The early history of Guildford, like its name, is Saxon, and, like its name, savours wholly of the arts of peace. Of the “guild,” or mercantile community, which in early times must have been established on the “Ford” of the Wey, nothing is recorded; but from the lingering presence of such names as Burgh Road, Burgh Field, and the Bury, it has been supposed that the earliest Saxon municipality was seated on the west, and not, as now, on the east bank of the river. It has been said that the cause of this was the establishment of the fortress on the east bank, and the consequent want of space for private dwellings. But the fact is probably just the reverse. A fortress, whether Saxon or Norman, would, as a rule, attract inhabitants to place themselves under its protection; and, however spacious may have been the area enclosed—and a little under six acres is the very utmost that has ever been assigned to it—there must always have been ample room between the walls and the river to the north, where the present town is located. If ever the town stood upon the west bank, the balance of probability is in favour of its having been transferred across the stream as soon as the earliest stronghold was established there.
There is reason to believe that the principal thoroughfare of the present town—the High Street—existed in the thirteenth century, and probably some centuries earlier. Guildford is a borough by prescription, and therefore may be of any English date, however early. It has paid the castle the fitting compliment of placing it on the borough shield, which bears “on a mount vert, a castle.” The town stands in three parishes: St. Mary’s, which includes the castle; Trinity; and on the west bank of the river, St. Nicholas.
The recorded history of Guildford has no ignoble beginning. It was the property of Alfred, and is first mentioned in his will, between 872 and 885. “To Ethelwald, my brother’s son,” says the great king, “I bequeath the manor at Godalming and at Gyldeford, and at Steyning.” On the death of Ethelwald, childless, Guildford reverted to the West Saxon crown. In the following century, in 1036, Guildford was the scene of the capture of Alfred, the elder brother of the Confessor, and of the massacre of his Norman attendants. As to the particulars of the event, and as to the parts played in it by Godwin, Queen Emma, and Harold Harefoot, testimonies differ, but all agree in the mention of Guildford as the place to which the Atheling was conveyed.
When the Conqueror marched northward from Canterbury, he went by the Watling Street, through Rochester, to Southwark, and thence ascending to Wallingford, turned the position of Guildford, and placed himself between it and the Thames. Its name even does not occur till late in the reign, and then only in the General Survey. From that survey, it appears that it had remained Crown property. No castle is there mentioned, but that it contained a residence is more than probable, both because it had been so long a royal demesne and from what is stated as to the Atheling’s reception there.
In Domesday Book, as now, Guildford was in the Hundred of Woking. The chief of the royal tenants was Ranulf Flambard, afterwards so celebrated both for his rapacity and his magnificence. He was rector of Godalming, and as such held lands in Guildford, which were afterwards appended to his canonry at Salisbury, to be eventually resumed by Henry II., and attached, with the castle, to the Crown. In 2 Henry II. the king gave Godalming hundred and manor to the church of Sarum, in exchange for the castle of Devizes and Rueles, or Erlestoke, then held by the bishop of that see.
The Conqueror granted a large plot of ground, upon which much of the modern town north of the castle and south of High-street now stands, to a family of the name of Testard, who held it for several generations by a singular tenure recorded in Blount, and are reputed to have built the two churches of St. Mary and Trinity for the use of their tenants—a fact which would go to show that the town was already standing within convenient reach of these churches, of which one is still mainly Norman, and of large area; and, further, makes it improbable that the castle enceinte ever extended far to the north, as the Conqueror was not likely to have granted away any part of the older area. The historians of Surrey estimate the population of Guildford recorded in Domesday at 700 persons.
The internal evidence of the buildings of the castle makes it most probable that the whole of it, keep, hall, and domestic buildings, with its enceinte wall enclosing above five acres, was constructed by Henry II. very early in the reign; but the castle is not mentioned in his reign, nor in that of Richard I. In the Pipe Rolls, the town appears from time to time as contributing to tallage and other imposts, and in 1 Richard I. the park is named in connexion with the canons of Sarum. It also appears from the Rot. Curiæ Regis, 6 Richard I., that an assize was held there. Henry II., probably when he built the castle, seems to have formed a royal park on the opposite side of the river, north of the Hog’s Back, the site of which is still indicated by such names as Guildford Park, Wilderness, Stag Hill, and the Manor Farm, the latter being probably the site of the royal lodge.
Captain James, who conducted the Ordnance Survey of the district and paid great attention to the ancient boundaries, and to whose researches much that concerns the castle is due, is of opinion that the area of the park was on the north, west, and east, conterminous with the parish of St. Nicholas, and that on the south it was bounded by the crest of the Hog’s Back. This tract is said anciently to have contained four manors, but at this time it is composed of three very ancient farms, all within one manor.
King John, whose suspicious nature and feverish activity led him to be always in motion, was at Guildford nineteen times in eleven different years. In 1200 he kept Christmas here and equipped his household in new liveries, which, to the king’s great but dissembled disgust, the Archbishop of Canterbury proceeded to surpass in splendour. In 1202 he was not here; but there is a charge for £6. 5s. 8d. for work done upon the king’s houses, and £1. 6s. 6d. for the transport of wine, and 4s. for the repair of the gaol in the castle. This is the first mention of the castle, and it is curious that it is connected with its use as a prison.
In 1204, John was here 9th October and 7th, 8th, 9th November; and in this year £10 was paid for the repair of the king’s houses, and £40 for the expenses of his chamber. John Fitz-Hugh, sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, 1208, 1210–11–12–13 and 1214, was then made keeper of the park. In 1205, the king was here 9th, 10th, 11th of April; 1st August; and 30th, 31st of October. On the 7th February, two tuns of wine, the king’s prisage, were sent here, and 15th May, two hundred porkers went from hence to Southampton, a supply of flesh to London, and a net to Southwark.