Answer to Guildford Snippets Do You Know? No.20

Published on: 23 Sep, 2018
Updated on: 22 Sep, 2018

By Nick Bale, Guildford Town Guides

The Town Guides programme of guided walks for the summer ends this week. Hence, I will now be taking a break from writing Guildford Snippets until next year.

Our walks for booked student and adult groups continue throughout the year, so you may still see a guide leading a group around the town from time to time.

It has been interesting and challenging finding the questions. I would like to particularly thank those of you who posted comments. I think that many more of you also knew some of the answers but kept this information to yourself.

St Catherine’s Lock cottage, also known as Riff Raff Cottage.

The answer to last week’s question was that the cottage for St Catherine’s lock was on the canal bank several hundred yards upstream towards Godalming.

The wooden lock cottage pictured here was rebuilt in brick in 1908. Its still stands and is known as Riff Raff Cottage, after the Riff Raff weir adjacent to it. It is currently home to the National Trust’s lengthsman for that stretch of the River Wey Navigations, Robert Craig.

He, along with fellow lengthsman Richard Cant of the Stoke section, write regular columns for The Guildford Dragon News that are published within the Nature section. The are titled Riff Raff Diary and Richard’s Wey.

Responses to Answer to Guildford Snippets Do You Know? No.20

Brian Holt Reply

September 24, 2018 at 5:21 pm

We knew this spot as the Three Oaks as there was three oak trees there in the 1940s.

We were there every Sunday afternoon in the summer.

It was a popular swimming spot in front of the cottage and you could even walk across the river there.