Godalming


Godalming is a historic market town, civil parish and administrative centre of the Borough of Waverley in Surrey, England, SSW of Guildford. The town traverses the banks of the River Wey in the Greensand Ridge - a hilly, heavily wooded part of the outer London commuter belt and Green Belt. In 1881, it became the first place in the world to have a public electricity supply and electric street lighting.
Godalming is regarded as an expensive residential town, partly due to its visual appeal, favourable transport links and high proportion of private housing. In 2006 it was ranked the UK's third most desirable property hotspot, and in 2007 it was voted the fourth best area of the UK in which to live. The borough of Waverley, which includes Godalming, was judged in 2013 to have the highest quality of life in Great Britain, and in 2016 to be the most prosperous place in the UK.
Godalming is southwest of London and shares a three-way twinning arrangement with the towns of Joigny in France and Mayen in Germany. Friendship links are in place with the US state of Georgia and with Moscow. James Oglethorpe of Godalming was the founder of the colony of Georgia.

History

Pre-1300

The town has existed since Saxon times, and probably earlier. It is mentioned in the will of King Alfred the Great in 899 and the name itself has Saxon origins, 'Godhelms Ingus' roughly translated as "the family of Godhelm", and probably referring to one of the first lords of the manor.
Godalming grew in size because its location is roughly halfway between Portsmouth and London, which encouraged traders to set up stalls and inns for travellers to buy from and rest in.
Godalming Parish Church has an early Saxon chancel and a Norman tower.
Godalming appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Godelminge. It was held by William the Conqueror. Its domesday assets were: 2 churches worth 12s, 3 mills worth £2 1s 8d, 25 ploughs, of meadow, woodland worth 103 hogs. It rendered £34. Its population was roughly 400 people. At the time, its manor belonged to the King, but a few hundred years later, ownership transferred to the Bishop of Salisbury, under a charter granted by King Edward I of England.

1300–1800

In the year 1300, the town was granted the right to hold a weekly market and an annual fair. Its major industry at the time was woollen cloth, which contributed to Godalming’s prosperity over the next few centuries, until a sudden decline in the 17th century. Instead, its people applied their skills to the latest knitting and weaving technology and began producing stockings in a variety of materials, and later to leatherwork.
A willingness to adapt from one industry to another meant that Godalming continued to thrive. For example, papermaking was adopted in the 17th century, and paper was still manufactured there in the 20th century. The quarrying of Bargate stone also provided an important source of income, as did passing trade - Godalming was a popular stopping point for stagecoaches and the Mail coach between Portsmouth and London. In 1764, trade received an additional boost when early canalisation of the river took place, linking the town to Guildford, and from there to the River Thames and London on the Wey and Godalming Navigations.
In 1726 a Godalming maidservant called Mary Toft hoaxed the town into believing that she had given birth to rabbits. The foremost doctors of the day came to witness the freak event and for a brief time the story caused a national sensation. Eventually Toft was found out after a porter was caught smuggling a dead rabbit into her chamber, she confessed to inserting at least 16 rabbits into herself and faking their birth. Mary Toft died and was buried in Godalming in 1763.
Court testimony of 1764 attests to how purchasing one of the mills in Godalming and dealing in corn and flour brought a substantial income.

From 1800

So successful was Godalming that in the early 19th century it was considerably larger than Guildford, and by 1851 the population had passed 6,500. Already, it was becoming a popular residence for commuters, for it had been connected to London by railway in 1849 and to Portsmouth in 1859. Today the town is served by Godalming railway station on the Portsmouth Direct Line. The first mayor of Godalming was Henry Marshall.

Public electricity supply

Godalming came to world attention in September 1881, when it became the first town in the world to have installed a public electricity supply. It was Calder & Barnet who installed a Siemens AC Alternator and dynamo which were powered by a waterwheel, at Westbrook Mill, on the River Wey. There were a number of supply cables, some of which were laid in the gutters, that fed seven arc lights and 34 Swan incandescent lights. Floods in late 1881 caused problems and in the end Calder & Barnet withdrew from the contract. It was taken over by Siemens. Under Siemens the supply system grew and a number of technical problems were solved. But later on in 1884 the whole town reverted to gas lighting as Siemens failed to tender for a contract to light the town. This was due to a survey they undertook in the town that failed to provide adequate support to make the business viable. Siemens had also lost money on the scheme in the early years, but was prepared to stay on in order to gain experience. Electricity returned to the town in 1904.

