·                1649 Abingdon Baptist Church was founded with John Pendarves as their first minister. Pendarves was a Cornishman, educated at Oxford, who was vicar of St. Helen's Church, in Abingdon until 1647, when he became convinced of the Baptist understanding of scripture and left the established church. He died aged 36 in 1656 and an orchard on Ock Street was bought as a burial ground. At this time the congregation met in a house in the area now covered by West St. Helen Street car park.

·               1660 Charles II was restored to the throne and in 1660 a period of persecution began for dissenters, including Baptists. There were laws enforcing worship at state churches and those who refused were liable to fines and imprisonment. Amongst Abingdon dissenters the most notable was the assistant pastor, John Tomkins, who on one occasion hid in a wooden chest to escape his pursuers.

·               1686 Then pastor, Henry Forty, who had already spent a number of years in Exeter jail, was brought with others before the Assizes for absenting themselves from the Parish Church and not receiving the Sacrament at Easter. However James II granted a dispensation and they were acquitted. The next day, Sunday July 11th 1686, large crowds gathered at the church for morning and afternoon worship.

·                1689 After the accession of William and Mary, the Act of Toleration was passed, granting dissenters freedom of worship.

·               1700 The first "Meeting House" was built by Abingdon Baptists on the present site, in the orchard that had been bought 44 years previously. Part of one of the old walls is said to be still standing near the east boundary.