Where is This? No.235

Published on: 17 Nov, 2016
Updated on: 17 Nov, 2016

By David Rose

Men of the Old Contemptible’s association were marching down Tunsgate, as seen in last week’s mystery vintage picture.

All the replies were correct. And in answer to Dave Middleton in his comment, Pte ‘Chuck’ Sheffield is indeed featured in a Pathé news reel that Dave gives a link to.

Click here for last week’s post and then click on the link Dave supplied, it’s worth a look.

Pte ‘Chuck’ Sheffield was a regular soldier of the Queen’s regiment. And as I wrote last week, when it should have been time for him to leave the army it allowed him stay on at Stoughton Barracks – eveidently as he had no family or home to go to.

I have been told that he is buried in Stoke New Cemetery, Stoughton Road. His grave is near the railway line end. I will have to investigate one of these days!

Also lots of comments about the shops that were once in Tunsgate – so have a read of the replies.

Artwork at the entrance to Northmead Junior School in Grange Road, was last week’s quirky picture.

The Staniforth brothers said I should know as I went there. My time was one year in 1971. This was after it had ceased to be Northmead Boys School and was a temporary annexe for first-year pupils before they went on to the newly built Guildford CofE School in Larch Avenue – now the new-build Christ’s College.

Northmead then became a middle school (I think), but when the schools system was yet again changed it became what it is today, a junior school.

Interesting that Aubrey Lehay in his comment about Northmead Boys School said that when he was there he asked to take cookery lessons at Northmead Girls’ School on the opposite side of the road.

When at the annexe, I and some rowdy mates complained about the never-ending filing of bits of steel we seemed to always have to do in metalwork and asked to do sewing or cookery instead. We did do a bit of cooking as it happens, but they called it home economics. It’s called food technology in schools these days, while metalwork and woodwork comes under the title of product design – using resistant materials!

Where is this pub in a village outside Guildford. Is it still there? Click to enlarge in a new window.

On to this week’s mystery vintage picture and a pub a few miles from Guildford. You can see the name of it, so no more clues.

The photo was taken by the late Mark Sturley who did some important research into the area’s breweries and pubs, writing two books on the subject. He took this photo for his second book (published in 1995) that featured hostelries outside the town area.

His pubs and breweries photo archive was recently passed on to Ben Darnton who hosts the Guildford Past & Present Facebook page. Ben has copied all the pictures for use and has kindly deposited the originals with me for safe keeping.

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

This week’s quirky picture is something that can bee seen from a few places in Guildford when on high ground. This photo, with the zoom full on on my camera, was taken from ‘reservoir hill’ – a piece of open ground that borders part of Woodside Road in Westborough.

The ‘thing’ can also be seen when travelling down the A3 towards Guildford at the section with roughly Manor Farm off to the left and just before the start of Onslow Village to the right. Of course, only look for it if you are a passenger on that stretch of road – too dangerous for drivers to take their eyes off the cars in front and behind.

If I give any clues, it will give its identity away – just get your thinking caps on.

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.

Responses to Where is This? No.235

Dave Middleton Reply

November 18, 2016 at 11:30 am

The pub was the Anchor at Normandy, once the oldest pub in the village, but demolished to make way for housing in 2000.

Not positive about the quirky picture, but I’ll take a punt at the Surrey Satellite Technology Centre over on the research park by the RSCH.
Andrew Backhurst Reply

November 18, 2016 at 1:02 pm

The pub in question is the Anchor in Normandy. Sadly long gone but was where I, along with many Normandians, learned to drink. It was a Gales pub during the late 70s/early 80s and served a fine HSB.
Brian Holt Reply

November 20, 2016 at 7:34 pm

The Anchor pub Normandy, now sadly defunct. It was probably Normandy’s oldest pub and the place around which the original hamlet and community of Normandy centred.

It is mentioned as early as 1664 in the records of the manor of Cleygate when it was Dorothy Lovell’s cottage. She sold it to William Chewter, and when William died his widow sold it to Stephen Norris.

