Template:Wp-Guildford-History

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Early history

The earliest evidence of human activity in the Guildford area is from St Catherine's Hill, where Mesolithic flint tools have been found. There may also have been Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements on the hill.^[1] The areas now occupied by Christ's College and Manor Farm were farmed in the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman period. Traces of a 2nd-century villa were discovered at Broadstreet Common during an excavation in 1998.

Middle Ages

The archaeological excavation of a Saxon cemetery at Guildown in the 1930s and contemporary accounts indicate that Guildford was established as a small town by Saxon settlers shortly after Roman authority had been removed from Britain at the beginning of the 5th century. The settlement was most likely expanded because of the Harrow Way (an ancient trackway connecting the ancient cities of Winchester and Canterbury) crosses the River Wey by a ford at this point.

King Alfred the Great referred to the town in his will and left the estate at Guildford, along with Godalming and Steyning, to his nephew Aethelwold, who then attempted to claim the throne in Æthelwold's Revolt.^[2]

In 1036 Guildford was the scene of the arrest of Alfred Aetheling by Earl Godwin of Wessex. Alfred was travelling to Winchester to join his mother, Emma of Normandy. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Alfred and his followers were betrayed and captured on Guildown hill by Godwin, who had promised Alfred safe conduct to London to be crowned, and brought back into Guildford, where Alfred's followers were massacred.

Guildford was the location of the Royal Mint from 978 until part-way through the reign of William the Conqueror.^[2][3]

Guildford Castle is of Norman design, although there are no documents about its earliest years. It is situated on the route of the Pilgrims' Way, and overlooks a pass through the hills and the site of the ancient ford across the Wey, thus giving a key point of military control of this long distance way across the country.^[2]

Guildford appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Geldeford and Gildeford, a holding of William the Conqueror. The King officially held the 75 hagae (houses enclosed in fences or closes) in which lived 175 homagers (heads of household) and the town rendered £32. Stoke, a suburb within today's Guildford, appears in the Book as Stoch and was also held by William. Its Domesday assets were: 1 church, 2 mills worth 5s, 16 ploughlands with two Lord's plough teams and 20 mens plough teams, of meadow, and woodland worth 40 hogs. Stoke was listed as being in the King's park, with a rendering of £15.

William the Conqueror had the castle built in the classic Norman style; the castle keep still stands. A major purpose of Norman castle building was to overawe the conquered population. It had £26 spent on it in 1173 under the regency of the young Henry II. As the threat of invasion and insurrection declined, the castle's status was demoted to that of a royal hunting lodge: Guildford was, at that time, at the edge of Windsor Great Park. It was visited on several occasions by King John, Eleanor of Aquitaine and King Henry III.^[3] In 1611 the castle was granted to Francis Carter whose grandson's initials EC and the year 1699 were above the entrance way. The surviving parts of the castle were restored in Victorian times and again in 2004; the rest of the grounds became a public garden.

In 1497 Guildford was briefly occupied by the forces of the Cornish rebellion of 1497, who clashed near the town with the forces of Lord Daubeny. A plaque commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Cornishmen's march on London was erected on The Mount in Guildford in 1997.

In 1995, a chamber was discovered in the High Street, which is considered to be the remains of the 12th-century Guildford Synagogue. While this remains a matter of contention, it is likely to be the oldest remaining synagogue in Western Europe.^[4]

Guildford elected two members of the Unreformed House of Commons. From the 14th century to the 18th century the borough corporation prospered with the wool trade.

In the 14th century the Guildhall was constructed and still stands today as a noticeable landmark of Guildford. The north end was extended in 1589 and the Council Chamber was added in 1683. In 1683 a projecting clock was made for the front of the building: it can be seen the length of the High Street.

Post-Renaissance/Dissolution of the Monasteries

The town's Royal Grammar School was built in 1509 and became Royal by gaining the patronage of Edward VI in 1552.^[5] In the years around 1550, a pupil at the school was John Derrick who in later life became a Queen's Coroner for the county of Surrey. In 1597 (old style, 1598 by modern reckoning), Derrick made a legal deposition that contains the earliest definite reference to cricket being played anywhere in the world.

In 1619 George Abbot founded the Hospital of the Holy Trinity,^[3] now commonly known as Abbot's Hospital, one of the finest sets of almshouses in the country. It is sited at the top end of the High Street, opposite Holy Trinity church. The brick-built, three-storey entrance tower faces the church; a grand stone archway leads into the courtyard. On each corner of the tower there is an octagonal turret rising an extra floor, with lead ogee domes.^[6]

One of the greatest boosts to Guildford's prosperity came in 1653 with the completion, after many wrangles, of the Wey Navigation. This allowed Guildford businesses to access the Thames at Weybridge by boat, and predated the major canal building programme in Britain by more than a century. In 1764 the navigation was extended as far as Godalming and in 1816 to the sea near Arundel via the Wey and Arun Junction Canal and the Arun Navigation. The Basingstoke Canal also was built to connect with the Wey navigation, putting Guildford in the centre of a network of waterways.

