Where Is This? No.103

Published on: 2 Apr, 2014
Updated on: 2 Apr, 2014

By David Rose

Plenty of entries for last week’s mystery images – all correct. The vintage photo showing the Horse and Groom pub and St John’s Church at Merrow. The quirky photo being an aerial view of St Catherine’s Chapel, taken by Dan James.

Click here to see last week’s post and all the replies with some useful additional details.

No prizes I am sorry to say, but some of you regulars have suggested that it’s time for some tricker images! That’s easy to arrange, but I am mindful of readers who perhaps don’t know Guildford so well.

Can you name this house or suggest where it once stood or what is there today?

So for this week’s vintage image it’s one that I have to say is very hard. The picture was sent to me a while ago by Peter Bullen. He writes: “I lived in the top flat at [name removed] when my father was caretaker there at the REME (TA) 131 Infantry Workshops in the late 1940s early 50s.

“It was a dream place to live for a young boy with huge army Nissan huts and drill halls in the grounds, cavernous cool cellars, wild garden areas, a lake, and a lost, completely wild and overgrown orchard, surrounded by lovely high red brick walls, hidden behind two of the huts.

“At the far end was one of the stands at Guildford City’s Joseph Road ground. From our rooftop, we could watch City’s matches free! Although we could see only the far end of the pitch and just one set of goal posts.”

I hope those are some good enough clues. Do you know the name of this building, or where it stood?

Can you name where this is?

The quirky photo is a ‘dead’ tree somewhere in Guildford. There is a plaque in front of it courtesy of Guildford Borough Council that tells of the wildlife that can be found in the tree. Do you know where it is?

If you think you know the answers, please leave a reply in the box below. The answers, along with the next pair of images, will be published about the same time next week.

Responses to Where Is This? No.103

John Lomas Reply

April 2, 2014 at 7:04 am

Would this, by any chance, be Woodbridge House?
I had forgotten that there was another military establishment within the borough, but must have walked passed it many times going from the bus stop on Woodbridge Road along the footpath between the back gardens of Stockton Road and Josephs Road.
Norman Hamshere Reply

April 2, 2014 at 10:19 am

Cannot remember the house but we played in the grounds during the late 1940s by which time it seemed to be abandoned.
The entrance was at the end of Avenue Terrace, Woodbridge Road. We collected material for our Guy Fawkes bonfires and stored it in one of the very large Nissen huts which were completely empty.
There was certainly a muddy pond and the walled orchard a source of apples. I cannot remember ever being chased out, so I guess we were lucky to be trespassing on the caretaker’s day off.
David and Ann Bailey Reply

April 2, 2014 at 3:09 pm

We think it could be the house that stood at the junction with Woodbridge Road and what is now Ladymead, behind the old Morris depot. There was a very large pond in that area.
Ray Springer Reply

April 3, 2014 at 8:44 pm

I think this is Stoke Park Mansion in Stoke Park, now demolished of course.
I vaguely remember it being there in my school days at the Junior Tech in the Technical College.
The quirky picture of the dead tree is situated by the London Road (near the roundabout at Weylea Avenue and Woodruff Avenue).
Peter Holt Reply

April 7, 2014 at 10:32 am

The old building used to stand in Woodbridge Road near the TA centre and opposite the bus garage. I don’t know the name of it, but perhaps we should call it Pete’s house.
Rod Bennett Reply

April 7, 2014 at 2:58 pm

Looks like Stoke Park Mansion to me. Now long gone, it used to owned by Post Office Telephones. The ground it was on is probably now part of the Guildford College and is just round from the lido.

As a kid I remember walking past it to get to the paddling and boating pools.

Rod Bennett, native of Guildford, age 56.
Brian Holt Reply

April 7, 2014 at 9:45 pm

The building was called Woodbridge House, in Woodbridge Road, and was where C P Hart bathrooms store is today.
I remember going there a few times with my brother as we knew Peter Bullen and his farther.
The second photo of the tree is by the Moggy Pond in Hazel Avenue, (opposite Larch Avenue junction) in Bellfields.
Chris Townsend Reply

April 8, 2014 at 4:54 pm

Woodbridge House and its stables and grounds were in the angle between Woodbridge Road and Joseph’s Road/Ladymead, extending south towards what is now Stocton Road, and east across the former football ground. The site of the house itself was near the present-day car park by the trees in Stocton Close.

A map of about 1870 shows the outline of the house and greenhouses, with other outbuildings, and what could well be that walled garden. There’s a large reservoir shown to the north-west of the grounds, larger in area than the house itself. Was that the lake Peter mentions, and what was its purpose?

In 1881, an Edward T. Leighton, medical practitioner, lived there with his family and servants. Between 1895 and 1911 – perhaps longer – a retired colonel, John Harvey Annand, was there with two daughters. The house was split into flats about the 1920s. Does anyone remember when it was demolished – perhaps in the 1960s?
Doug and Bill Stanniforth Reply

April 8, 2014 at 5:20 pm

We think the old photo is the Mansion (as it used to be called) when an annexe for the technical college off Lido Road, going towards the paddling pool.
Noted in the text a lake was mentioned and we wondered if Peter had a speedboat? This is also near the boating pool on which you can sail model boats of the speed variety.
No idea about the dead tree.
Karon Oliver Reply

February 28, 2017 at 11:20 pm

Definitely the mansion which was part of Guildford Technical College in the late 60s and early 70s. It was used for A level teaching and there was a canteen/coffee bar in the basement.

I remember it well as I did 4 A Levels over two years there between 1969 and 1971.