CHAPTER XVI 



GODALMING 



Godalming was a very quiet, almost sleepy, little town, from 

 the time when coaching was killed by the railways up to 

 about the year 1860. 



The building of the Charterhouse School, finished in 

 1872, did much to awaken it, and to raise the value of 

 land in the immediate neighbourhood for building. It 

 also gave a lively impetus to trade ; and Godalming is now 

 as flourishing and commercially active a town as any of 

 its size in the south of England. About the same time, 

 too, the neighbouring country Avas, one may say, dis- 

 covered, and land values rose largely, though not as yet 

 to their present very high rate. Godalming's busy little 

 High Street has lost somewhat of its older character, 

 yet enough remains — and long may it be preserved — to 

 remind one of its life and history for the past three 

 centuries and even more. 



What was most apparent, before the change to its 

 present vitality, was a certain air or atmosphere of the 

 older life of the coaching days. 



The greater part of the north side of Bridge Street 

 was still occupied by a range of old half-timbered buildings 

 dating at least from Stuart times. Some would be of 

 much greater antiquity, if the name ' King John's Palace,' 

 which hung about one of them, that had a quadrangle 

 within, could claim historical accuracy. 



The name ' Bridge Street ' is itself modern, for there 



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