Where Is This? No.217

Published on: 7 Jul, 2016
Updated on: 7 Jul, 2016

By David Rose

Well done to the eagle-eyed readers who left a reply to last week’s images.

Marian Jacks’ shop was just into the upper High Street, close to the Constitution Hall – that itself was once well known as Thorp’s bookshop.

The quirky picture featuring a turret is on a block of apartments on the corner of Haydon Place and Martyr Road.

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

Moving on to this week’s pair…

Where is this? Click to enlarge in a new window.

The vintage picture is a postcard view of a now busy road a few miles out from Guildford in a northerly direction.

The clue is in the building on the left that was once a school.

Do you notice anything unusual about the car and its driver?

Any ideas where this is? Click to enlarge in a new window.

The quirky picture has been sent in from our speedboat prize hopefuls Doug and Bill Stanniforth.

It must be one of the smallest buildings / houses for miles around. Not an easy one to recognise as it is a bit tucked away.

As a clue, it’s off the A281 a few miles from Guildford. Do you where and perhaps what the building is or was?

If you know the answers to this week’s mysteries, please leave a reply in the box below – and include extra details if you have them.

They will be published along with two more mystery images at about the same time next week. Good luck.

Responses to Where Is This? No.217

Jan Messinger Reply

July 7, 2016 at 7:47 am

I think the photo is of A322 Worplesdon by the old Perry Hill School.

The man is driving down the hill on the wrong side of the road.
Andrew Backhurst Reply

July 7, 2016 at 11:08 am

Thank you for publishing this picture of Perry Hill School on the Worplesdon Road as it answers a question for me.

Back in April 1988 I was travelling home late one night with my girlfriend (now wife) asleep in the passenger seat, just beyond where this photo was taken something happened that has stayed with me ever since.

Before that date I was not the type of person to believe in ghosts and ever since I have put what happened down to tiredness and tricks of the mind.

But, walking in front of me crossing the road towards the school was a lady in what could be described as in Victorian dress, pushing an old style pram.

I braked hard but was unable to avoid the lady. In shock, I jumped out to check for the casualty but there was no one there and no damage. My girlfriend now awake understandably demanded an explanation and believe me that took a bit of explaining. Presumably I had seen an apparition.

How does the picture help? The answer is, why would the woman be crossing from right to left? There is a hedge and high bank on the right so she was unlikely to have crossed there. So I will put it to bed – a tick of the mind. Unless you know different?
Charles Graham Reply

July 7, 2016 at 1:22 pm

I think the former school buildings were Perry Hill School on the A322 approaching Worplesdon.
John Lomas Reply

July 7, 2016 at 6:11 pm

The old photo is on Worplesdon Road between the end of Salt Box Road and the Holly Lane roundabout.

Websites Old Maps and Google Maps show a pond on the right-hand side of the road behind and to the right of the photographer.

It is suggested that the car is a c.1902 Panhard et Levassor obviously driving on the right.

Coincidently, if you look at Google Street View from about the same position there is another French car, a Renault, passing along the road, in the opposite direction and on the correct side.

Renault Trucks division is now the owner of Panhard. What goes around comes around.

The school now appears to have been split into a number of cottage style dwellings.
Marian Fripp Reply

July 7, 2016 at 6:41 pm

My goodness – the school I went to. Perry Hill School, Worplesdon. I have that postcard.

The road looked a bit different in the 1950s.

I do remember the tanks roaring by and my mother telling us to keep well in (there was no footpath further up the road). They frightened the life out of me. I also remember what seemed like an endless convoy of army despatch riders on their motorbikes. Haven’t seen any of those since.

The rector of the church was Andrew Elphinstone and he lived opposite the school. He was the Queen’s cousin.

I remember we had to stand outside and wave to her as she arrived to visit him – must have been not long after her coronation.

She was in a black car and most of the back of the top of it was just glass.

I know the Queen often visited her cousin and sometimes went to the church, but I only ever remember once being lined up outside the school to wave to her.

Funny things you remember. What with those tanks roaring up the hill and Laurel and Hardy being chased by a tank in a film once I have been terrified of them ever since.

Can’t help with the car – a bit before my time. Was it steam?

Can’t help with the second picture at all. Will be interesting to find out where it is.
Chris Townsend Reply

July 11, 2016 at 7:56 pm

The postcard view shows Perry Hill School, Worplesdon.

I’ve seen this view before, but without the car, which I suspect was a later addition – on the wrong side of the road. Did it leave any tyre tracks?

The school opened as St Mary’s National School in 1861; in 1882 a School Board was set up and its name changed. It closed in 1977, and has been converted into housing.
Bill and Doug Stanniforth Reply

July 12, 2016 at 10:54 am

Picture 1 is Perry Hill at Worplesdon.

The building on the left is the school.

Note Beaverbrook Giles is his state of the art car!

Picture 2 is a small house behind the Champan Indian restaurant in Bramley.

A Champan is type of Indian boat.
Margaret Cole Reply

July 13, 2016 at 8:15 pm

Looks like Worplesdon Road with Perry Hill School on the left.

The small building escapes me. I even joined Bramley library to find out but it closes on a Wednesday so I’ve given up.
John Lomas Reply

July 16, 2016 at 3:30 pm

I wonder if the tanks Marian Fripp remembers were the tracked Bren Gun carriers which I often used to see passing along Worplesdon Rd from the barracks towards Pitch Place.

They were used by infantry regiments such as The Queen’s.

I think the Queen’s visit, when you lined the road, might have been when, in 1957, she attended the 700th anniversary of the granting of a Royal Charter to Guildford. I know my school was gathered at the bottom of Byrefield Road to watch her go by.
Bernard Parke Reply

July 17, 2016 at 9:01 am

The Queen frequently used this road on her journey back to Windsor.

I remember when our children were very small we were standing out side of the school at Perry Hill as she drove by in a large black saloon car.

As she passed she asked for the interior light to be switched no so that the children could she her more clearly