Where Is This? No.123

Published on: 20 Aug, 2014
Updated on: 20 Aug, 2014

By David Rose

Plenty of correct replies to last week’s mysteries – the vintage photo showing Woodbridge Meadows viewed from the footbridge alongside the ‘seven arch’ railway bridge in Walnut Tree Close. The quirky photo showing the end of a building in Quarry Street. Of the latter, a few different replies as to its exact number, but close enough!

Click here to see all the replies at the foot of last week’s post.

Do you remember where ‘Rotton Row’ was?

This week’s vintage photo is another more modern picture – but how time flies! I think it dates to the mid or late 1970s.

By the time the photo was taken White’s Stores had been closed for a long time and the houses either side of it vacated and boarded up too. They remained like that for ages, and before the area was finally redeveloped it got the nickname ‘Rotten Row’.

In my youth we used to go into the houses sometimes and mooch around in their back gardens. When we were inside one on a particular occasion, we were surprised to find a group of men turn and and very quickly dismantle a staircase and its bannisters, load it in their lorry and drive off!

The location is outside the town, but do you know where?

Where can this strange shaped building be found?

The quirky photo shows an odd shaped building near Guildford town centre – an area undergoing a lot of development at the moment, but this one may remain.

Do you know where it is and which business of note(s) had its shop there for many years?

If you know the answers, please leave a reply in the box below. Replies will be published at about the same time next week.

Responses to Where Is This? No.123

Paul Burgman Reply

August 20, 2014 at 10:14 pm

It’s the old Anderton’s store in Haydon Place
John Lomas Reply

August 20, 2014 at 11:20 pm

White’s Stores is surely opposite the row of shops on Worplesdon Road between Byrefield Road and Sheepfold Road. When I was at Stoughton JUnior school one of my school friends was a member of the Darvill family who had the store. I think the sign actually read Darvill Stores then.

To the left of the photo there was a repair garage and petrol station owned by a man who lived up Byrefield Road and drove to and from work in a beetle-backed Standard Vanguard Mk I, without getting out of first gear judging by the noise his engine made.
Behind the shop is what I judge to be an accommodation barrack block in the Queen’s Regiment barracks.
- Roger Edwards Reply
  
  March 7, 2015 at 7:41 pm
  
  Garage owner was Mr Gash.
Norman Hamshere Reply

August 21, 2014 at 8:56 am

Whites Stores,190 Worplesdon Road.
Simon Vine Reply

August 21, 2014 at 6:45 pm

” Rotten Row” – On the Worplesdon Road opposite Byrefield/ Sheepfold Road. Amazed to see that picture after all these years, I recalled it immediately. I also remember going into the White’s store when it was open, must have been late 1960s? I was one of those teenage miscreants that used to go into those houses with you if you remember? Once we found a newspaper from September 1st 1939 (start of WW2) in there if you also recall that? Cheers bud, speak soon.
Colin Reardon Reply

August 21, 2014 at 8:38 pm

Whites Stores – at the top of Stoughton Road near the Worplesdon Road junction?
John Lomas Reply

August 21, 2014 at 10:35 pm

The quirky photo shows the last building on the left-hand-side of Haydon Place approaching what used to be the five way junction with York Road, Sandfield Terrace, Artillery Terrace and Stoke Fields. It is now just a sharp right-hand bend, back in to Sandfield Terrace following the isolating of York Rd at the junction, presumably when it was extended down to Woodbridge Road.

Was that around the late 80’s early 90’s?
Heather Earl Reply

August 23, 2014 at 3:43 pm

The quirky photo showing the odd-shaped building is in Haydon Place, near the York Road end. It was Andertons music shop for some years. But originally it was built, in 1930, for The Haydon Furnishing Works owned by my grandfather, Harold Challen, and his partner.

I have an old cutting about it, which includes an advert telling customers to “walk through, you will not be asked to buy” and “Furniture of all kinds made to order or repaired”.

Some old Guildfordians may be able to remember it and my grandfather’s cabinet-making skills. The business closed in the early fifties and then I think it was owned by other firms before Andertons.

The business had actually started earlier, using the “Old Chapel” nearby from 1919. Much later, that became the “Beverley Hall for the Deaf”, after the furnishing business closed.
Margaret Cole Reply

August 24, 2014 at 11:08 am

Whites Stores 190 Worplesdon Road. I looked out of my upstairs room and saw this view for a few years, when it was in better nick. Stoughton Barracks was in the background then, before the developers moved in.

This next one is Haydon Place: Aldertons music centre and a plumbers. Victoria Court on the left, raised to the ground all for a supermarket, the developers again. Where’s the Guildford I once knew? Nearly all gone, alas.
Chris Townsend Reply

August 25, 2014 at 11:24 am

Dare I say (again) that looks like Stoughton Barracks in the background. If so, my guess is that the site of White’s Stores lies under the Cardwell’s Keep development.

The quirky building is at the York Road end of Haydon Place, and used to be Anderton’s music shop, now on the Woodbridge Road.
Brian Holt Reply

August 25, 2014 at 9:24 pm

White stores was in the Worplesdon Road where the entrance to Somertons Close is and now part of the service station. In the picture you can see the barracks behind the shop.

Next to White Stores were double gates where Mr Jago kept his private hire cars. He always wore a chauffeur’s cap and gloves and lived in the last house on the right at the top of Byrefield Road.

Next to these gates was Mr Nash’s small garage and petrol station that sold Shell petrol. Then there was Sid Searchfields small timber yard where you could buy logs and timber. And where the horological shop is now, was Ansley’s ladies and gets hairdressers.

The second picture is the bottom of Haydon Place and was Andertons music store.
Peter Holt Reply

August 26, 2014 at 9:58 am

Whites Store was in Worplesdon Road opposite Sheepfold Road and the Co-op store, which is now an estate agent. The strange shaped building is in Haydon Place.
Doug and Bill Stanniforth Reply

August 26, 2014 at 10:57 am

The first pic is R Whites shop on Stoughton road near Emmanuel church. I remember going there on a Sunday morning as it was the only shop open then. I remember on one occasion seeing the guy who sang on the famous TV commercial.

The second pic is I think used to be Andertons music shop on Haydon Place. I think the architect who designed this one must have been a speedboat lover due to the wedge shape.

Someone should get a violin from Andertons and play a sad lament to accompany your, never to be realised, speedboat dreams. Ed
Ray Springer Reply

August 26, 2014 at 9:13 pm

Rotten Row was probably in Stoughton in Worplesdon Road.
Brian Holt Reply

August 29, 2014 at 8:10 pm

The shop on the right, at the top of Stoughton Road near the junction of Worplesdon Road, which some people thought was Whites store, was Hannafords Stores. It is now a house.
David Sheppard Reply

October 24, 2016 at 10:18 pm

The house next to White’s Stores was 188 Worplesdon Road and was my childhood home up to 1963 when Chansome Estates bought that part of the road.

We moved to Onslow Village.

White’s Stores used to be owned by the Darvile family. There were three children – Jackie, Rudy and Yvonne.

Mr Jago used to have a hire car business down the long concrete garden. The barracks, at the back, was occupied during my time and I remember the film Carry on Sergent being filmed there, featuring Norman Rossington, Charles Hawtrey, etc.

The old petrol station further down was owned by Mr Gash.