Geography

Guildford is NNE and London is northeast of Godalming; the Weald, a remnant forest of small wooded settlements adjoins the town to the southwest and the North Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is north of the town centre.
The next railway stations up and down the line are at Farncombe, which benefits from a single residential street connection to Godalming across a strip of Lammas lands, however is still part of the town and Milford, which is separated by a green buffer and so is a less dependent settlement in terms of shopping and education.

Elevations, geology and soil

Elevations vary between: 36 m AOD by the Guildford Road Rugby Union ground and Broadwater lake at the River Wey's exit from Godalming into Peasmarsh, Shalford; to 106 m AOD where Quarter Mile meets Hambledon Road in the south east; similarly Hurtmore Road which is also residential, Upper Green/Hurtmore is at 102 m AOD; immediately north and south of the town centre steep hills reach 95 m AOD from 40-45m AOD in the town centre itself.
In terms of rock and mineral structure, the soil is Gault Clay superimposed by Upper Greensand, Claygate Beds and Bagshot Sands; throughout the narrow east-west middle valley of Godalming and its wide northeast suburbs the rocky head geological deposit is also found; angular pieces of rock and soil derived locally from the extensive frost-shattering of rocks and the subsequent movement of this material down valley slopes.
Soil is mostly, i.e. on the upper slopes of Godalming slightly acid only freely draining sandy soil, whereas in the lower parts mentioned above it is slowly permeable loamy/clayey slightly acid but base-rich soil, which area includes the town centre itself.

Local government

, headquartered in Kingston, elected every four years, has two councillors from Godalming. Peter Martin, representative of Godalming South, Milford and Witley lives in Godalming.
The town is divided into five wards; Binscombe, Central and Ockford, Charterhouse, Farncombe and Catteshall, and Holloway. Godalming has 10 representatives governing the Borough of Waverley, headquartered in Godalming:

Civil parish

See

Landmarks

Godalming Town Council's area has 138 listed buildings, of which 82 are within the town centre itself, and 18 of which are monuments. These include Tudor timber framed buildings, 17th-century brickwork buildings and a wide selection of other buildings. One of its most famous landmarks is 'The Pepperpot' which is Godalming's old town hall.
Significant buildings in the town include Edwin Lutyens's Grade II* listed Red House, and an English public school, Charterhouse, which stands from the town centre, on the top of Charterhouse Hill, which is half-separated from Frith Hill by a steep ravine. Its main building is Grade II listed and the chapel, built by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, is Grade II* listed.
Winkworth Arboretum, with its collection of rare trees and shrubs, is a few miles to the south.

Godalming Parish Church

, is a Grade I listed building.

Town halls

The 19th century town hall, nicknamed 'the Pepperpot' due to its cupola, is a distinctive octagonal building on the High Street. Its unique design means has become emblematic of the town. Built in 1814, the Town Hall replaced the medieval "Old Market House" that had occupied the site since the early Middle Ages. It was in this Market House that the local Hundred Court met and discussed matters of local importance for more than a thousand years. The upstairs rooms continued to be used for civic gatherings until 1908. The Pepperpot later housed the town museum, and continues to be used as a public function room. The arched area beneath the building, at street level, has been used as a marketplace. The successor town hall is called Godalming Borough Hall and has its main frontage on Bridge Street.

Jack Phillips memorial cloister and gardens

The radio operator of RMS Titanic, Jack Phillips, was born and lived in Farncombe, worked in Godalming and at sea. He is famed for remaining at his post, sending repeated distress calls, until the ship sank. Phillips is commemorated in a number of ways around the town, including a section of Godalming Museum, a memorial fountain, cloister and garden walk near the church, and a Wetherspoons-chain public house named in his honour.

Transport

Rail

is on the Portsmouth Direct Line between London Waterloo and Portsmouth, served by South Western Railway. The station has been council-recognised for its floral decorations including 10 hanging baskets.

