Abingdon-on-Thames

Old market town on the Thames below Oxford. Three Men in a Boat finds it ‘quiet, eminently respectable, clean, and desperately dull’.

At a glance

Source	Author	Role	In one line
Three Men in a Boat	Jerome K. Jerome	backdrop	’Desperately dull’: ale brewed in the old abbey and the church monuments.

Three Men in a Boat — Jerome K. Jerome (1889)

Source: Exploration of Three Men in a Boat · Three Men in a Boat · Original · Readwise highlight

At Abingdon, the river passes by the streets. Abingdon is a typical country town of the smaller order – quiet, eminently respectable, clean, and desperately dull.

• Role: backdrop
• In the book: At Abingdon, where the river runs past the streets, the narrator calls the town a typical small country town, respectable and dull, notes that bitter ale is now brewed within what is left of its famous abbey, and mentions monuments in St Nicholas Church.
• Why it matters: A dry one-paragraph portrait on the final approach to Oxford.