Where Is This? No.31

Published on: 30 Oct, 2012
Updated on: 5 Nov, 2012

By David Rose

The three who replied to last week’s post were spot on identifying the location of the mystery photo as a view that looks across to Millmead.

As usual, there were some interesting comments. Click here to see last week’s post and the replies at the foot of it.

A clock on a landmark Guildford building. But which one?

No-one identified the clock as being at the Parkway hotel near the Stoke roundabout. Perhaps this week’s, which is located not far from the one at the Parkway, will be easier to identify.

The mystery photo is a rare picture postcard view that dates to about 1910. I came across it in one of the scrapbbooks compiled by the father of my good friend Fred Smith.

Do you recognise this street scene?

Some of the buildings have gone, while others remain. Do you know where it is?

If you know the answers please leave a reply in the box below. All replies will be posted at about the same time next week, along with a new post with the answers to this week’s photo and mystery date, and the next pair of images.

Responses to Where Is This? No.31

Bernard Parke Reply

October 30, 2012 at 4:28 pm

It is in North Street looking to what was the Horse & Groom: the scene of one of the seventies IRA bombings.

The building in the background on the left is still there at the end of Jefferies passage.

It was originally the old manufactory built by Archbishop Abbot to produce the Guildford broad cloth which was dying out at the time.

The clock is on the top of the old AA building at the top of Parkway
Doug Staniforth Reply

October 30, 2012 at 4:53 pm

The picture is taken from the top of North Street, possibly from where TGI Friday’s is looking downhill. Abbot’s Hospital and the old Horse and Groom PH can be seen.

Is there a luxury prize this week e.g. a speedboat or caravan?
Peter Brayne Reply

October 30, 2012 at 5:49 pm

The clock is atop Fanham House on what I always knew as the AA Roundabout.

Is the postcard a view down North Street from where it joins the High Street?
Ray Springer Reply

October 30, 2012 at 8:29 pm

The photo is of the top of North Street.The tall building is what was the Old Cloth Hall, later Clark’s College, now a shop. Protruding from this building is the Crown Inn pub (no longer there) and in the background on the other side of the road is the Horse and Groom (another pub, no longer as such, but the building still there).
Ray Springer Reply

October 30, 2012 at 8:54 pm

The clock is on the Baker-Tilly building on the London Road (the old AA) roundabout
Caroline Reeves Reply

October 31, 2012 at 8:36 am

The clock is on the offices at the AA roundabout – not sure why I still call it that!
The street is North Street, the bend as you come down from the junction with the High Street. The tall building is now the Edinburgh Wool Mill shop, the wall on the left is where the garden of Abbot’s Hospital extension is now, and the building on the right was a pub then which was bombed by the IRA and is now an empty shop.
John Foster Reply

October 31, 2012 at 10:27 am

The mystery photo. Could it be looking down the top of North Street?
Sally Varley Reply

October 31, 2012 at 4:59 pm

This looks like the top of North Street, looking down from the junction with Chertsey Street.
Brian Holt Reply

November 5, 2012 at 8:37 pm

The photo was taken from near the junction of Chertsey Street, looking down North Street.
On the left you can see the top of the old Cloth Hall, The building later became Abbot’s School and is now the Edinburgh Woollen Mill shop.
The building in the distance is where the Horse and Groom Pub was.
The clock which was from the old Fanum House building, London Road, was kept and is now on the new office building on that site, beside the roundabout with the junction of Boxgrove Road.
Dr Trevor G Hill Reply

October 16, 2017 at 7:58 am

Brian Holt is correct about the background building it had been the Archbishop Abbots School. In 1945-7 it was Clark’s College that was a commercial college that taught office skills but also had a small unit for general education.

I was a pupil in the latter and three of the windows were my classrooms. The two in the main building was the Lower GCE class and the one at the top of the tower was the Senior GCE class where final attempts were made to pass the exam. But it had to be passed in at least six subjects taken at the same time and as I would have failed some subjects such as French and especially history I left school and went to work as an office boy. Strange I ended up as an historian! But that was initially thanks to the Open University.