 |
Godalming Town and City MemoriesSelected extracts and photosReturn to Book | Search for another Book | View all photos for Godalming | Godalming homepage |
13 captions found: Showing captions 1 to 13 | |
 Farncombe, Farncombe Street 1905 (ref. 53233) | Barely visible in the distance are the level crossing and signal box. There has been change here, with development on both sides of the road, though the white building in the centre and the terrace of houses remain. In the branch of Gammons, the tailors and outfitters, Jack Phillips, who was chief wireless telegraphist on the 'Titanic', was born in 1887. He earned more than local fame when he stayed at his post, transmitting the new 'SOS' signal until the ship sank. |  Add your own Memory Add to your Album |
 Godalming, Peperharow Road 1907 (ref. 57621) | This view shows the substantial Victorian houses lining Peperharow Road. Note the water tower on the skyline, centre. Water was pumped up from the valley below; this facilitated the development of Frith Hill. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Godalming, Charterhouse, Saunderites and Gownboys c1955 (ref. G23017) | The statue in the foreground is of Thomas Sutton, founder of Charterhouse. In 1940 a German bomb fell in the open area, Founder's Court, blowing out all the windows but doing no seri- ous structural damage. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Godalming, view from Frith Hill 1898 (ref. 41788) | In its early years the main entrance to Charterhouse was along Peperharow Road, seen here from the water tower on Frith Hill. Development with houses for staff was rapid. Now there is not a single vacant plot. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Godalming, Branksome School 1906 (ref. 57058) | This very substantial bargate stone building - five storeys and a basement - was originally a private house, but became a prep school known as Silvesters, the headmaster's name. Acquired by the Borough and used as offices (gas masks and ration books were collected from here in the war), it was transferred to the regional water authority when local government was reorganised in 1974. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Godalming, Congregational Church 1898 (ref. 41791) | The churchyard at Busbridge is full of memorials, including one to Gertrude Jekyll, the great gardener, who lived nearby at Munstead. But the church is itself a memorial, paid for by Emma Ramsden of Busbridge Hall to commemorate her first husband. Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott RA, it was built in 1866 in bargate stone lined with chalk. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Godalming, Wesleyan Church and School 1903 (ref. 49196) | The Churches Like the Congregationalists before them, the Methodists set up their new church by the river (see 49196). They felt a need to fill 'The Surrey wilderness', an area of under-representation for Methodism, and significant funding came from a fund set up by Hugh Price Hughes: unfortunately, he died before it was finished, and the church was named after him as a memorial. The gardens were laid out to a design by Gertrude Jekyll. The Roman Catholic Church, discounting the 1000 years or so before King Henry VIII separated the Anglican church from it, has a relatively short history in Godalming. From 1899 mass was celebrated in a corrugated iron building in Croft Road, but in 1904 the Godalming Catholic Parish was created and a new priest, Father Hyland, was appointed. His lodgings at 36 Croft Road were opposite an empty hillside and he decided to build a new permanent church there. This was completed in 1906. He was probably its principal benefactor, and when he died in 1950 was buried under the Sanctuary. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Godalming, Pullmans Mill 1910 (ref. 62248) | While wool was pre-eminent, other industries occupied the people. Perhaps originally because of the ready availability locally of oak bark (which is rich in tannin, and produces the best quality leather, though slowly) the curing of leather kept many in work. Pullman's Westbrook Mill produced soft, chamois type leathers; Gay & Co in Ockford Road worked on small skins such as rabbit; and Rea and Fisher's by the railway, the heavier hides. It was said that a blind man arriving by train would know he was in Godalming by the stink! At the end of the 19th century the town was at its most industrial stage. With its leather mills, woollen factories, breweries and quarries, and with a paper mill at Catteshall, it was not a pleasant place. In 1890, a newly appointed County Council public health inspector reported on 'the rush of offensive liquid and solid matter from Rea's tannery', and 'liquid filth of Godalming's slaughterhouses' polluting the river. By 1895 however, he could report that Godalming was one of 24 places with sewage treatment works recently completed or in course of completion. Formerly known as Westbrook and Salgasson Mills, there has been a mill on the site of Pullman's for perhaps a thousand years. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Godalming, Bridge Street c1965 (ref. G23029) | A view of the southeast side of Bridge Street. While many of the buildings on the right remain, several were pulled down in the 1980s and their sites now form part of a supermarket car park. On the credit side, however, the car park wall incorpo- rates excellent modern wrought iron sculptures, and lying as it does opposite the municipal offices, the car park looks like a town square. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Godalming, River Wey Camping Ground 1908 (ref. 59956) | One suspects that Frith's photos of the river shown on these pages may have been commissioned by Mr Leroy to sell to his customers - he appears in this one too, in a Canadian canoe, fashionable at the time. The camping ground was just to the east of the boathouse. Though camping was already enjoyed, Baden-Powell's book 'Scouting for boys' was published in the same year, and may have increased its popularity. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Godalming, the Old Forge Pound Lane 1910 (ref. 62243) | During the coaching era the need to re-shoe horses must have made the blacksmith essential. The forge in Godalming was situated very centrally, in Pound Lane, where Record Corner is now. In the 1860s the smith added to his business by opening a beerhouse, appropriately named the Three Horseshoes, next to the forge. Also nearby was a whitesmith, Mr H Lewer who was also a gasfitter and electrician. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Godalming, Church Street 1906 (ref. 57049) | In Edwardian days cyclists frequented Godalming, especially at weekends. There was a demand for teashops, and Church Street had three - one is on the left here. Also very popular was the sending of picture postcards, which served people much as the telephone does today - Eatons paper shop, on the left, claimed to have the largest selection. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Godalming, Church Street 1906 (ref. 57050) | Three of Church Street's five pubs are in this photo - the Corn Meter extreme left, the Star centre left, and the Live and Let Live just beyond the archway on the right. The arch led to the rear of the Angel Hotel yard, owned at that time by John Jasper Taylor, who also had a temperance hotel, Deanery House, further down Church Street. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
