A HISTORY OF SURREY 



found on Broad Street Common in the neighbourhood. 

 It was a royal possession under Alfred, and is named 

 in his will. It was the scene in 1036 of the arrest of 

 the Etheling Alfred by Earl Godwine. Alfred had 

 sailed from Wissant to the coast of Kent, and was 

 travelling to Winchester to join his mother, Emma. 

 His way was evidently the great east and west road 

 on the chalk dowi s, and if Geoffrey Gaimar is correct 

 he had passed through Guildford and was stopped on 

 Guildown, and brought back into Guildford, where 

 apparently the decimation of his followers was made. 

 The castle is not mentioned in connexion with the 

 story, as is erroneously asserted by many writers. 

 The only building in Guildford which might possibly 

 be contemporaneous with the event is the lower part 

 of the tower of St. Mary's Church, which is Anglo- 

 Saxon, but more likely of the reign of Edward the 

 Confessor. Guildford was the seat of a mint under 

 the Anglo-Saxon kings. Coins struck at Guildford 

 of the kings Ethelred the, Unready, Cnut, Hardicnut, 

 Edward the Confessor, Harold, and William I, have 

 been found. 



The greater part of St. Nicholas was an extensive 

 country parish on the outskirts of Guildford and was in 

 Godalming Hundred (q.v.). The part outside the 

 borough is called Arlington as early as 1 664.' The 

 immediate vicinity of the west end of the bridge 

 was, however, in Guildford borough from an un- 

 known date, and may be the holding in Guildford 

 of the church of Salisbury mentioned in the charter 

 of Henry II. 4 



The village of Stoke has become a northern suburb 

 of Guildford, and little remains to' show what it was 

 once like. West of the church is a small plain half- 

 timber building with red brick filling, probably of 

 i jth-century date. Except for this and one or two 

 buildings of an even plainer nature the old buildings 

 have been replaced by modern. The church is 

 situated on the road to Woking, which forms the 

 principal axis of the place, and is within the boun- 

 daries of Stoke Park. On the south, the road running 

 north and south, Stoke merges imperceptibly into the 

 streets of Guildford. The appearance of the village in 

 the bottom of the valley of the Wey has a degree of 

 picturesqueness unusual in so new a place, on account 

 of the fine timber, and Stoke Park is also well 

 wooded. 



Except the castle, which will 

 be noticed later, perhaps the 

 most important building in 

 Guildford from the archaeolo- 

 gical point of view is TR1N1TT 

 HOSPITAL, otherwise known 

 as ABBOT'S HOSPITAL. It 

 stands at the top of the High 

 Street on the north side, on 

 the site of an old inn, ' the 

 White Horse.' It was founded 

 by Archbishop Abbot, a native 

 of Guildford, for decayed towns- 

 folk. The hospital consists of four sides built about 

 a courtyard and placed approximately to the four 

 points of the compass. It is constructed of red brick 

 with some rubbed and moulded work, and with 

 dressings originally of chalk but now almost en- 

 tirely replaced in stone. Accommodation is provided 



ABBOT. Gules a the- 

 veron between three pears 

 or. 



for twelve brethren, ten sisters, the master, and a 

 nurse, and there is a chapel, common rooms, offices, 

 &c. The whole building is of early l/th-century 

 date, and there have been no important structural 

 alterations. The first stone was laid in 1619, and the 

 hospital was incorporated as the Master and Brethren 

 of the Hospital of the Blessed Trinity in Guildford 

 in 1622. The statutes were completed in 1629. 

 They are closely modelled on those of Whitgift's 

 Hospital at Croydon. Whitgift had been brought up 

 as a child in a monastery before the Dissolution, 6 and 

 the foundation represents the post-Reformation evolu- 

 tion of the monastic ideal, at a time when only the 

 old and infirm needed the shelter of an asylum. 

 The foundation was for twelve brethren and eight 

 sisters, over sixty years of age, unmarried, natives of 

 Guildford or resident for twenty years. There was a 

 master, also a native of Guildford or resident for twenty 

 years, except in the case of a rector of Holy Trinity, 

 who might be master without these qualifications. In 

 the case of a vacancy an unmarried rector might take 

 the office, otherwise the mastership was filled up by 

 election by governors and the two elder brethren. If 

 they failed to elect it lapsed to the archbishop, on his 

 failure it went to the Bishop of Winchester, to the 

 heirs of Sir George More of Loseley, and to 

 the original electors successively. The endowment 

 was increased by Mr. Thomas Jackman of Guildford 

 in 1785. The original scheme of the archbishop 

 included a further endowment for reviving manu- 

 factures in the town, and his brethren and sisters 

 were to wear gowns of blue Guildford cloth. But 

 the decaying cloth manufacture was not revived by the 

 encouragement. By a decree in Chancery, 3 July 1656, 

 the money was ordered to be distributed among poor 

 tradesmen of the town. As this naturally had a bad 

 result, the poor tradesmen in receipt of the outdoor 

 relief living idly, another decree was obtained after 

 Mr. Jackman's benefaction had been made, on 

 14 December 1785, whereby half only was to be 

 used in this way, and the other half added to 

 Mr. Jackman's gift to support four more poor 

 sisters. The moiety still devoted to pauperizing 

 was diverted in 1855 and added to the endowment 

 of Thomas Baker's Blue Coat School, founded by him 

 in 1 5 79, which had been suspended for many years. 

 The school was called Archbishop Abbot's School. It 

 was formerly carried on in the tower of Holy Trinity 

 Church, now in buildings in North Street. The cor- 

 porate life of the hospital has much decayed. The in- 

 mates meet now only in chapel, but live in their own 

 rooms. The common rooms are used for parish and 

 other meetings. There are some pictures of no great 

 merit ; a portrait of Archbishop Abbot is the most 

 valuable, but there is also a curious view of Wotton 

 House as it was in John Evelyn's lifetime, and of 

 Leith Hill behind it with a semaphore upon it. The 

 archbishop is said to have been the son of a poor 

 clothier, and to have been born in a house near the 

 bridge in St. Nicholas's parish.* His brother Robert 

 became Bishop of Salisbury, his brother Maurice a 

 knight and Lord Mayor. They were all educated at 

 Guildford School. It is questionable, however, 

 whether his father was in such a humble condition as 

 is usually said. The archbishop's mother, Alice March, 

 was daughter of a gentleman of coat-armour, and his 



' In the first extant county rate. 



< Reg. of St. Osmund (Roll) Ser.), i, zoj. 



* Diet. Nat. Blag. 

 S4 8 



6 Parish register* of St. Nicholas con- 

 tain his baptism. 