Road

Roads running through, or close to, Godalming are:
The town is served by a bus network connecting the town centre with the main residential areas. These are provided by Arriva Southern Counties, Stagecoach South and Buses Excetera.
A community transport service is provided by "Hoppa". Chaired through its difficult early days by Brian Richards, Waverley Hoppa has burgeoned into a low-price provider of minibus and MPV personalised transport for the elderly, the disabled, the young and others for whom simply getting from where they are to where they want to be is a problem.

Air

Godalming lies approximately equidistant,, from Heathrow and Gatwick, the two major commercial international airports in South East England. Fairoaks and Farnborough are the closest airports but no scheduled services are available from either.

Waterways

The Godalming Navigation terminates at the Bridge Road bridge by the United Church.

Localities

People live in the town centre and adjoining named neighbourhoods included within the Town: east Catteshall; west Aaron's Hill and Ockford Ridge; north: Farncombe, Charterhouse and Frith Hill; south: Holloway Hill, Busbridge and Crownpits. Sometimes Milford is classed as a suburb of Godalming.
In general the southern network of roads towards Busbridge and western network of roads towards Hurtmore, by Charterhouse School are the two neighbourhoods with the highest average price of housing in the Godalming area.

Catteshall

Catteshall is the directly attached neighbourhood and commercial estate in the east of Godalming civil parish, formerly a hamlet between the town of Godalming and the villages of Unstead and Thorncombe Street. Catteshall Manor is at the top of the hill and the former Ram Cider House is at the bottom. The cider house is named after a ram pump which pumps water from a natural spring up the hill. The hamlet's name is thought to come from Gattes Hill to derive from "a gate to the hill". Two buildings are listed: Ram Cider House and Catteshall Grange as the manor house is on the higher land which is now in Busbridge Civil Parish.
Catteshall is also home to a number of high tech industries, such as Cloud Computing Provider MTI Technology, Business Data Specialists The Content Group, & the new Surrey Data Park, home to Aegis Data Centre.

Frith Hill

Immediately north of the Lammas lands, Frith Hill is a hillside and hilltop residential neighbourhood that contains seven listed residential buildings. A converted water tower, liked by architectural expert Nicholas Pevsner, two small cemetery chapels, railings and gates form three separate Grade II listings, which are on the town-side hill slope.

The Red House, Frith Hill

At a grade higher compared with all the other listed buildings in Frith Hill, the Red House was built in 1899 by architect Edwin Lutyens, using Flemish bond brickwork, for a retired clergyman and school housemaster for Charterhouse School away: "an early seminal work by Lutyens".

Binscombe

Binscombe with a small village centre, without a parade of shops, has a neat grid of surrounding housing which is contiguous with Farncombe's on the north side of Godalming. A church is in the centre of the residential area; Binscombe Church, built in 1969. Whilst within the town, the traditional village of Compton is closer than the town centre to most of Binscombe.

Education

Educational establishments in Godalming include:

Independent schools

Numbers in brackets indicate the % of pupils achieving 5 A-C GCSEs in total and then including the key subjects of maths and English.
All primary schools in Godalming are coeducational. Infant schools cover the age range 4–7, junior schools cover 8–11.
The figures shown in brackets are VA value added a measure of how pupils' performance has improved, and AGG aggregate score the sum of the percentages of pupils achieving the expected levels in English, maths and science.

Places of worship

Godalming's Roman Catholic, Quaker, and Unitarian places of worship, former Congregational chapel, and former Salvation Army hall are all Grade II listed buildings. Godalming currently contains a number of churches from different denominations:
Godalming is home to The National Autistic Society resource centre for the south east and the NAS horizons day centre.

Town lottery

The Godalming Town Lottery "GOLO" was launched in Godalming on 1 November 2008, by the Go-Godalming Association, a member of the Lotteries Council. Tickets, sold at local shops and pubs, cost £1 and the draw takes place on the last Saturday of every month. The first one was on Godalming Town Day, 29 November 2008, at the Pepperpot. It is considered to be the first town lottery of its kind. There are 17 prizes, ranging from £500 to £10. Profits are donated to local causes, beginning with the Bandstand roof fund. GOLO is a community lottery for the Godalming Community. The first independent town lottery in the country has now turned three years old. GOLO has given away more than £18,000 to local causes and more than £30,000 in cash prizes. To celebrate, GOLO launched another easy way to buy GOLOs each month—Standing Orders.

