Andersey Island

The island is created by a natural anabranch (a corollary, specifically a meander cutoff) of the river, the Swift Ditch.

Offa was the first to build a royal residence on Andersey Island and there his son king Ecgfrith of Mercia died in 796.

The main Dorchester-Abingdon road runs through the island from east to west legally declared to have existed so as to claim public right of way from 'time immemorial'.

[2] Henry was persuaded by Queen Maud to return the island to Abingdon's ownership but not parish and to allow the abbot to use the lead from its houses for the roof of the abbey church.

The commission did not make use of the mainstream western meander of the river via Abingdon; instead barges was directed along the backwater between Andersey and Culham Hill, known in early Tudor times as Purden's stream.