit upon that body. The repetitive “O. N.” observed upon the conduit stands for the initials of Otho Nicholson.
CHAPTER IX
ABINGDON
Abingdon, some three miles distant, now claims attention; and a good deal of leisured attention is its due. That pleasant and quietly-prosperous old town is one of those fortunate places that have achieved the happy middle course between growth and decay, and thus are not ringed about with squalid, unhistorical, modern additions. Its population remains at about 6,500, and therefore it is not, although possessing from of old a Mayor and Corporation, a town at all in the modern sense. Thus shall I shift to excuse myself for including it in these pages. In these days of great populations we can scarce begin to think of a place of fewer than ten thousand inhabitants, as a “town” at all.
The origin of Abingdon, whose very name is said to mean “the Abbey town,” was purely ecclesiastical, for it came into existence as a dependency of the great Abbey founded here in the seventh century. Legends, indeed, tell us of an earlier Abingdon, called “Leavechesham,” in early British times, and make it even then an important religious centre and a favourite residence of the kings of Wessex, but they—the legends and the kings alike—are of the vaguest.