Christmas Day Morning At The Spike – Open For Guided Tours

Published on: 17 Dec, 2018
Updated on: 18 Dec, 2018

Get a feel for what life was like during the festive season at the Guildford Union Workhouse when The Spike Heritage Centre opens for tours this coming Christmas Day morning.

Looking along the corridor with its cells at The Spike Heritage Centre, the former casual ward of the Guildford Union Workhouse.

The preserved former casual ward of the workhouse, where vagrants and tramps could once get a bed for the night, sleeping in locked cells, is offering guided tours at 10.30am and 11am, lasting an hour. There will be seasonal refreshments of hot chocolate or mulled wine and mince pies.

Local historian and writer David Rose, who is one of the volunteer tour guides at The Spike, will be leading the first tour at 10,30am.

Places are limited, so book now to avoid disappointment. Tickets cost £10 and are available from Guildford’s Tourist Information Centre at 155 High Street (tel: 01483 444333), or the Charlotteville Jubilee Trust on 01483 598420.

The Spike is at Warren Road, Guildford GU1 3JH.

What was life really like for inmates of the workhouse at Christmas time over 130 years ago?

The first verse of George R. Sims’ poem In The Workhouse: Christmas Day, written in 1879, goes:

It is Christmas Day in the Workhouse,

And the cold bare walls are bright

With garlands of green and holly,

And the place is a pleasant sight:

For with clear-washed hands and faces in a long and hungry line,

The paupers sit at the tables,

For this is the hour that they dine.

A Victorian illustration of Christmas at the Whitechapel workhouse.

Victorian readers of Guildford’s local newspapers received a lengthly report each year of the events on that day at the Guildford Union Workhouse.

The West Surrey Times of December 29, 1888 wrote: “Christmas comes but once year and when it comes it brings good cheer, even the inmates of the workhouse. Hence it is that of the great Christian festival is probably anticipated with as keen feelings of pleasure by those within the walls of the ‘parish mansion’ as by those whose lot is cast in more favourable circumstances.”

The report added: “It must be admitted that the master and matron of the Guildford & District Union Workhouse (Mr and Mrs Ratheram) did their utmost to secure the enjoyment of those under their charge.”

The day began with the workhouse chaplain conducting divine service in the chapel and the newspaper report quickly went on to say that “dinner, of course, was the great event of the festivities, this being the only day throughout the year when the inmates have the opportunity of seeing the savoury joints cut up in their presence”.

Evidently, there was a “bountiful supply of beef and plum-pudding”. It concluded: “After dinner the inmates repaired to their respective wards, where, the ordinary rigid discipline being relaxed to a very great extent for the time being, they were able to enjoy to the full the numerous presents that had been sent for them.”