The first reference to the Anchor alehouse is in 1720 when Stephen was living there. By 1722 it had descended to his son Stephen Norris, who sold it in 1730 to Thomas Bicknell, a victualler of Ash.

It was owned by Thomas, then his son Thomas and then his grandson Thomas until 1820, when Thomas Bicknell sold it to John Knight, brewer of Farnham, for £512-10s.

Hunt meets were held at the Anchor regularly up to 1930s. Before the war there was a big tree in front of the pub where children played while their parents were inside.

By the 1980s, for the children, there was a double-decker bus, formerly owned by Brighton Corporation, in the beer garden. The bus had a slide from the upper deck to the ground serving as a amusement.

Tradition of family occupancy continued, and for 65 years from the turn of the century the landlord was James Hutchins, followed by his son Frank. When Frank and Winifred Hutchins retired in 1965, the pattern of stability ended and over the next 30 years there was at least six different occupiers, and when the landlords went into liquidation in 1993 the pub closed.

Although it reopened again next year as a free house, it was not long before the Anchor closed again for good. It was boarded up, then demolished and replaced with houses.

Picture No 2: In the distance the white building is Clandon House, this is the sheeting protecting the restoration work, below are the Bushy Hill Estate houses.

The crane is at the bottom of Boxgrove Road on the old AA office site.

Not sure about the car park at the bottom, but think its Allianz Insurance building, Ladymead.
- Andrew Backhurst Reply
  
  November 25, 2016 at 11:09 am
  
  The bus that Brian Holt writes of was given to the then landlord of The Anchor, Normandy by my father Malcolm Backhurst, a regular drinker at the pub.
  
  After the double-decker’s service with the Brighton Corporation it’s next claim to fame was as one of the buses used by the Grunwick strikers during the two year industrial dispute. It was then purchased by a group of hippies who parked it in our yard at Strawberry Farm, Normandy for a monthly rent.
  
  They had planned to do a Cliff Richard style tour around Europe but sadly that never happened. After a time the monthly rent failed to show and the bus stayed parked up, gathering dust and weeds.
  
  A number of years passed and the owners failed to show, so in the late 1980s it took the short journey to The Anchor and was used as a play bus. If the bus has a story beyond its life at The Anchor I don’t know it but there is every chance it is still around to this day.
Bill and Doug Stanniforth Reply

November 22, 2016 at 4:59 pm

The pub was at Normandy, the landlord was Paul and his wife’s name was Lynn.

Ray “Bonza” Bradman, who was the sound man for the Tremeloes, lived in the house next door. We’re pretty sure Sammy Rat has never played at the pub.

We’re not sure about the quirky photo but we think it maybe Guildford Spectrum. The building near the pylon is the Alianz HQ in Ladymead.

[David Rose: no, my band Sammy Rat’s Big Big Blues band never played that one. But we played a lot of pubs in the late 1980s and early 1990s!]
Steve Grove Reply

November 22, 2016 at 7:05 pm

The Anchor pub was in Normandy near to the Duke of Normandy pub on the Guildford Road.

It was demolished sometime, I believe, in the late 80s/early 90s and was where Anchor Close is now – a cul-de-sac of houses.

The pub had a skittles alley on the right-hand end and an old double-decker bus in the garden.
Chris Townsend Reply

November 23, 2016 at 5:51 pm

The pub is the Anchor at Normandy, demolished in 2000 and replaced by housing named Anchor Close. The excellent Normandy Historians website has photos and lots of info’ here:
http://normandyhistorians.co.uk/pubs.html#anchor43705

My guess for the quirky picture is the new vet school on the Manor Park campus; whatever it is, it certainly ruins the view towards the Hog’s Back.
Margaret Cole Reply

November 23, 2016 at 6:32 pm

The pub picture show the Anchor Normandy, a local of my husband who played darts there for a few years early 1960s.

It’s a shame it has disappeared. It’s now Anchor Close with ordinary dwellings.

Not a clue on second one, maybe equestrian centre? Who knows?