STALLHOLDERS and customers looked back over 60 years as they celebrated the birthday of Abingdon’s Country Market last Friday.

The market — which sells home-grown and home-made produce in the Guildhall, Abbey Close, on Fridays — has run for six decades in various locations around the town.

Although organisers admitted that the number of customers had dwindled, they said it was still going strong and on average had about 70 visitors each week.

Kathleen Suckling, of Kennington, one of the shareholders who has been part of the group for 19 years, said: “In the olden days, we used to have queues of people.

“We still have a little queue, but we used to have 20 to 30 customers waiting to get in.

“We certainly don’t get as many customers as we used to, as I think more people work nowadays. We do get more in the summer as we get people from the boats and the caravans.

“People don’t come to Abingdon any more. You go into the precinct and it’s empty.”

The market started as a Women’s Institute venture, but is now run by an organisation called the Abingdon Country Market.

There are more than a dozen stalls selling produce and goods such as fresh eggs, cakes, preserves, greetings cards, baby clothes, flowers and needlecraft.

Last Friday, customers had a piece of cake and a cup of tea to celebrate the milestone.

Betty Saunders, 84, of Radley, who has sold eggs in the market since 1974, said: “When I first came, it was in the church hall and we used to sell a lot of eggs then.

“People then probably came here more then as we didn’t have so many supermarkets.”

Veronica Webster, 65, of Buckland, who sells cards and needlework, said: “I think it has slowly become popular as people have got to know about it more.

“I think it draws people into the town as there is home-made produce and everything is a reasonable price.”

Judith Dixon, 38, of Radley, who has sold cakes for more than a year, said: “It’s a very popular market and farmers’ market, that we do once a month.

“I guess because people know we are here and there are quite a lot of people who come up from the boats. It’s quite visible in a central location.”

Malvin Drakley, 68, of Abingdon, who has worked at the market for seven years, said: “People come into Abingdon and they don’t know we have been here for 60 years.”

Gemma Caudle, 23, of Abingdon, visited the market for the first time.

She said: “We were literally just walking past and saw the sign and thought we would come and buy cakes.

“It’s nice here, it’s got baby clothes and a good selection of stuff.”

Bridget Wheeler, 25, of Abingdon, said: “It’s actually really good. We saw the sign for cakes and thought we would come in.

“We want to come back again to get more cakes, especially the carrot cake.”