Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/733

 THE BOROUGH OF GUILDFORD

��Guldeford (x cent.) ; Geldeford (xi cent.) ; Gelde- fort, Geldesfort, Gildeforda, Gildeforde (xii cent.) ; Geldeford, Guldeford (xiii and xiv cents.) ; Gylford and Guldeford (xv and xvi cents.) ; Guildeford, Gild- ford, Gilford, and Gillford (xvi and xviii cents.).

Guildford is the old county town of Surrey, 30 miles from London, lying on the banks of the Wey, where the river breaks through the line of chalk hills. On the west side the ridge of the Hog's Back is called Guildown (Geldesdone by Geoffrey Gaimar, izth century; Geldedone in the Pipe Roll of 1192-3). On the east the hill is known as Pewley Hill, from the manor of Poyle or Puille.

The town consisted formerly of a steep street, the High Street, running west and east, from the bridge, by the side of which there existed a ford, up to the hill above Abbot's Hospital, with a parallel street to the north, latterly known as North Street, before that as Lower Back Side, earlier still the North Ditch. A curving street, Chertsey Street, connects North Street and High Street at the east end. A similar parallel road, South Street, runs on the other side of High Street, formerly known as Upper Back Side and the South Ditch. This communicated with the Castle Ditch, now Castle Street, on the south-west of the High Street. Quarry Street runs from the High Street, through what was the outer ward of the castle, southwards ; and Friary Street connects the High Street, northwards, with the old liberty of the Friars. The lanes running north and south from High Street were known as Gates. On the west side of the river a small group of houses clustered round the foot of the Mount, the ascent to Guildown, and on the Little Mount the ascent to the Portsmouth road ran south-westward past St. Nicholas's Church and up by the present Wiclyffe Buildings. On this side of the river lay the Town Fields, Bury Fields as they were called. 1 The continuation of High Street, outside the old town limits, was called Spital Street, from St. Thomas's Hospital at the junction of the London and Epsom roads. The part of the street from Trinity Church to the grammar school and beyond was called in the i8th century Duke Street, from a house of the Duke of Somerset's on the south side, which is still standing, but converted into two houses.

The old defensible town ditch ran, as the names indicate, from the Dominican Friary near the river along North Street (the North Ditch) and round to South Street (the South Ditch). It has been traced at the corner of Chertsey Street and right across Trinity Churchyard between these two lines. When Trinity

��Church was enlarged in 1888, and graves were removed in consequence, the ditch was traced, with much mediaeval pottery in it.

It is possible that the oldest town was walled, and of yet smaller dimensions. A very thick ancient clunch wall, with a well on the south side of it, showing that to be the inside, ran about 30 yds. south of the High Street, nearly parallel to it. It has been laid bare under the late Mr. Mason's iron- mongery shop in High Street, and elsewhere. It would have included St. Mary's Church and a small town, clustered under the castle mound. If this was so the High Street itself was originally a surburban extension, later included by the ditch.

The town has been extended by residential building along the London and Epsom roads to the east and north-east, along the Portsmouth road and on Guil- down to the south-west beyond the river, on South Hill to the south, and northwards and north-west- wards by business streets and small houses near the Guildford Junction and London Road railway stations. A great part of these latter extensions, and those on the Epsom and London roads, are in Stoke parish.

The railway is now the chief industrial feature of Guildford, though breweries, an iron foundry, printing works, and motor works also exist, besides minor industries, including the sale of old furniture. The London and South Western Railway came to Guild- ford in 184;, and the extension to Godalming was sanctioned by Parliament the same year. In 1849 the South Eastern Railway came to Guildford, and in 1865 the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway's Guildford to Horsham line was opened. In 1884 London Road station and the Guildford, Cob- ham, and Letherhead lines were opened.

Guildford probably began its history as a centre of traffic. The great way across the south of England by the chalk downs passed through it, and across the ford of the Wey. It is possible that a Roman road from the Sussex coast to Staines, traced farther south in Ewhurst, passed through the gap in the downs, and also a road from the Portsmouth direction. Some recent sewage works have revealed an ancient flint pavement in St. Catherine's on this line. The London and Portsmouth road of later times ran through it. The east and west road appears in many deeds as Via regia, and in the Pipe Roll of 1 192-3 ' as Strata regia de Geldedone.

There is no certain trace of Roman occupation of Guildford, though some of the tiles built into the castle may be Roman, and a Roman villa has been

��' The theory that the town originally stood on this side of the river is without foundation, and is contradicted by the name Bury Fields, by old maps marking the fields, and by the size of St. Nicholas's parish, a country not a town parish. Part of this parish, including the church

��of St. Nicholas, lies in Guildford, but that portion of it which is outside the old borough is in Godalming Hundred, and the general description of the parish has been treated there.

' Pipe R. 4 Ric. I, m. 8 d. This is the so-called Pilgrim's Way ; though there is

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��no historical ground for applying the name in West Surrey. The road from village to village south of the downs was probably only a local road, not used for through traffic, and has even less right to the name.

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