@abingdon_school @abingdonschool @abingdonschool linkedin.com/school/abingdonschool The Abingdon Foundation, Park Road, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 1DE Edited by Julia Cooke - [email protected] 01235 521563 The Tesdale panel The old schoolroom, 1842. The Tesdale panel behind the usher’s desk (right) and the Roysse panel above the headmaster’s desk (left). It might not look much to you but the Tesdale panel is one of Abingdon’s treasures, once lost but now found. In 2006, the History of Abingdon School in 63 Objects featured this panel as Object No. 5 with the words: Object No. 5 is conspicuous by its absence. It used to exist, it can be seen in a print of the schoolroom in the 1840s, and again in a drawing of the Common Room in 1922, so it survived the move to Park Road but its present whereabouts is unknown and there is a suspicion that it doesn’t exist anymore… But it does! At a recent OA event, Martin Andrews OA 1970, told our archivist that one day in a ceramics class he was handed a dirty board on which to knock up some clay. When the board got wet, he noticed that there seemed to be a painting underneath the old clay. He showed it to the art master who dismissed it as ‘some old Victorian thing’ of no interest, so Andrews asked permission to take it. He cleaned it up and has had it hanging on his wall for over 60 years, unaware of its significance. Out of the Past Abingdon The Tesdale Panel - Once Lost Now Found! The panel shows the coat of arms of Thomas Tesdale (spelt Teasdale in the panel) impaled with those of his wife, Maud. It was donated to the school in 1763 as part of the bi-centenary celebrations of John Roysse’s endowment and commemorates the fact that ‘Thomas Teasdale founded this Ushership in the year of our Lord 1609 & of his age 63’. The Ushership was the office of second master, which Tesdale endowed with the rectory and tithes of Upton, Warwickshire. Masters’ Common Room in 1922. The Tesdale panel is above the door. The Roysse panel in Boarders Hall The panel hung behind the usher’s desk in the old schoolroom, and a companion piece depicting John Roysse’s coat of arms hung at the other end of the room behind the headmaster’s desk. The Roysse panel survived and hangs in Boarders Hall where the Tesdale panel will join it. We are very grateful to Martin Andrews for rescuing the panel all those years ago and for now being happy to give it to the school.
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