Post-Industrial Revolution

The Chilworth gunpowder works operated right through the Industrial Revolution, and exported much of its wares through Guildford and the Wey Navigation to London.

A six-mile (10 km) branch of the London and South-Western Railway from Woking to Guildford was opened in May 1845. In 1846, Acts were passed for making two railways from Guildford: one leading to Godalming, and the other to Farnham and Alton; and in the same year, an Act was obtained for a railway from Reading, via Guildford, to Dorking and Reigate.^[5] All of these followed in the 19th century^[2] and remain in use.

From 1820 to 1865 Guildford was the scene of severe outbursts of semi-organised lawlessness commonly known as the "Guy Riots". The Guys would mass on the edge of the town from daybreak on Guy Fawkes Night, wearing masks or bizarre disguises and armed with clubs and lighted torches. At nightfall they would enter the town and avenge themselves on those who had crossed them in the preceding year by committing assaults and damaging property, often looting the belongings of victims from their houses and burning them on bonfires in the middle of the street. In later years attempts to suppress the Guys led to the deaths of two police officers. In 1866 and 1868 the Guys were dispersed by cavalry and this seems to have brought an end to the riots. Similar disorder surrounding the St Catherine's Hill Fair, held just outside the town on the Pilgrims' Way, was suppressed around the same time. In 1906 the Guildford Union Workhouse Casuals Ward, known as the Spike, was built on the grounds of the Workhouse near the castle; today it is a tourist attraction and community centre.

After the death of their father in 1882, brothers Charles Arthur and Leonard Gates took over the running of his shop, which held the local distribution franchise for Gilbey's wines and spirits, and also sold beer. However, in 1885, the brothers were persuaded to join the temperance movement, and they poured their entire stock into the gutters of the High Street. Left with no livelihood, they converted their now empty shop into a dairy. Using a milk separator, they bought milk from local farmers, and after extracting the cream and whey, sold the skim back to the farmers for pig feed. In 1888 three more of the Gates brothers and their sons joined the business, which led to the formal registration of the company under the name of the West Surrey Central Dairy Company, which after development of its dried milk baby formula in 1906 became Cow & Gate.

20th century

In 1901, the Dennis brothers built the first purpose-built car factory in England. It was subsequently known as the Rodboro Buildings after being taken over by the eponymous shoe company in 1919.

Around 1907 the inventor and wind turbine pioneer, E Lancaster Burne, erected one of the first wind turbines on Pewley Hill to power his house.

During World War II, the Borough Council built 18 communal air raid shelters. One of these shelters, known as the Foxenden Quarry deep shelter, was built into the side of a disused chalk quarry. Taking a year to build, it comprised two main tunnels with interconnecting tunnels for the sleeping bunks. It could accommodate 1000 people and provided sanitation and first aid facilities. Having been sealed since decommissioning in 1944, it has survived fairly intact.^[7] The quarry itself is now the site of the York Road car park, but the shelter is preserved and was occasionally open to the public though visits are now suspended.

In May 1968 students at Guildford School of Art began a "sit-in" at the School in Stoke Park which lasted until mid-summer. A protest over the quality of the teaching, it ended up the longest student protest in the UK that year.

On 5 October 1974, bombs planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army exploded in two pubs, killing four off-duty soldiers and a civilian. The pubs were targeted because soldiers from the barracks at Pirbright were known to frequent them. The subsequently arrested suspects, who became known as the Guildford Four, were convicted and sentenced to long prison sentences in October 1975. They said they were tortured by the police and denied involvement in the bombing. In 1989 after a long legal battle, their convictions were overturned and they were released.

Modern Guildford

In the 21st century Guildford still has a High Street paved with granite setts, and is one of the most expensive places to buy property in the UK outside London. The town has a general street market held on Fridays and Saturdays. A farmers' market is usually held on the first Tuesday of each month. There is a Tourist Information Office, guided walks and various hotels including the historic Angel Hotel which long served as a coaching stop on the main London to Portsmouth stagecoach route.

Over the summer months the National Trust runs a variety of trips on the Wey Navigation, starting from Dapdune Wharf near the town centre, where there is a visitor centre. The Undercroft, an arched Gothic restored medieval storage undercroft in the High Street is open twice a week. Receiving many grants and local support, the relatively small Guildford Castle has a roof viewing platform, 2003–4 added floor, a model of the fullest original castle and interpretation panels. Guildford has an Olympic-size Lido dating from the 1930s, that is open for public swimming from May to September. It can also be hired for corporate and other entertainment.

County town

Guildford is sometimes described as the county town of Surrey. Surrey County Council maintains no administrative presence in Guildford and moved from Kingston upon Thames (which became part of Greater London in the 1960s), to Reigate in 2020.

There are claims that Henry VII granted the status of county town when he made Guildford the custody of the standard measures. However, the statute does not explicitly state that this makes the settlement a county town.

Guildford's official historian, the borough council's "Honorary Remembrancer", Matthew Alexander, claims that Guildford was granted the "ancient county court in Guildford by a grant of Henry III in 1257, marking Guildford's status as county town of Surrey", but it has been argued that this status is an inaccurate interpretation. His position is not backed up by the original documentation.