On the Way to Godalming from Haslemere.
Godalming High Street has not kept the grace of Guildford, nor had it ever the width and the air of Epsom or Farnham, but it has more than one building of distinction, and its links with the past are in old inns, timbered stories and forgotten courts. The White Hart still juts its wooden beams over the pavement; the King's Arms, a later building, has a square-set front which has watched many coaches jangle off to Portsmouth. The King's Arms has had more than one king as a guest. The Emperor Alexander I of Russia and King Frederick William of Prussia dined there in the year before Waterloo; a more famous and a more greedy monarch who knew the King's Arms was Peter the Great in the days of Queen Anne. He had a suite of twenty with him, and the record of his bill of fare for the day is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. I have not seen it, but the historians who have supply abounding details. Peter and his twenty had for breakfast besides side-dishes, half a sheep, half a lamb, ten pullets, a dozen chickens, seven dozen eggs and something over a quart apiece of mulled wine, with a gallon or so of brandy. Dinner was a better meal; three stone of ribs of beef was the main dish, with a sheep, a lamb, and a couple of joints of veal to help it out; capons and rabbits tempted the jaded, and four dozen of sack and wine made up for what was lacking at breakfast.
The Town Hall, Godalming.
Besides the inns, two old houses in particular set their mark on the High Street. One is dated 1663; both are of rich brickwork, almost extravagantly ornate with ledges, patterned courses, elaborate parapets and casements. The unhappy addition is the paint. If they had never been painted, or if the paint could be done away with, the pattern would take on twice its charm. But that is the main regret for all Godalming. If the High Street could have its false fronts pulled down, and all its old timber and brick shown to the road, it would fascinate as Guildford does. It would be worth the town's while to spend money to show what it possesses of older centuries. But that is a frequent reflection in other towns.
Timbered House in the Market Place, Godalming.
One memory of the past has survived the attacks of Godalming's newest and noisiest citizens. The little Town Hall, built squarely in the middle of the road at the west end of the High Street on the site of an older building, has been threatened by a section (I am told) of Godalming tradesmen for many years, and would tremble still, if it were not so solidly built of good Georgian brick. It is said to be awkward for motor traffic, to be not handsome, and generally to be out of date and in the way. As to its looks, it belongs to 1814, and is plain and simple enough, but it carries a graceful clock tower and a copper cupola, and its destruction is not to be thought of. The day has gone for wanton throwing into the past what the past has left, and the little Town Hall will continue to slow down the traffic and draw visitors to the High Street, it is to be hoped, for many years to come. The town corporation have done better for themselves than to pull down the old Town Hall. They have set up some modern buildings for town business, which for good work in good material are as excellent a modern addition as could have been made to any old town.
Godalming's history, like Guildford's and Wonersh's, has been largely the history of the wool industry. It was Godalming's careless trust in the stability of its contractor, Samuel Vassall, which dealt the first and shrewdest blow at its business, as we saw at Guildford. But Godalming kept its head higher than the other two for a time. In Bowen's map of Surrey, drawn in 1749, the printer has put a little side-note explaining Godalming's capabilities to the curious, and you read that for the manufacture of clothing, "it is the most considerable town in the county. The sorts are mixed Kerseys, and Blue ones, for the Canary Islands, which for their Colours, can't be matched in any other Part of England." But that is not all; Bowen adds an afterthought—"Here is plenty of good fish, especially Pykes. Here are two or three Paper Mills, and three Corn Mills." So Godalming had food and clothing too. She still markets woollen goods, but the pykes, I fear, gave out long ago. Men fish in the Wey at Godalming as they fish at Guildford and Weybridge, but they seldom catch a pyke, I know, for I have watched them.