Guildford: A Borough of Over 1,000 Years

Published on: 16 Feb, 2025
Updated on: 19 Feb, 2025

Guildford’s Honorary Remembrancer and former curator of Guildford Museum, Matthew Alexander, looks at the developments within our borough down the ages.

It has been suggested that the Borough of Guildford might be abolished. It is worth considering how it grew and what it achieved.

Guildford has possessed many of the attributes of a borough for over a thousand years.

A Guildford silver penny.

A mint to strike silver coins had been established there by 975, a rare privilege which indicated the town’s importance. In 1086 the Domesday Book actually considered Guildford to be the only town in Surrey.

By 1130 Guildford was being described in documents as a borough, which meant a settlement whose lord of the manor was the king himself.

Many towns had their borough status established by a charter, but Guildford’s early eminence seems to have made its borough ranking ‘prescriptive,’ in other words, before these charters were routinely granted.

Guildford royal charter.

Guildford had no royal charter until 1257, when Henry III granted two, one of which stipulated that the County Court of Surrey should meet at Guildford forever. From 1295 the town returned two members of parliament.

As lord of the manor, the king received an annual payment from the town. This was collected from the residents by a royally-appointed intermediary known as the fee farmer, who delivered it to the Crown.

In 1366 the responsibility for this was acquired by the people of Guildford themselves, setting them on the road to increasing self-administration.

This reached a major milestone 1488 when Henry VII granted a Charter of Incorporation which confirmed the government of the town by a mayor and 20 to 30 approved men.

These men had proved themselves to be worthy townsmen by serving for several years as unpaid officials in a series of increasingly demanding parish duties.

There were three parishes which made up the town, Holy Trinity, St Mary’s and St Nicholas. The last and most demanding position was that of bailiff, who acted as the mayor’s assistant. After completing his final year as bailiff he was usually accepted as an approved man, and in due course would be made mayor.

Rather than committees, the borough was governed by a number of courts dating from the Middle Ages, including the Court Leet, the Three Weeks Court and the Guild Merchant.

The Guild Merchant started as a gathering for all the businessmen who had the right to trade in Guildford in order to regulate its commercial life.

Later on membership became more selective. It was at the annual meeting of the Guild Merchant that the mayor was elected for their year in office by the approved men.

Guildford’s old Town Bridge.

That year’s bailiff would also be appointed, together with a clerk, wardens to look after the bridge and the Guildhall and a sergeant at mace who assisted the bailiff. The ceremonial mace which he carried showed that the bailiff acted with the authority of the crown.

The Court Leet met twice a year to appoint such parish officials as the tasters of ale, fish and flesh, who maintained trading standards.

The parish constables were elected, together with their tithingmen, who assisted the constable and collected the tithe money to pay for the churches.

There were five areas called tithings in Guildford. Holy Trinity and St Mary’s were each divided into two tithings and St Nicolas within the borough boundary was just one.

The borough’s income was principally from rents and market tolls, though more could be gathered from those who wished to have the freedom to trade in the town, or payments from those who wished to avoid the expense of acting as a parish official.

Rates were rarely levied. The Three Weeks’ Court heard minor legal cases, often settling them by arbitration rather than with a jury.

The Assize of Bread made sure that the quality and price of this staple food was up to the authorised standards.

In 1603 Guildford’s status as a major borough was emphasised by being granted its own court of Quarter Sessions with its own magistrates, also known as justices of the peace.

The mayor was the chairman of the bench. They heard cases that were not serious enough for those which had to go to the judges at the assizes. One of the most important tasks of the magistrates was the administration of the Poor Laws.

Great changes took place after the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835. This imposed a standard system of government on all boroughs in the land.

A town council was be elected by the ratepayers, and later by all adult residents. Councillors represented the wards into which the town was divided. Guildford’s boundaries expanded as the population grew, so new wards were added.

The reformed council set out to provide the town with many of the amenities and services it needed. The first, in 1836, was to establish a police force.

Guildford fire station circa 1872.

In 1863 the fire brigade was reorganised with a shed in North Street, replaced by a brick fire station in 1872. The borough surveyor, Henry Peak, paved the iconic High Street with granite setts in 1868.

Pictured at the opening of the Castle Grounds in 1888 is the mayor and corporation in the front, with firemen and Chief Constable and others also in the photograph. The borough surveyor, Henry Peak, is to the upper right.

The water works were taken over by the council in 1865 and they laid out the Castle Grounds as public pleasure gardens in 1888.

Swimmers at the Castle Street baths

The following year the Castle Street swimming baths opened, one of the first in England.

Cline Road, Charlotteville, and Guildford’s first council houses.

At the same time an advanced sewerage scheme was completed. The council’s depot in Bedford Road was the base for the horse-drawn vans which collected the domestic refuse from 1895, the year that the first council houses were built in Cline Road.

In 1903 the borough became responsible for drainage, highways and some of the schools.

Guildford Electricity Works.

In 1921 the council bought the electricity works that had been built in Onslow Street by a private company. It was one of the most successful of the borough’s enterprises. The profits which it generated enabled rates to be kept comparatively lower than elsewhere.

Guildford Lido opened in 1933.

In 1933 the borough took over the running of the Surrey Archaeological Society’s museum at Castle Arch. In the same year the lido open-air swimming pool was completed beside the bypass.

The outbreak of the Second World War saw many additional administrative tasks piled onto the council staff.

The post-war government, however, merged many of the borough’s local services with county or national organisations.

The Borough Police joined the Surrey Constabulary, the fire brigade combined with the county’s, the council’s power station was combined with the Central Electricity Generating Board, the water undertaking with the water board.

Guildford Civic Hall with the Post Office Old Time Dance Club holding a function.

Guildford Borough Council compensated for these lost functions by providing activities, assembling a philharmonic orchestra, providing the Guildford Civic Hall in 1962 together with a public library in North Street.

Guildford Sports Centre that was in Bedford Road.

Sports centres followed in 1970 and 1993, G Live in 2012 and other initiatives.

Providing for the townspeople over the years leads me to conclude that If there were to be a collective hero of Guildford, it would be Guildford Borough Council. We would miss it.