Step Back in Time for a Tour of St Catherine’s Village

Published on: 18 May, 2012
Updated on: 18 May, 2012

By David Rose

Imagine you are a time traveller and you have arrived at Guildford railway station in about 1906. A handy tour guide meets you off your train and takes you for a walk around the river to St Catherine’s Village and back.

Boating on the River Wey at St Catherine's in the 1900s.

You can get an impression of what it was like back then this coming Thursday evening (May 24) at An Edwardian Tour of St Catherine’s – a slide show presentation taking place at St Catherine’s Village Hall in Chestnut Avenue (off Portsmouth Road) starting at 7.30pm.

I, along with fellow local historians Martin Giles and Mike Bennett, will take you on a virtual tour of the area in the 1900s using an extensive collection of picture postcard images.

We will be explaining a little about the boom in sending picture postcards at that time and giving lots of snippets of local history and features seen in the images as the ‘tour’ goes along.

The sleepy village of St Catherine's over 100 years ago.

Plus, we will also take a fun look at some of the messages that were written on the back of several cards they we feature, a kind of window on what people were up to and saying at the time – then the latest way of quick communication (think of it as the email and Twitter of the time).

Ans there’s more, we will also be comparing some of the views to how they look now – especially ones that are now hard to recognise due to changes in the landscape and subsequent development in the area.

Tickets are £3. No need to book, just come to the village hall where there is plenty of free parking. There will be an interval at which refreshments can be bought.

The evening is being hosted by the St Catherine’s Village Association and is a fundraising event.

For more details call David Rose on 01483 838960, or Martin Giles on 01483 537551.