Shopping

In a charter dated 7 June 1300, King Edward I granted the Bishop of Salisbury the right to hold a weekly market and an annual fair in the town. Godalming remains a typical English market town, with a market every Friday and a selection of independent and national retailers selling clothing for all ages, shoes, watches, jewellery, fine art, books, gifts, stationery, music, guitars, computers, photography, pine furniture, antiques, flowers, hardware, food of all sorts, and household goods. In addition there are the ubiquitous banks, building societies, estate agents, travel agents, solicitors, cobblers, accountants, employment agencies and charity shops. There are several pubs, restaurants and cafes, occasional visiting French and Italian markets, and an annual Godalming Food Festival.

In popular culture

In Charles Dickens’ novel Nicholas Nickleby, Nicholas and Smike walk to Godalming from London on their way to Portsmouth, and stay the night: ‘To Godalming they came at last, and here they bargained for two humble beds, and slept soundly.’
Owing to its typically English appearance, attractive shop fronts and streets, the town has often been used as a backdrop for the shooting of films and television programmes. In February 2006, High Street and Church Street, which runs from the Pepperpot to the parish church, were used in the production of The Holiday.
When James John Hissey, the English topographer and travel writer, passed through the town at the turn of the twentieth century, he was not very complimentary about the town, saying:
We reached the town of Godalming. I had an ideahow I came about it I cannot saythat Godalming was a pleasant and picturesque town; my drive through it effectually got rid of that idea. I saw nothing pleasant or picturesque about it, even allowing for the determined and depressing drizzle that dulled the outlook. Perhaps I saw things crookedy on that day, but to me, certainly, Godalming looked a one-streeted affair of commonplace houses and shops, with not even a feature amongst the lot worth noticing, not even its old market-house.

Demography and housing

The average level of accommodation in the region composed of detached houses was 28%, the average that was apartments was 22.6%.
Output areaPopulationHouseholds% Owned outright% Owned with a loanhectares
21,8048,954 32.8%36.0%968

The proportion of households in the civil parish who owned their home outright compares to the regional average of 35.1%. The proportion who owned their home with a loan compares to the regional average of 32.5%. The remaining % is made up of rented dwellings.

Notable people

Those born here include: James Oglethorpe, founder of the colony of Georgia; Julius Caesar, cricketer; Aldous Huxley, writer; Nick Clarke, radio journalist and presenter; Stephen Milligan, journalist and politician; and Mick Mills, footballer.
The architect Sir Edwin Lutyens began work in 1896 on a house at Munstead Wood, Godalming, for the garden designer Gertrude Jekyll. She died in 1932 and is buried in the churchyard of Busbridge Church, Godalming, next to her brother.
In the 19th century, judge James Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance lived at Eashing Park, Godalming. Major Cyril Raikes MC lived here. Vere Monckton-Arundell, Viscountess Galway was born here in 1859.
In the 20th century, George Mallory, who later made a fatal attempt to scale Mount Everest, taught at Charterhouse School, and then lived in the town after marrying Ruth Turner. He died during the 1924 attempt, but Ruth and their three children remained in the area.
W. H. C. Romanis eminent surgeon and medical author.
The composer and music critic Peter Warlock is buried in Godalming.
In the late 20th century, actor Terry-Thomas, comedic actor Terry Scott, actor Christopher Timothy and the singer Alvin Stardust resided in the town.
The band Genesis was formed in 1967 by Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks while they were pupils at Charterhouse School.
Actor Sam Worthington was born in Godalming in 1976, before moving to Australia at a young age.
Billy Dainty a British comedian, dancer, physical comedian and pantomime and television star lived in Godalming. He died on 19 November 1986, aged 59, of prostate cancer at his home, Cobblers, in Godalming.
Significant people currently living in the town include the actress Rachel Hurd-Wood, Great Britain field hockey player Dan Fox, Scottish international footballer John Hansen, brother of football pundit Alan Hansen, mathematics author Matt Parker, chess grandmaster and author Simon Williams, and sociologist Sara Arber. Architect Elspeth Beard, who lives in the renovated town water tower, was the first English woman to motorcycle around the world.
Paul Merrett, a chef who has appeared several times on British TV, was a pupil at Rodborough.
Jean-Jacques Burnel, bass player of The Stranglers, grew up in Godalming.